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‘Don’t believe it, old boy. Doctors will put you on to anything.’

‘That is the only solution that occurs to you?’

Henry Bonnington said:

‘Well, seriously, I suppose there’s only one explanation possible. Our unknown friend was in the grip of some powerful mental emotion. He was so perturbed by it that he literally did not notice what he was ordering or eating.’

He paused a minute and then said:

‘You’ll be telling me next that you know just what was on his mind. You’ll say perhaps that he was making up his mind to commit a murder.’

He laughed at his own suggestion.

Hercule Poirot did not laugh.

He has admitted that at that moment he was seriously worried. He claims that he ought then to have had some inkling of what was likely to occur.

His friends assure him that such an idea is quite fantastic.

It was some three weeks later that Hercule Poirot and Bonnington met again – this time their meeting was in the Tube.

They nodded to each other, swaying about, hanging on to adjacent straps. Then at Piccadilly Circus there was a general exodus and they found seats right at the forward end of the car – a peaceful spot since nobody passed in or out that way.

‘That’s better,’ said Mr Bonnington. ‘Selfish lot, the human race, they won’t pass up the car however much you ask ’em to!’

Hercule Poirot shrugged his shoulders.

‘What will you?’ he said. ‘Life is too uncertain.’

‘That’s it. Here today, gone tomorrow,’ said Mr Bonnington with a kind of gloomy relish. ‘And talking of that, d’you remember that old boy we noticed at the Gallant Endeavour? I shouldn’t wonder if he’d hopped it to a better world. He’s not been there for a whole week. Molly’s quite upset about it.’

Hercule Poirot sat up. His green eyes flashed.

‘Indeed?’ he said. ‘Indeed?’

Bonnington said:

‘D’you remember I suggested he’d been to a doctor and been put on a diet? Diet’s nonsense of course – but I shouldn’t wonder if he had consulted a doctor about his health and what the doctor said gave him a bit of a jolt. That would account for him ordering things off the menu without noticing what he was doing. Quite likely the jolt he got hurried him out of the world sooner than he would have gone otherwise. Doctors ought to be careful what they tell a chap.’

‘They usually are,’ said Hercule Poirot.

‘This is my station,’ said Mr Bonnington. ‘Bye, bye. Don’t suppose we shall ever know now who the old boy was – not even his name. Funny world!’

He hurried out of the carriage.

Hercule Poirot, sitting frowning, looked as though he did not think it was such a funny world.

He went home and gave certain instructions to his faithful valet, George.

II

Hercule Poirot ran his finger down a list of names. It was a record of deaths within a certain area.

Poirot’s finger stopped.

‘Henry Gascoigne. Sixty-nine. I might try him first.’

Later in the day, Hercule Poirot was sitting in Dr MacAndrew’s surgery just off the King’s Road. MacAndrew was a tall red-haired Scotsman with an intelligent face.

‘Gascoigne?’ he said. ‘Yes, that’s right. Eccentric old bird. Lived alone in one of those derelict old houses that are being cleared away in order to build a block of modern flats. I hadn’t attended him before, but I’d seen him about and I knew who he was. It was the dairy people got the wind up first. The milk bottles began to pile up outside. In the end the people next door sent word to the police and they broke the door in and found him. He’d pitched down the stairs and broken his neck. Had on an old dressing-gown with a ragged cord – might easily have tripped himself up with it.’

‘I see,’ said Hercule Poirot. ‘It was quite simple – an accident.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Had he any relations?’

‘There’s a nephew. Used to come along and see his uncle about once a month. Lorrimer, his name is, George Lorrimer. He’s a medico himself. Lives at Wimbledon.’

‘Was he upset at the old man’s death?’

‘I don’t know that I’d say he was upset. I mean, he had an affection for the old man, but he didn’t really know him very well.’

‘How long had Mr Gascoigne been dead