Major Porter looked round rather wistfully for confirmation of this assertion. He met two bored and fishy stares, the half-averted gaze of young Mr Mellon and the polite attention of M. Hercule Poirot.

Then the newspaper rustled and a greyhaired man with a singularly impassive face rose quietly from his arm-chair by the fire and went out.

Major Porter's jaw dropped, and young Mr Mellon gave a faint whistle.

"Now you've done it!" he remarked. "Know who that was?"

"God bless my soul," said Major Porter in some agitation. "Of course. I don't know him intimately but we are acquainted... Jeremy Cloade, isn't it, Gordon Cloade's brother? Upon my word, how extremely unfortunate! If I'd had any idea -"

"He's a solicitor," said young Mr Mellon. "Bet he sues you for slander or defamation of character or something."

For young Mr Mellon enjoyed creating alarm and despondency in such places as it was not forbidden by the Defence of the Realm Act.

Major Porter continued to repeat in an agitated manner:

"Most unfortunate. Most unfortunate!"

"It will be all over Warmsley Heath by this evening," said Mr Mellon.

"That's where all the Cloades hang out. They'll sit up late discussing what action to take."

But at that moment the All Clear sounded, and young Mr Mellon stopped being malicious, and tenderly piloted his friend Hercule Poirot out into the street.

"Terrible atmosphere, these clubs," he said. "The most crashing collection of old bores. Porter's easily the worst, though. His description of the Indian rope trick takes three quarters of an hour, and he knows everybody whose mother ever passed through Poona!"

This was in the Autumn of 1944. It was in late Spring, 1946, that Hercule Poirot received a visit.

II

Hercule Poirot was sitting at his neat writing-desk on a pleasant May morning when his manservant George approached him and murmured

deferentially:

"There is a lady, sir, asking to see you."

"What kind of a lady?" Poirot asked cautiously.

He always enjoyed the meticulous accuracy of George's descriptions.

"She would be aged between forty and fifty, I should say, sir. Untidy and somewhat artistic in appearance. Good walking-shoes, brogues. A tweed coat and skirt - but a lace blouse. Some questionable Egyptian beads and a blue chiffon scarf."

Poirot shuddered slightly.

"I do not think," he said, "that I wish to see her."

"Shall I tell her, sir, that you are indisposed?"

Poirot looked at him thoughtfully.

"You have already, I gather, told her that I am engaged on important business and cannot be disturbed?"

George coughed again.

"She said, sir, that she had come up from the country specially, and did not mind how long she waited."

Poirot sighed.

"One should never struggle against the inevitable," he said. "If a middle-aged lady wearing sham Egyptian beads has made up her mind to see the famous Hercule Poirot, and has come up from the country to do so, nothing will deflect her. She will sit there in the hall till she gets her way. Show her in, George."