‘Wonder if we’ll have a general election over this Palestine business?’

‘Whole thing’s been badly mismanaged,’ declared the General just as Douglas Gold reappeared followed by a waiter with the drinks.

The General had just begun on an anecdote of his military career in India in the year 1905. The two Englishmen were listening politely, if without great interest. Hercule Poirot was sipping his sirop de cassis.

The General reached the point of his narrative and there was dutiful laughter all round.

Then the women appeared at the doorway of the lounge. They all four seemed in the best of spirits and were talking and laughing.

‘Tony, darling, it was too divine,’ cried Valentine as she dropped into a chair by his side. ‘The most marvellous idea of Mrs Gold’s. You all ought to have come!’

Her husband said:

‘What about a drink?’

He looked inquiringly at the others.

‘Pink gin for me, darling,’ said Valentine.

‘Gin and gingerbeer,’ said Pamela.

‘Sidecar,’ said Sarah.

‘Right.’ Chantry stood up. He pushed his own untouched pink gin over to his wife. ‘You have this. I’ll order another for myself. What’s yours, Mrs Gold?’

Mrs Gold was being helped out of her coat by her husband. She turned smiling:

‘Can I have an orangeade, please?’

‘Right you are. Orangeade.’

He went towards the door. Mrs Gold smiled up in her husband’s face.

‘It was so lovely, Douglas. I wish you had come.’

‘I wish I had too. We’ll go another night, shall we?’ They smiled at each other.

Valentine Chantry picked up the pink gin and drained it.

‘Oo! I needed that,’ she sighed.

Douglas Gold took Marjorie’s coat and laid it on a settee.

As he strolled back to the others he said sharply:

‘Hallo, what’s the matter?’

Valentine Chantry was leaning back in her chair. Her lips were blue and her hand had gone to her heart.

‘I feel—rather queer…’

She gasped, fighting for breath.

Chantry came back into the room. He quickened his step.

‘Hallo, Val, what’s the matter?’

‘I—I don’t know…That drink—it tasted queer…’

‘The pink gin?’

Chantry swung round his face worked. He caught Douglas Gold by the shoulder.

‘That was my drink…Gold, what the hell did you put in it?’

Douglas Gold was staring at the convulsed face of the woman in the chair. He had gone dead white.

‘I—I—never—’

Valentine Chantry slipped down in her chair.

General Barnes cried out:

‘Get a doctor—quick…’

Five minutes later Valentine Chantry died…

Chapter 6

There was no bathing the next morning.

Pamela Lyall, white-faced, clad in a simple dark dress, clutched at Hercule Poirot in the hall and drew him into the little writing-room.

‘It’s horrible!’ she said. ‘Horrible! You said so! You foresaw it! Murder!’

He bent his head gravely.

‘Oh!’ she cried out. She stamped her foot on the floor. ‘You should have stopped it! Somehow! It could have been stopped!’

‘How?’ asked Hercule Poirot.

That brought her up short for the moment.

‘Couldn’t you go to someone—to the police—?’