'And now,' said Caroline, getting up from her chair, 'Ursula is coming upstairs to lie down. Don't you worry, my dear. Monsieur Poirot will do everything he can for you - be sure of that.'

'So far, so good,' Poirot said when they had gone. 'Things are becoming clearer.'

'They're looking blacker and blacker against Ralph Paton,' I said.

'Yes, that is so. But it was to be expected, was it not?'

I looked at him, confused by the remark. Suddenly he sighed and shook his head.

'There are moments when I really miss my friend Hastings. Always, when I had a big case, he was by my side. And he helped me - yes, he often helped me. For he had an ability to discover the truth without realizing it. At times he would say something particularly foolish, and yet that foolish remark would reveal the truth to me! And it was his habit to keep a written record of the cases that proved interesting.'

I gave a slightly embarrassed cough. 'As a matter of fact, I've read some of Captain Hasting's work, and I thought, why not try doing something of the same myself?'

Poirot sprang from his chair. I had a moment's terror that he was going to embrace me in the French fashion by kissing me on both cheeks, but thankfully he didn't.

'But this is magnificent - you have written down your thoughts on the case as you went along?'

I nodded.

'Let me see them - this instant,' cried Poirot.

'I hope you won't mind,' I said. 'I may have been a little personal now and then.'

'Oh! I understand perfectly; you have written that I am ridiculous now and then? It matters not at all. Hastings, he also was not always polite.'

Hoping that what I had written would be published one day in the future, I had divided the work into chapters. Poirot had therefore twenty chapters to read. Still doubtful, but knowing that I had to go out to a patient some distance away, I gave the pages to him and went out.

It was after eight o'clock when I got back. Caroline brought me a hot dinner on a tray. She told me that she had eaten with Poirot at seven thirty, and that Poirot had then gone to my workshop to finish reading my manuscript.

'I hope, James,' said my sister, 'that you've been careful in what you say about me in it?'

I had not been careful at all, I thought, dismayed.

'Not that it matters very much,' said Caroline, reading the expression on my face correctly. 'Monsieur Poirot will know what to think. He understands me much better than you do.'