“Oh, no. There’s not a hair on his face apart from his eyebrows. Not as much skin on his face as there should be either! I wish you’d teach him how to shave without causing himself lacerations, Mr. Poirot. Oh, I’m sorry.” Blanche clapped her hands over her mouth. “You did say he was no relation, didn’t you. I still have him down in my head as Belgian. He sounded exactly like you, the way he spoke. I thought he might be a younger brother. About forty, isn’t he?”

Affronted that anyone might take raggedy Samuel Kidd to be his kin, Poirot cut short his exchange with Blanche Unsworth somewhat abruptly, and proceeded to the drawing room.

Inside it, he found what he had been told he would find: a man—the same man he had met at Pleasant’s the previous Friday—who had removed all his facial hair and cut himself extensively in the process.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Poirr-oh.” Samuel Kidd rose to his feet. “I bet I fooled her, didn’t I, her what let me in? Did she think I was a native of your country?”

“Good afternoon, Mr. Kidd. I see that you have suffered much misfortune since the last time we met.”

“Misfortune?”

“The injuries to your face.”

“Ah, you’re right there, sir. Truth is, I don’t like thinking about a sharp blade so close to me eyes. I think about it cutting clean through the eyeball, and it gives me a shaky hand. I’m funny about eyes. I’ve tried telling meself to think about something different, but it don’t work. Always end up sliced to ribbons, I do.”

“So I see. May I ask: how did you know that you would find me at this address?”

“Mr. Lazzari at the hotel said that Constable Stanley Beer said that Mr. Catchpool lived here and you did too, sir. I’m sorry about disturbing you at home, but I’ve got good news for you and I thought you’d want to know it straight away.”

“What is the news?”

“The lady that dropped the two keys, the one I saw running from the hotel after the murders . . . I’ve remembered who she is! It came to me when I looked at a newspaper this morning. I don’t often look at a newspaper.”

“Who is the woman you saw, monsieur? You are right. Poirot, he would like to know her name straight away.”