"Doctors, like every one else, are victims of the preconceived idea. Here's a man, obviously murdered, lying with a bloodstained pair of fire-tongs beside him. It would be nonsense to say he was hit with anything else, and yet, speaking out of complete inexperience of people with their heads smashed in, I'd have suspected something rather different - something not so smooth and round - something - oh, I don't know, something with a more cutting edge - a brick, something like that."

"You did not say so at the inquest?"

"No - because I don't really know. Jenkins, the police surgeon, was satisfied, and he's the fellow who counts. But there's the preconceived idea - weapon lying beside the body. Could the wound have been inflicted with that? Yes, it could. But if you were shown the wound and asked what made it - well, I don't know whether you'd say it, because it really doesn't make sense - I mean if you had two fellows, one hitting him with a brick and one with the tongs -"

The doctor stopped, shook his head in a dissatisfied way.

"Doesn't make sense, does it?" he said to Poirot.

"Could he have fallen on some sharp object?"

Dr Cloade shook his head.

"He was lying face down in the middle of the floor - on a good thick old- fashioned Axminster carpet."

He broke off as his wife entered the room.

"Here's Kathie with the cat-lap." he remarked.

Aunt Kathie was balancing a tray covered with crockery, half a loaf of bread and some depressing-looking jam in the bottom of a 2-lb. pot.

"I think the kettle was boiling," she remarked doubtfully as she raised the lid of the teapot and peered inside.

Dr Cloade snorted again and muttered: "Cat-lap," with which explosive word he left the room.

"Poor Lionel, his nerves are in a terrible state since the war. He worked much too hard. So many doctors away. He gave himself no rest. Out morning, noon, and night. I wonder he didn't break down completely. Of course he looked forward to retiring as soon as peace came. That was all fixed up with Gordon. His hobby, you know, is botany with special reference to medicinal herbs in the Middle Ages. He's writing a book on it. He was looking forward to a quiet life and doing the necessary research. But then, when Gordon died like that - well, you know what things are, M. Poirot, nowadays. Taxation and everything. He can't afford to retire and it's made him very bitter. And really it does seem unfair. Gordon's dying like that, without a will - well, it really quite shook my faith. I mean, I really couldn't see the purpose in that. It seemed, I couldn't help feeling, a mistake."

She sighed, then cheered up a little.