Margaret Ernst appeared in the kitchen. “Oh, I was looking for that,” she said with a smile, bending to retrieve the scarf. “I knew it would be you. I left the door open. In fact, I expected you to arrive five minutes ago, but I suppose nine o’clock on the dot would have looked too eager, wouldn’t it?” She ushered me inside, draping the scarf around her neck.

Something about her teasing—though I knew it was not intended to offend—emboldened me to be more direct than I might otherwise have been. “I am eager to discover the truth, and I don’t mind looking it,” I said. “Who might have wished to murder Harriet Sippel, Ida Gransbury and Richard Negus? I believe you have an idea about that, and I’d like to know it.”

“What are those papers?”

“What? Oh!” I had forgotten I was holding them. “Lists. Guests at the Bloxham Hotel around the time of the murders, and people employed by the Bloxham. I was wondering if you might take a look and let me know if you see a name you recognize—after you’ve answered my question about who might have wanted to murder—”

“Nancy Ducane,” said Margaret. She took the two lists from my hand and studied them, frowning.

I said the very same words to her that Poirot had said to Samuel Kidd the day before, though I did not know then that he had said them. “Nancy Ducane the artist?”

“Wait a moment.” We stood in silence while Margaret read the two lists. “None of these names is familiar to me, I’m afraid.”

“Are you saying that Nancy Ducane—the same Nancy Ducane I’m thinking of, the society portrait painter—had a motive for killing Harriet Sippel, Ida Gransbury and Richard Negus?”

Margaret folded the two pieces of paper, handed them back to me, then beckoned me to follow her into the parlor. Once we were sitting comfortably in the same chairs as on the previous day, she said, “Yes. Nancy Ducane the famous artist. She is the only person I can think of who would have had both the desire to kill Harriet, Ida and Richard and the ability to do it and get away with it. Don’t look so surprised, Mr. Catchpool. Famous people aren’t exempt from evil. Though I must say I can’t believe that Nancy would do such a thing. She was a civilized woman when I knew her, and no one ever changes all that much. She was a brave woman.”

I said nothing. The trouble is, I thought, that some killers are civilized for the most part, and only break from their routine of civility once, to commit murder.