“Will you fetch madame your wife, and answer a few questions?”

Baker departed, and in a few moments returned with Mrs. Baker, wiping her hands on her apron and beaming all over her face.

In a few clear words Poirot set forth the object of his mission. The Bakers were immediately sympathetic.

“Us don’t want to see Miss Violet done out of what’s hers,” declared the woman. “Cruel hard ‘twould be for hospitals to get it all.”

Poirot proceeded with his questions. Yes, Mr. and Mrs. Baker remembered perfectly witnessing the will. Baker had previously been sent into the neighbouring town to get two printed will-farms.

“Two?” said Poirot sharply.

“Yes, sir, for safety like, I suppose, in case he should spoil one — and sure enough, so he did do. Us had signed one —”

“What time of day was that?”

Baker scratched his head, but his wife was quicker.

“Why, to be sure, I’d just put the milk on for the cocoa at eleven. Don’t ee remember? It had all boiled over on the stove when us got back to kitchen.”

“And afterwards?”

“Twould be about an hour later. Us had to go in again. ‘I’ve made a mistake,’ says old master, ‘had to tear the whole thing up. I’ll trouble you to sign again,’ and us did. And afterwards master give us a tidy sum of money each. ‘I’ve left you nothing in my will,’ says he, ‘but each year I live you’ll have this to be a nest-egg when I’m gone’; and sure enough, so he did.”

Poirot reflected.

“After you had signed the second time, what did Mr. Marsh do? Do you know?”

“Went out to the village to pay tradesmen’s books.”

That did not seem very promising. Poirot tried another tack. He held out the key of the desk.

“Is that your master’s writing?”

I may have imagined it, but I fancied that a moment or two elapsed before Baker replied: “Yes, sir, it is,”

“He’s lying,” I thought. “But why?”

“Has your master let the house? — have there been any strangers in it during the last three years?”

“No, sir.”

“No visitors?”

“Only Miss Violet.”

“No strangers of any kind been inside this room?”

“No, sir.”

“You forget the workmen, Jim,” his wife reminded him.

“Workmen?” Poirot wheeled round on her. “What workmen?”

The woman explained that about two years and a half ago workmen had been in the house to do certain repairs. She was quite vague as to what the repairs were. Her view seemed to be that the whole thing was a fad of her master’s and quite unnecessary. Part of the time the workmen had been in the study, but what they had done there she could not say, as her master had not let either of them into the room whilst the work was in progress. Unfortunately, they could not remember the name of the firm employed, beyond the fact that it was a Plymouth one.

“We progress, Hastings,” said Poirot, rubbing his hands as the Bakers left the room. “Clearly he made a second will and then had workmen from Plymouth in to make a suitable hiding-place. Instead of wasting time taking up the floor and tapping the walls, we will go to Plymouth.”