Mrs Farley broke the silence.

‘I don’t understand, M. Poirot.’ Her voice was fretful. ‘The dream—’

‘Yes,’ said Poirot. ‘That dream was very important.’

Mrs Farley shivered. She said:

‘I’ve never believed in anything supernatural before—but now—to dream it night after night beforehand—’

‘It’s extraordinary,’ said Stillingfleet. ‘Extraordinary! If we hadn’t got your word for it, Poirot, and if you hadn’t had it straight from the horse’s mouth—’ he coughed in embarrassment, and readopting his professional manner, ‘I beg your pardon, Mrs Farley. If Mr Farley himself had not told that story—’

‘Exactly,’ said Poirot. His eyes, which had been half-closed, opened suddenly. They were very green. ‘If Benedict Farley hadn’t told me—’

He paused a minute, looking round at a circle of blank faces.

‘There are certain things, you comprehend, that happened that evening which I was quite at a loss to explain. First, why make such a point of my bringing that letter with me?’

‘Identification,’ suggested Cornworthy.

‘No, no, my dear young man. Really that idea is too ridiculous. There must be some much more valid reason. For not only did Mr Farley require to see that letter produced, but he definitely demanded that I should leave it behind me. And moreover even then he did not destroy it! It was found among his papers this afternoon. Why did he keep it?’

Joanna Farley’s voice broke in. ‘He wanted, in case anything happened to him, that the facts of his strange dream should be made known.’

Poirot nodded approvingly.

‘You are astute, Mademoiselle. That must be—that can only be—the point of the keeping of the letter. When Mr Farley was dead, the story of that strange dream was to be told! That dream was very important. That dream, Mademoiselle, was vital!

‘I will come now,’ he went on, ‘to the second point. After hearing his story I ask Mr Farley to show me the desk and the revolver. He seems about to get up to do so, then suddenly refuses. Why did he refuse?’

This time no one advanced an answer.

‘I will put that question differently. What was there in that next room that Mr Farley did not want me to see?’

There was still silence.

‘Yes,’ said Poirot, ‘it is difficult, that. And yet there was some reason—some urgent reason why Mr Farley received me in his secretary’s room and refused point blank to take me into his own room. There was something in that room he could not afford to have me see.

‘And now I come to the third inexplicable thing that happened on that evening. Mr Farley, just as I was leaving, requested me to hand him the letter I had received. By inadvertence I handed him a communication from my laundress. He glanced at it and laid it down beside him. Just before I left the room I discovered my error—and rectified it! After that I left the house and—I admit it—I was completely at sea! The whole affair and especially that last incident seemed to me quite inexplicable.’