Poirot nodded thoughtfully.

Riddle glanced at him, then he said:

‘Well, Snell, I think that is all we want to ask you. You are quite sure that there is nothing else you can tell us—no unusual incident, for instance, that has happened in the last few days?’

The butler, rising to his feet, shook his head.

‘There is nothing, sir, nothing whatever.’

‘Then you can go.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

Moving towards the doorway, Snell drew back and stood aside. Lady Chevenix-Gore floated into the room.

She was wearing an oriental-looking garment of purple and orange silk wound tightly round her body. Her face was serene and her manner collected and calm.

‘Lady Chevenix-Gore.’ Major Riddle sprang to his feet.

She said:

‘They told me you would like to talk to me, so I came.’

‘Shall we go into another room? This must be painful for you in the extreme.’

Lady Chevenix-Gore shook her head and sat down on one of the Chippendale chairs. She murmured:

‘Oh, no, what does it matter?’

‘It is very good of you, Lady Chevenix-Gore, to put your feelings aside. I know what a frightful shock this must have been and—’

She interrupted him.

‘It was rather a shock at first,’ she admitted. Her tone was easy and conversational. ‘But there is no such thing as Death, really, you know, only Change.’ She added: ‘As a matter of fact, Gervase is standing just behind your left shoulder now. I can see him distinctly.’

Major Riddle’s left shoulder twitched slightly. He looked at Lady Chevenix-Gore rather doubtfully.

She smiled at him, a vague, happy smile.

‘You don’t believe, of course! So few people will. To me, the spirit world is quite as real as this one. But please ask me anything you like, and don’t worry about distressing me. I’m not in the least distressed. Everything, you see, is Fate. One cannot escape one’s Karma. It all fits in—the mirror—everything.’

‘The mirror, madame?’ asked Poirot.

She nodded her head towards it vaguely.

‘Yes. It’s splintered, you see. A symbol! You know Tennyson’s poem? I used to read it as a girl—though, of course, I didn’t realise then the esoteric side of it. “The mirror cracked from side to side. ‘The curse is come upon me!’ cried the Lady of Shalott.” That’s what happened to Gervase. The Curse came upon him suddenly. I think, you know, most very old families have a curse…the mirror cracked. He knew that he was doomed! The Curse had come!’

‘But, madame, it was not a curse that cracked the mirror—it was a bullet!’

Lady Chevenix-Gore said, still in the same sweet vague manner:

‘It’s all the same thing, really…It was Fate.’

‘But your husband shot himself.’

Lady Chevenix-Gore smiled indulgently.

‘He shouldn’t have done that, of course. But Gervase was always impatient. He could never wait. His hour had come—he went forward to meet it. It’s all so simple, really.’

Major Riddle, clearing his throat in exasperation, said sharply:

‘Then you weren’t surprised at your husband’s taking his own life? Had you been expecting such a thing to happen?’