He waited for an hour and a half, during which time he ate a good lunch but saw no sign of Jennie.

It was nearly two o’clock when I arrived at Pleasant’s with a man in tow whom Poirot at first took to be Henry Negus, Richard’s brother. There was some confusion as I explained that I had left Constable Stanley Beer to wait for Negus and bring him along when he arrived, and that I had done so because the only person I could think about at the moment was the man standing beside me.

I introduced him—Mr. Samuel Kidd, a boilermaker—and watched with amusement as Poirot recoiled from the dirt-marked shirt with the missing button, and the partly unshaven face. Mr. Kidd had nothing as ordinary as a beard or a mustache, but he plainly had trouble using a razor. The evidence suggested that he had started to shave, cut himself badly, and abandoned the enterprise. As a consequence, one side of his face was smooth and hairless but wounded, while the other was injury free and covered with dark bristles. Which side looked worse was not an easy question to settle. “Mr. Kidd has a very interesting story to tell us,” I said. “I was standing outside the Bloxham waiting for Henry Negus, when—”

“Ah!” Poirot interrupted me. “You and Mr. Kidd have come now from the Bloxham Hotel?”

“Yes.” Where did he think I had come from? Timbuktu?

“How did you travel?”

“Lazzari let me have one of the hotel’s cars.”

“How long did the journey take?”

“Thirty minutes on the nose.”

“How were the roads? Were there many cars?”

“No. Hardly anyone about, as a matter of fact.”

“Do you think that in different conditions you could have made the journey in less time?” Poirot asked.

“Not unless I grew wings. Thirty minutes is jolly good going, I’d say.”

“Bon. Mr. Kidd, please sit down and tell Poirot your very interesting story.”

To my astonishment, instead of sitting, Samuel Kidd laughed and repeated the very words Poirot had spoken in an exaggerated French accent, or Belgian accent, or however it is that Poirot speaks: “Meester Keedd, please sit down and tell Poirr-oh your very interesting storrie.”

Poirot looked affronted to have his voice mocked. I felt a pang of sympathy for him, until he said, “Mr. Kidd pronounces my name better than you do, Catchpool.”

“Meester Keedd,” the disheveled man said with a guffaw. “Oh, don’t mind me, sir. I’m only entertaining meself. Meester Keedd!”

“We are not here to entertain ourselves,” I told him, tired of his antics already. “Please repeat what you told me outside the hotel.”