“You have faith in their minds, yes? Perhaps these are the hundred people you call upon when we disagree? Bien, if we were to ask these hundred people . . .” Poirot turned back to the crowd. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have heard that Richard Negus, Harriet Sippel and Ida Gransbury were friends, and that their food was delivered to Room 317 at fifteen minutes past seven. Yet at half past seven, Mr. Brignell saw Richard Negus on this floor of the hotel, walking toward the lift. Mr. Negus must have been returning, n’est-ce pas, either to his own room, 238, or to Room 317 to join his two friends? But returning from where? His sandwiches and cakes were delivered only fifteen minutes earlier! Did he abandon them immediately and set off somewhere? Or did he eat his share of the food in only three or four minutes before rushing off? And to where did he rush? What was the important errand for which he left Room 317? Was it to ensure that the food should not end up on the bill of Harriet Sippel or Ida Gransbury? He could not wait twenty or thirty minutes, or an hour, before setting off to attend to this matter?”

A sturdily built woman with curly brown hair and severe eyebrows sprang to her feet at the back of the room. “You keep asking all these questions as if I might know the answer, as if we all might know the answers, and we don’t know nothing!” Her eyes darted around the room as she spoke, settling on one person after another, though her words were addressed to Poirot. “I want to go home, Mr. Lazzari,” she wailed. “I want to look in on my kiddies and see that they’re safe!”

A younger woman sitting beside her put a hand on her arm and tried to calm her. “Sit down, Tessie,” she said. “The gentleman’s only trying to help. Your bairns won’t have come to any harm, not if they’ve been nowhere near the Bloxham.”

At this remark, intended as a comfort, both Luca Lazzari and Sturdy Tessie made anguished noises.

“We won’t keep you much longer, madam,” I said. “And I’m sure Mr. Lazzari will allow you to pay a visit to your children afterward, if that is what you feel you need to do.”

Lazzari indicated that this would be permissible, and Tessie sat down, slightly mollified.