Poirot nodded his head slowly and thoughtfully.

‘Yes, I imagined that. I have had, you see, a letter from him. It was an unusual letter. It did not demand. It summoned!’

‘A royal command,’ said Mr Satterthwaite, tittering a little.

‘Precisely. It did not seem to occur to this Sir Gervase that I, Hercule Poirot, am a man of importance, a man of infinite affairs! That it was extremely unlikely that I should be able to fling everything aside and come hastening like an obedient dog—like a mere nobody, gratified to receive a commission!’

Mr Satterthwaite bit his lip in an effort to suppress a smile. It may have occurred to him that where egoism was concerned, there was not much to choose between Hercule Poirot and Gervase Chevenix-Gore.

He murmured:

‘Of course, if the cause of the summons was urgent—?’

‘It was not!’ Poirot’s hands rose in the air in an emphatic gesture. ‘I was to hold myself at his disposition, that was all, in case he should require me! Enfin, je vous demande!’

Again the hands rose eloquently, expressing better than words could do M. Hercule Poirot’s sense of utter outrage.

‘I take it,’ said Mr Satterthwaite, ‘that you refused?’

‘I have not yet had the opportunity,’ said Poirot slowly.

‘But you will refuse?’

A new expression passed over the little man’s face. His brow furrowed itself perplexedly.

He said:

‘How can I express myself? To refuse—yes, that was my first instinct. But I do not know…One has, sometimes, a feeling. Faintly, I seem to smell the fish…’

Mr Satterthwaite received this last statement without any sign of amusement.

‘Oh?’ he said. ‘That is interesting…’

‘It seems to me,’ went on Hercule Poirot, ‘that a man such as you have described might be very vulnerable—’

‘Vulnerable?’ queried Mr Satterthwaite. For the moment he was surprised. The word was not one that he would naturally have associated with Gervase Chevenix-Gore. But he was a man of perception, quick in observation. He said slowly:

‘I think I see what you mean.’

‘Such a one is encased, is he not, in an armour—such an armour! The armour of the crusaders was nothing to it—an armour of arrogance, of pride, of complete self-esteem. This armour, it is in some ways a protection, the arrows, the everyday arrows of life glance off it. But there is this danger; Sometimes a man in armour might not even know he was being attacked. He will be slow to see, slow to hear—slower still to feel.’

He paused, then asked with a change of manner:

‘Of what does the family of this Sir Gervase consist?’

‘There’s Vanda—his wife. She was an Arbuthnot— very handsomegirl. She’s still quite a handsome woman. Frightfully vague, though. Devoted to Gervase. She’s got a leaning towards the occult, I believe. Wears amulets and scarabs and gives out that she’s the reincarnation of an Egyptian Queen…Then there’s Ruth—she’s their adopted daughter. They’ve no children of their own. Very attractive girl in the modern style. That’s all the family. Except, of course, for Hugo Trent. He’s Gervase’s nephew. Pamela Chevenix-Gore married Reggie Trent and Hugo was their only child. He’s an orphan. He can’t inherit the title, of course, but I imagine he’ll come in for most of Gervase’s money in the end. Good-looking lad, he’s in the Blues.’