“I’m well and truly stumped! From several angles, it looks as if Nancy Ducane must be our killer, but she has an alibi from Lady Louisa Wallace. So. Who else might want to kill Harriet Sippel, Ida Gransbury, Richard Negus and now Jennie Hobbs too?” I stamped up and down the drawing room, angry with myself because I couldn’t see a way out of the bind. “And—though I still think you’re crazy to suspect them—if the murderer is Henry Negus, or Rafal Bobak, or Thomas Brignell, what could the motive have been? What connection do any of those people have to the tragic events in Great Holling sixteen years ago?”

“Henry Negus has the oldest and most common motive in the world: money. He told us, did he not, that his brother Richard had been squandering his wealth? He told us, also, that his wife would on no account banish Richard from her home. If Richard Negus dies, Henry Negus does not have to pay for his upkeep. If Richard does not die, he might end up costing his brother a small fortune.”

“And Harriet Sippel and Ida Gransbury? Jennie Hobbs? Why would Henry Negus kill them too?”

“I do not know, though I could speculate,” said Poirot. “As for Rafal Bobak and Thomas Brignell—I can think of no possible motive for either man, unless one of them is not who he purports to be.”

“I suppose we could do a bit of digging around,” I said.

“While we are compiling a list of possible suspects, what about Margaret Ernst and Dr. Ambrose Flowerday?” Poirot suggested. “They were not in love with Patrick Ive, but they might nevertheless have been motivated by the desire to avenge him. Margaret Ernst was, by her own account, sitting in her house alone on the night of the murders. And we do not know where Dr. Flowerday was because you promised you would not seek him out and—alas!—you kept your promise. Poirot will have to go to Great Holling himself.”

“I did say that you ought to come with me,” I reminded him. “But I suppose if you had, you wouldn’t have been able to talk to Nancy Ducane and Rafal Bobak and the others. Incidentally, this younger man and older woman that Bobak overheard Harriet, Ida and Richard Negus talking about, assuming we believe his account—I’ve been pondering, and I’ve even made a list of all the romantically linked couples I can think of.” I produced the list from my pocket. (I will admit that I was hoping to impress Poirot, but either he wasn’t impressed or else he hid it well.)