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He bowed.
    She laughed with slight embarrassment. “You mustn’t pay me so many compliments.”
    She led the way through an open French window and he followed her.
    â€œI knew your uncle slightly in 1944.”
    â€œPoor dear, he’s getting quite an old man now. He’s very deaf, I’m afraid.”
    â€œIt was long ago that I encountered him. He will probably have forgotten. It was a matter of espionage and of scientific developments of a certain invention. We owed that invention to the ingenuity of Sir Roderick. He will be willing, I hope, to receive me.”
    â€œOh, I’m sure he’ll love it,” said Mrs. Restarick. “He has rather a dull life in some ways nowadays. I have to be so much in London—we are looking for a suitable house there.” She sighed and said, “Elderly people can be very difficult sometimes.”
    â€œI know,” said Poirot. “Frequently I, too, am difficult.”
    She laughed. “Ah no, M. Poirot, come now, you mustn’t pretend you’re old.”
    â€œSometimes I am told so,” said Poirot. He sighed. “By young girls,” he added mournfully.
    â€œThat’s very unkind of them. It’s probably the sort of thing that our daughter would do,” she added.
    â€œAh, you have a daughter?”
    â€œYes. At least, she is my stepdaughter.”
    â€œI shall have much pleasure in meeting her,” said Poirot politely.
    â€œOh well, I’m afraid she is not here. She’s in London. She works there.”
    â€œThe young girls, they all do jobs nowadays.”
    â€œEverybody’s supposed to do a job,” said Mrs. Restarick vaguely. “Even when they get married they’re always being persuaded back into industry or back into teaching.”
    â€œHave they persuaded you, Madame, to come back into anything?”
    â€œNo. I was brought up in South Africa. I only came here with my husband a short time ago—It’s all—rather strange to me still.”
    She looked round her with what Poirot judged to be an absence of enthusiasm. It was a handsomely furnished room of a conventional type—without personality. Two large portraits hung on the walls—the only personal touch. The first was that of a thin lipped woman in a grey velvet evening dress. Facing her on the opposite wall was a man of about thirty-odd with an air of repressed energy about him.
    â€œYour daughter, I suppose, finds it dull in the country?”
    â€œYes, it is much better for her to be in London. She doesn’t like it here.” She paused abruptly, and then as though the last words were almost dragged out of her, she said, “—and she doesn’t like me.”
    â€œImpossible,” said Hercule Poirot, with Gallic politeness.
    â€œNot at all impossible! Oh well, I suppose it often happens. I suppose it’s hard for girls to accept a stepmother.”
    â€œWas your daughter very fond of her own mother?”
    â€œI suppose she must have been. She’s a difficult girl. I suppose most girls are.”
    Poirot sighed and said, “Mothers and fathers have much less control over daughters nowadays. It is not as it used to be in the old good-fashioned days.”
    â€œNo indeed.”
    â€œOne dare not say so, Madame, but I must confess I regret that they show so very little discrimination in choosing their—how do you say it?—their boyfriends?”
    â€œNorma has been a great worry to her father in that way. However, I suppose it is no good complaining. People must make theirown experiments. But I must take you up to Uncle Roddy—he has his own rooms upstairs.”
    She led the way out of the room. Poirot looked back over his shoulder. A dull room, a room without character—except perhaps for the two portraits. By the style of the woman’s dress, Poirot judged that they dated from some years back. If that was the first Mrs. Restarick, Poirot