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‘Evening, Johnson,’ he said. ‘Bit of a shambles, eh?’

‘I should say it was. Got anything for us, doctor?’

The doctor shrugged his shoulders. He grinned.

‘I’ll let you have the scientific language at the inquest! Nothing complicated about it. Throat cut like a pig. He bled to death in less than a minute. No sign of the weapon.’

Poirot went across the room to the windows. As the superintendent had said, one was shut and bolted. The other was open about four inches at the bottom. A thick patent screw of the kind known many years ago as an anti-burglar screw secured it in that position.

Sugden said: ‘According to the butler, that window was never shut wet or fine. There’s a linoleum mat underneath it in case rain beat in, but it didn’t much, as the overhanging roof protects it.’

Poirot nodded.

He came back to the body and stared down at the old man.

The lips were drawn back from the bloodless gums in something that looked like a snarl. The fingers were curved like claws.

Poirot said:

‘He does not seem a strong man, no.’

The doctor said:

‘He was pretty tough, I believe. He’d survived several pretty bad illnesses that would have killed most men.’

Poirot said: ‘I do not mean that. I mean, he was not big, not strong physically.’

‘No, he’s frail enough.’

Poirot turned from the dead man. He bent to examine an overturned chair, a big chair of mahogany. Beside it was a round mahogany table and the fragments of a big china lamp. Two other smaller chairs lay nearby, also the smashed fragments of a decanter and two glasses, a heavy glass paperweight was unbroken, some miscellaneous books, a big Japanese vase smashed in pieces, and a bronze statuette of a naked girl completed the débris.

Poirot bent over all these exhibits, studying them gravely, but without touching them. He frowned to himself as though perplexed.

The chief constable said:

‘Anything strike you, Poirot?’

Hercule Poirot sighed. He murmured:

‘Such a frail shrunken old man—and yet—all this.’

Johnson looked puzzled. He turned away and said to the sergeant, who was busy at his work:

‘What about prints?’

‘Plenty of them, sir, all over the room.’

‘What about the safe?’

‘No good. Only prints on that are those of the old gentleman himself.’

Johnson turned to the doctor.

‘What about bloodstains?’ he asked. ‘Surely whoever killed him must have got blood on him.’

The doctor said doubtfully:

‘Not necessarily. Bleeding was almost entirely from the jugular vein. That wouldn’t spout like an artery.’

‘No, no. Still, there seems a lot of blood about.’

Poirot said:

‘Yes, there is a lot of blood—it strikes one, that. A lot of blood.’

Superintendent Sugden said respectfully:

‘Do you—er—does that suggest anything to you, Mr Poirot?’

Poirot looked about him. He shook his head perplexedly.

He said:

‘There is something here—some violence…’ He stopped a minute, then went on: ‘Yes, that is it—violence…And blood—an insistence on blood…There is—how shall I put it?—there is too much blood. Blood on the chairs, on the tables, on the carpet…The blood ritual? Sacrificial blood? Is that it? Perhaps. Such a frail old man, so thin, so shrivelled, so dried up—and yet—in his death—so much blood…’

His voice died away. Superintendent Sugden, staring at him with round, startled eyes, said in an awed voice:

‘Funny—that’s what she said—the lady…’

Poirot said sharply:

‘What lady? What was it she said?’

Sugden answered: ‘Mrs Lee—Mrs Alfred. Stood over there by the door and half whispered it. It didn’t make sense to me.’

‘What did she say?’

‘Something about who would have thought the old gentleman had so much blood in him…’

Poirot said softly:

‘ “Who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?” The words of Lady Macbeth. She said that…Ah, that is interesting…’

VIII

Alfred Lee and his wife came into the small study where Poirot, Sugden and the chief constable were standing waiting. Colonel Johnson came forward.

‘How do