“Forgive me, but I’d like to check I’ve got this right,” I said, wishing he would stick to the point. “Are you saying that Harriet Sippel lost her husband at a young age, and that being widowed was what made her become . . . what?”

To my horror, the old man started to cry. “Why did she have to come here? She could have had a husband, children, a home of her own, a happy life.”

“Who could have had those things?” I asked rather desperately. “Harriet Sippel?”

“If she hadn’t told an unforgivable lie . . . That was what started all the trouble.” As if an invisible participant in the conversation had suddenly asked him another question, the old man frowned and said, “No, no. Harriet Sippel had a husband. George. He died. Young. A terrible illness. He wasn’t much older than the kid, the ne’er-do-well that was sitting before where you’re sitting now. Stoakley.”

“The ne’er-do-well’s name is Stoakley, is it?”

“No, my good fellow. My name is Stoakley. Walter Stoakley. I don’t know his name.” The old gnome combed his fingers through his beard, then said, “She devoted her life to him. Oh, I know why, I’ve always understood why. He was a substantial man, whatever his sins. She sacrificed everything for him.”

“For . . . the young man who was here just now?” No, that seemed unlikely; the ne’er-do-well had not looked substantial.

It was lucky that Poirot wasn’t party to this conversation, I thought. Walter Stoakley’s disorganized ramblings would have given him a seizure.

“No, no. He’s only twenty, you know.”

“Yes, you told me a few moments ago.”

“No point devoting your life to a wastrel who spends his days drinking.”

“I agree, but—”

“She couldn’t marry some kid, not once she’d fallen in love with a man of substance. So she left him behind.”

I had an idea, inspired by what the waiter Rafal Bobak had said in the dining room of the Bloxham Hotel. “Is she many years older than him?” I asked.

“Who?” Stoakley looked puzzled.

“The woman you’re talking about. How old is she?”

“A good ten years older than you. Forty-two, forty-three at an estimate.”

“I see.” I couldn’t help being impressed that he had guessed my age accurately. If he was able to do that, I reasoned, then surely I would eventually manage to draw some coherent sense from him.

Back into the discursive chaos I went: “So the woman you’re talking about is older than the ne’er-do-well who was sitting here in this chair a few minutes ago?”

Stoakley frowned. “Why, my good fellow, she’s more than twenty years older than him! You policemen ask peculiar questions.”