hand in marriage? They say, do they not, a courting couple?'
'Your friends seem to say some very funny things.'
Hercule Poirot chanted softly:
'Thirteen, fourteen, maids are courting. See, all around us they are doing it.'
Jane said sharply:
'Yes – I'm just one of a crowd, I suppose.'
She turned suddenly to Poirot.
'I want to apologize to you. I made a mistake the other day. I thought you had wormed your way in and come down to Exsham just to spy on Howard. But afterwards Uncle Alistair told me that he had definitely asked you because he wanted you to clear up this business of that missing woman – Sainsbury Seale. That's right, isn't it?'
'Absolutely.'
'So I'm sorry for what I said to you that evening. But it did look like it, you know. I mean, as though you were just following Howard and spying on us both.'
'Even if it were true, Mademoiselle – I was an excellent witness to the fact that Mr. Raikes bravely saved your uncle's life by springing on his assailant and preventing him from firing another shot.'
'You've got a funny way of saying things, M. Poirot. I never know whether you're serious or not.'
Poirot said gravely:
'At the moment I am very serious, Miss Olivera.'
Jane said with a slight break in her voice:
'Why do you look at me like that? As though – as though you were sorry for me?'
'Perhaps because I am sorry, Mademoiselle, for the things that I shall have to do so soon -'
'Well, then – don't do them!'
'Alas, Mademoiselle, but I must.'
She stared at him for a minute or two, then she said:
'Have you found that woman?'
Poirot said:
'Let us say – that I know where she is.'
'Is she dead?'
'I have not said so.'
'She's alive, then?'
'I have not said that either.'
Jane looked at him with irritation. She exclaimed:
'Well, she's got to be one or the other, hasn't she?'
'Actually, it is not quite so simple.'
'I believe you just like making things difficult!'
'It has been said of me,' admitted Hercule Poirot.
Jane shivered. She said:
'Isn't it funny? It's a lovely warm day – and yet I suddenly feel cold…'
'Perhaps you had better walk on, Mademoiselle.'
Jane rose to her feet. She stood a minute irresolute.
She said abruptly:
'Howard wants me to marry him. At once. Without letting anyone know. He says – he says it's the only way I'll ever do it – that I'm weak -'
She broke off, then with one hand she gripped Poirot's arm with surprising strength.
'What shall I do about it, M. Poirot?'
'Why ask me to advise you? There are those who are nearer!'
'Mother? She'd scream the house down at the bare idea! Uncle Alistair? He'd be cautious and prosy. 'Plenty of time, my dear. Got to make quite sure, you know. Bit of an odd fish – this young man of yours. No sense in rushing things -''
'Your friends?' suggested Poirot.
'I haven't got any friends. Only a silly crowd I drink and dance and talk inane catchwords with! Howard's the only real person I've ever come up against.'
'Still – why ask me, Miss Olivera?'
Jane said:
'Because you've got a queer look on your face – as though you were sorry about something – as though you knew something that – that – was – coming -'
She stopped.
'Well?' she demanded. 'What do you say?'
Hercule Poirot slowly shook his head.
IV
When Poirot reached home, George said: 'Chief Inspector Japp is here, sir.'
Japp grinned in a rueful way as Poirot came into the room.
'Here I am, old boy. Come round to say aren't you a marvel? How do you do it? What makes you think of these things?'
'All this meaning -? But pardon, you will have some refreshment? Wine? Or perhaps the whisky?'
'The whisky is good enough for me.'
A few minutes later he raised his glass, observing:
'Here's to Hercule Poirot who is always right!'
'No, no, mon ami.'
'Here we had a lovely case of suicide. H. P. says it's murder – wants it to be murder – and dash it all, it's murder!'
'Ah? So you agree at last?'
'Well, nobody can say I'm pig-headed. I don't fly in the face of evidence. The trouble was there wasn't any evidence before.'
'But there is now?'
'Yes, and I've come round to make the amende honorable, as you call it, and present the tidbit to you on toast, as it were.'
'I am all agog, my good Japp.'
'All right. Here goes. The pistol that Frank Carter tried to shoot Blunt with on Saturday is a twin pistol to the one that killed Morley!'
Poirot stared:
'But that is extraordinary!'
'Yes, it makes it look rather black for Master Frank.'
'It is not conclusive.'
'No, but it's enough to make us reconsider the suicide verdict. They're a foreign make of pistol and rather uncommon at that!'
Hercule Poirot stared. His eyebrows looked like crescent moons. He said at last:
'Frank Carter? No – surely not!'
Japp breathed a sigh of exasperation.
'What's the matter with you, Poirot? First you will have it that Morley was murdered and that it wasn't suicide. Then when I come and tell you we're inclined to come round to your view you hem and haw and don't seem to like it.'
'You really believe that Morley was murdered by Frank Carter?'
'It fits. Carter had got a grudge against Morley – that we knew all along. He came to Queen Charlotte Street
