‘It might be, perhaps, a question of money. Your wife left you guardian to her sister. You mentioned that fact tonight. Pauline is twenty. At twenty-one or on her marriage you would have to render an account of your stewardship. I suggest that you could not do that. You have speculated with it. I do not know, Mr Barton Russell, whether you killed your wife in the same way, or whether her suicide suggested the idea of this crime to you, but I do know that tonight you have been guilty of attempted murder. It rests with Miss Pauline whether you are prosecuted for that.’

‘No,’ said Pauline. ‘He can get out of my sight and out of this country. I don’t want a scandal.’

‘You had better go quickly, Mr Barton Russell, and I advise you to be careful in future.’

Barton Russell got up, his face working.

‘To hell with you, you interfering little Belgian jackanapes.’

He strode out angrily.

Pauline sighed.

‘M. Poirot, you’ve been wonderful…’

‘You, Mademoiselle, you have been the marvellous one. To pour away the champagne, to act the dead body so prettily.’

‘Ugh,’ she shivered, ‘you give me the creeps.’

He said gently:

‘It was you who telephoned me, was it not?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. I was worried and–frightened without knowing quite why I was frightened. Barton told me he was having this party to commemorate Iris’ death. I realized he had some scheme on–but he wouldn’t tell me what it was. He looked so–so queer and so excited that I felt something terrible might happen–only, of course, I never dreamed that he meant to–to get rid of me.’

‘And so, Mademoiselle?’

‘I’d heard people talking about you. I thought if I could only get you here perhaps it would stop anything happening. I thought that being a–a foreigner–if I rang up and pretended to be in danger and–and made it sound mysterious–’

‘You thought the melodrama, it would attract me? That is what puzzled me. The message itself–definitely it was what you call “bogus”–it did not ring true. But the fear in the voice–that was real. Then I came–and you denied very categorically having sent me a message.’

‘I had to. Besides, I didn’t want you to know it was me.’

‘Ah, but I was fairly sure of that! Not at first. But I soon realized that the only two people who could know about the yellow irises on the table were you or Mr Barton Russell.’

Pauline nodded.

‘I heard him ordering them to be put on the table,’ she explained. ‘That, and his ordering a table for six when I knew only five were coming, made me suspect–’ She stopped, biting her lip.

‘What did you suspect, Mademoiselle?’

She said slowly:

‘I was afraid–of something happening–to Mr Carter.’