I ought to have done some delaying and considering of my own, but I was eager to see what response I would get if I presented her with a fact I had not told Victor Meakin, and that therefore she couldn’t possibly already know.

“Each of the three victims was found with a gold cufflink in his or her mouth,” I said. “All three cufflinks were monogrammed with Patrick Ive’s initials: PIJ.” I explained, as I had to Poirot, about the surname’s initial being the largest of the three, and in the middle. Unlike my Belgian friend, Margaret Ernst showed no sign of believing civilization to be imperiled by such an arrangement of letters. She also did not appear shocked or surprised by what I had told her, which I found unusual.

“Now do you see why Patrick Ive is of interest to me?” I said.

“Yes.”

“Then will you tell me about him?”

“As I said: perhaps tomorrow. Would you like some more tea, Mr. Catchpool?”

I told her that I would, and she left the room. Alone in the parlor, I ruminated over whether I had left it too late to ask her to call me Edward, and, if not, whether I ought to do so. I pondered this while knowing that I would say nothing, and would allow her to continue with “Mr. Catchpool.” It is among the more pointless of my habits: wondering what I ought to do when there is no doubt about what I am going to do.

When Margaret returned with the tea, I thanked her and asked her if she could tell me about Harriet Sippel, Ida Gransbury and Richard Negus. The transformation was incredible. She made no attempt to dissemble, and, in a most efficient fashion, told me enough about two of the three murder victims to fill several pages. Infuriatingly, the notebook I had brought with me to Great Holling lay in one of my cases in my room at the King’s Head Inn. This would be a test for my memory.