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Carrington was so essentially a manly man.
    ‘You’ve not changed much since you were seventeen, Babs,’ he said. ‘Do you remember that garden house of yours and the bird bath and the coconuts?’
    He turned his head to me. ‘Barbara and I are old playmates,’ he said.
    ‘Old playmates!’ she protested.
    ‘Oh, I’m not denying that you’re over fifteen years younger than I am. But I played with you as a tiny tot when I was a young man. Gave you pick-a-backs, my dear. And then later I came home to find you a beautiful young lady – just on the point of making your début in the world – and I did my share by taking you out on the golf links and teaching you to play golf. Do you remember?’
    ‘Oh, Bill, do you think I’d forget?’
    ‘My people used to live in this part of the world,’ she explained to me. ‘And Bill used to come and stay with his old uncle, Sir Everard, at Knatton.’
    ‘And what a mausoleum it was – and is,’ said Boyd Carrington. ‘Sometimes I despair of getting the place liveable.’
    ‘Oh, Bill, it could be made marvellous – quite marvellous!’
    ‘Yes, Babs, but the trouble is I’ve got no ideas. Baths and some really comfortable chairs – that’s all I can think of. It needs a woman.’
    ‘I’ve told you I’ll come and help. I mean it. Really.’
    Sir William looked doubtfully towards Nurse Craven. ‘If you’re strong enough, I could drive you over. What do you think, Nurse?’
    ‘Oh yes, Sir William. I really think it would do Mrs Franklin good – if she’s careful not to overtire herself, of course.’
    ‘That’s a date, then,’ said Boyd Carrington. ‘And now you have a good night’s sleep. Get into good fettle for tomorrow.’
    We both wished Mrs Franklin good night and went out together. As we went down the stairs, Boyd Carrington said gruffly: ‘You’ve no idea what a lovely creature she was at seventeen. I was home from Burma – my wife died out there, you know. Don’t mind telling you I completely lost my heart to her. She married Franklin three or four years afterwards. Don’t think it’s been a happy marriage. It’s my idea that that’s what lies at the bottom of her ill health. Fellow doesn’t understand her or appreciate her. And she’s the sensitive kind. I’ve an idea that this delicacy of hers is partly nervous. Take her out of herself, amuse her, interest her, and she looks a different creature! But that damned sawbones only takes an interest in test tubes and West African natives and cultures.’ He snorted angrily.
    I thought that there was, perhaps, something in what he said. Yet it surprised me that Boyd Carrington should be attracted by Mrs Franklin who, when all was said and done, was a sickly creature, though pretty in a frail, chocolate-box way. But Boyd Carrington himself was so full of vitality and life that I should have thought he would merely have been impatient with the neurotic type of invalid. However, Barbara Franklin must have been quite lovely as a girl, and with many men, especially those of the idealistic type such as I judged Boyd Carrington to be, early impressions die hard.
    Downstairs, Mrs Luttrell pounced upon us and suggested bridge. I excused myself on the plea of wanting to join Poirot.
    I found my friend in bed. Curtiss was moving around the room tidying up, but he presently went out, shutting the door behind him.
    ‘Confound you, Poirot,’ I said. ‘You and your infernal habit of keeping things up your sleeve. I’ve spent the whole evening trying to spot X.’
    ‘That must have made you somewhat distrait ,’ observed my friend. ‘Did nobody comment on your abstraction and ask you what was the matter?’
    I reddened slightly, remembering Judith’s questions. Poirot, I think, observed my discomfiture. I noticed a small malicious smile on his lips. He merely said, however: ‘And what conclusion have you come to on that point?’
    ‘Would you tell me if I was right?’
    ‘Certainly not.’
    I