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Poirot nodded.

‘Did you realize that it was Mr Clayton?’ he asked.

‘I ought to have, sir, but you know, I don’t believe I did. Of course, as soon as I got back with the police officer, I said “Why, it’s Mr Clayton!” And he says “Who’s Mr Clayton?” And I says “He was here last night.” ’

‘Ah,’ said Poirot, ‘last night . . . Do you remember exactly when it was Mr Clayton arrived here?’

‘Not to the minute. But as near as not a quarter to eight, I’d say . . .’

‘You knew him well?’

‘He and Mrs Clayton had been here quite frequently during the year and a half I’ve been employed here.’

‘Did he seem quite as usual?’

‘I think so. A little out of breath – but I took it he’d been hurrying. He was catching a train, or so he said.’

‘He had a bag with him, I suppose, as he was going to Scotland?’

‘No, sir. I imagine he was keeping a taxi down below.’

‘Was he disappointed to find that Major Rich was out?’

‘Not to notice. Just said he’d scribble a note. He came in here and went over to the desk and I went back to the kitchen. I was a little behindhand with the anchovy eggs. The kitchen’s at the end of the passage and you don’t hear very well from there. I didn’t hear him go out or the master come in – but then I wouldn’t expect to.’

‘And the next thing?’

‘Major Rich called me. He was standing in the door here. He said he’d forgotten Mrs Spence’s Turkish cigarettes. I was to hurry out and get them. So I did. I brought them back and put them on the table in here. Of course I took it that Mr Clayton had left by then to get his train.’

‘And nobody else came to the flat during the time Major Rich was out, and you were in the kitchen?’

‘No, sir – no one.’

‘Can you be sure of that?’

‘How could anyone, sir? They’d have had to ring the bell.’

Poirot shook his head. How could anyone? The Spences and McLaren and also Mrs Clayton could, he already knew, account for every minute of their time. McLaren had been with acquaintances at the club, the Spences had had a couple of friends in for a drink before starting. Margharita Clayton had talked to a friend on the telephone at just that period. Not that he thought of any of them as possibilities. There would have been better ways of killing Arnold Clayton than following him to a flat with a manservant there and the host returning any moment. No, he had had a last minute hope of a ‘mysterious stranger’! Someone out of Clayton’s apparently impeccable past, recognizing him in the street, following him here. Attacking him with the stiletto, thrusting the body into the chest, and fleeing. Pure melodrama, unrelated to reason or to probabilities! In tune with romantic historical fictions – matching the Spanish chest.

He went back across the room to the chest. He raised the lid. It came up easily, noiselessly.

In a faint voice, Burgess said: ‘It’s been scrubbed out, sir, I saw to that.’

Poirot bent over it. With a faint exclamation he bent lower. He explored with his fingers.

‘These holes – at the back and one side – they look – they feel, as though they had been made quite recently.’

‘Holes, sir?’ The valet bent to see. ‘I really couldn’t say. I’ve never noticed them particularly.’

‘They are not very obvious. But they are there. What is their purpose, would you say?’

‘I really wouldn’t know, sir. Some animal, perhaps – I mean a beetle, something of that kind. Something that gnaws wood?’

‘Some animal?’ said Poirot. ‘I wonder.’

He stepped back across the room.

‘When you came in here with the cigarettes, was there anything at all about this room that looked different? Anything at all? Chairs moved, table, something of that kind?’

‘It’s odd your saying that, sir . . . Now you come to mention it, there was. That screen there that cuts off the draught from the bedroom door, it was moved over a bit more to the left.’

‘Like this?’ Poirot moved swiftly.

‘A little more still . . . That’s right.’

The screen had already masked about half of the chest. The way it was now arranged, it almost hid the chest altogether.

‘Why did you think it had been moved?’

‘I didn’t think, sir.’

(Another