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Poirot frowned to himself.

‘It is interesting, that,’ he murmured to himself.

Magdalene said quickly:

‘Yes, I thought you ought to know about it. After all, we don’t know anything about Pilar’s upbringing and what her life has been like. Alfred is always so suspicious and dear Lydia is so casual.’ Then she murmured: ‘Perhaps I’d better go and see if I can help Lydia in any way. There may be letters to write.’

She left him with a smile of satisfied malice on her lips.

Poirot remained lost in thought on the terrace.

II

To him there came Superintendent Sugden. The police superintendent looked gloomy. He said:

‘Good morning, Mr Poirot. Doesn’t seem quite the right thing to say Merry Christmas, does it?’

‘Mon cher collègue, I certainly do not observe any traces of merriment on your countenance. If you had said Merry Christmas I should not have replied “Many of them!” ’

‘I don’t want another one like this one, and that’s a fact,’ said Sugden.

‘You have made the progress, yes?’

‘I’ve checked up on a good many points. Horbury’s alibi is holding water all right. The commissionaire at the cinema saw him go in with the girl, and saw him come out with her at the end of the performance, and seems pretty positive he didn’t leave, and couldn’t have left and returned during the performance. The girl swears quite definitely he was with her in the cinema all the time.’

Poirot’s eyebrows rose.

‘I hardly see, then, what more there is to say.’

The cynical Sugden said:

‘Well, one never knows with girls! Lie themselves black in the face for the sake of a man.’

‘That does credit to their hearts,’ said Hercule Poirot.

Sugden growled.

‘That’s a foreign way of looking at it. It’s defeating the ends of justice.’

Hercule Poirot said:

‘Justice is a very strange thing. Have you ever reflected on it?’

Sugden stared at him. He said:

‘You’re a queer one, Mr Poirot.’

‘Not at all. I follow a logical train of thought. But we will not enter into a dispute on the question. It is your belief, then, that this demoiselle from the milk shop is not speaking the truth?’

Sugden shook his head.

‘No,’ he said, ‘it’s not like that at all. As a matter of fact, I think she is telling the truth. She’s a simple kind of girl, and I think if she was telling me a pack of lies I’d spot it.’

Poirot said:

‘You have the experience, yes?’

‘That’s just it, Mr Poirot. One does know, more or less, after a lifetime of taking down statements, when a person’s lying and when they’re not. No, I think the girl’s evidence is genuine, and if so, Horbury couldn’t have murdered old Mr Lee, and that brings us right back to the people in the house.’

He drew a deep breath.

‘One of ’em did it, Mr Poirot. One of ’em did it. But which?’

‘You have no new data?’

‘Yes, I’ve had a certain amount of luck over the telephone calls. Mr George Lee put through a call to Westeringham at two minutes to nine. That call lasted under six minutes.’

‘Aha!’

‘As you say! Moreover, no other call was put through—to Westeringham or anywhere else.’

‘Very interesting,’ said Poirot, with approval. ‘M. George Lee says he has just finished telephoning when he hears the noise overhead—but actually he had finished telephoning nearly ten minutes before that. Where was he in those ten minutes? Mrs George Lee says that she was telephoning—but actually she never put through a call at all. Where was she?’

Sugden said:

‘I saw you talking to her, M. Poirot?’

His voice held a question, but Poirot replied:

‘You are in error!’

‘Eh?’

‘I was not talking to her—she was talking to me!’

‘Oh—’ Sugden seemed to be about to brush the distinction aside impatiently; then, as its significance sank in, he said:

‘She was talking to you, you say?’

‘Most definitely. She came out here for that purpose.’

‘What did she have to say?’

‘She wished to stress certain points: the unEnglish character of the crime—the possibly undesirable antecedents of Miss Estravados on the