An ambulance was drawn up there.

"Are they going to take It away?" asked Mrs. Oliver in a shaky voice. And then added in a sudden rush of pity: "Poor Peacock." "He was hardly a likeable character," said Poirot coldly.

"He was very decorative… And so young," said Mrs. Oliver.

"That is sufficient for les femmes." Poirot was opening the bedroom door a careful crack, as he peered out.

"Excuse me," he said, "if I leave you for a moment." "Where are you going?" demanded Mrs. Oliver suspiciously.

"I understood that that was not a question considered delicate in this country," said Poirot reproachfully.

"Oh, I beg your pardon." "And that's not the way to the loo," she breathed sotto voce after him, as she too applied an eye to the crack of the door.

She went back to the window to observe what was going on below.

"Mr. Restarick has just driven up in a taxi," she observed when Poirot slipped back quietly into the room a few minutes later, "and Claudia has come with him.

Did you manage to get into Norma's room, or wherever you really wanted to go?" "Normals room is in the occupation of the police." "How annoying for you. What are you carrying in that kind of black folder thing you've got in your hand?" Poirot in his turn asked a question.

"What have you got in that canvas bag with Persian horses on it?" "My shopping bag? Only a couple of Avocado pears, as it happens." "Then if I may, I will entrust this folder to you. Do not be rough with it, or squeeze it, I beg." "What is it?" "Something that I hoped to find - and that I have found- Ah, things begin to pass themselves - " He referred to increased sounds of activities.

Poirot's words struck Mrs. Oliver as being much more exactly descriptive than English words would have been. Restarick, his voice loud and angry. Claudia coming in to telephone. A glimpse of a police stenographer on an excursion to the flat next door to take statements from Frances Cary and a mythical person called Miss Jacobs. A coming and going of ordered business, and a final departure of two men with cameras.

Then unexpectedly the sudden incursion into Claudia's bedroom of a tall looselyjointed young man with red hair.

Without taking any notice of Mrs.

Oliver, he spoke to Poirot.

"What's she done? Murder? Who is it?

The boy friend?" "Yes." "She admits it?" "It would seem so." "Not good enough. Did she say so in definite words?" "I have not heard her do so. I have had no chance of asking her anything myself." A policeman looked in.

"Dr. Stillingfleet?" he asked. "The police surgeon would like a word with you." Dr. Stillingfleet nodded and followed him out of the room.

"So that's Dr. Stillingfleet," said Mrs.

Oliver. She considered for a moment or two. "Quite something, isn't he?"

Chapter Twenty-Three

CHIEF INSPECTOR NEELE drew a sheet of paper towards him, jotted one or two notes on it; and looked round at the other five people in the room. His voice was crisp and formal.

"Miss Jacobs?" he said. He looked towards the policeman who stood by the door. "Sergeant Conolly, I know, has taken her statement. But, I'd like to ask her a few questions myself." Miss Jacobs was ushered into the room a few minutes later. Neele rose courteously to greet her.

"I am Chief Inspector Neele," he said, shaking hands with her. "I am sorry to trouble you for a second time. But this time it is quite informal I just want to get a clearer picture of exactly what you saw and heard. I'm afraid it may be painful - " "Painful, no," said Miss Jacobs, accepting the chair he offered her. "It was a shock, of course. But no emotions were involved." She added: "You seem to have tidied up things." He presumed she was referring to the removal of the body.

Her eyes, both observant and critical, passed lightly over the assembled people, registering, for Poirot frank astonishment (What on earth is this^) for Mrs. Oliver, mild curiosity; appraisement for the back of Dr. Stillingfleet's red head, neighbourly recognition for Claudia to whom she vouchsafed a slight nod, and finally dawning sympathy for Andrew Restarick.

"You must be the girl's father," she said to him. "There's not much point to condolences from a total stranger. They're better left unsaid. It's a sad world we live in nowadays - or so it seems to me. Girls study too hard in my opinion." Then she turned her face composedly towards Neele.

"Yes?" "I would like you. Miss Jacobs, to tell me in your own words exactly what you saw and heard." "I expect it will vary from what I said before," said Miss Jacobs unexpectedly.

"Things do, you know. One tries to make one's description as accurate as possible, and so one uses more words. I don't think one is any more accurate, I think, unconsciously, one adds things that you think you may have seen or ought to have seen - or heard. But I will do my best.

"It started with screams. I was startled.

I thought someone must have been hurt.

So I was already coming to the door when someone began beating on it, and still screaming. I opened it and saw it was one of my next-door neighbours - the three girls who live in 67. I'm afraid I don't know her name, though I know her by sight." "Frances Cary," said Claudia.

"She was quite incoherent, and stammered out something about someone being dead - someone she knew - David Someone - I didn't catch his last name. She was sobbing and shaking all over. I brought her in, gave her some brandy, and went to see for myself." Everyone felt that throughout life that would be what Miss Jacobs would invariably do.

"You know what I found. Need I describe it?" "Just briefly, perhaps." "A young man, one of these modern young men - gaudy clothes and long hair.

He was lying on the floor and he was clearly dead. His shirt was stiff with blood." Stillingfleet stirred. He turned his head and looked keenly at Miss Jacobs.

"Then I became aware that there was a girl in the room. She was holding a kitchen knife. She seemed quite calm and selfpossessed - really, most peculiar." Stillingfleet said: "Did she say anything?" "She said she had been into the bathroom to wash the blood off her hands - and then she said "But you can't wash things like that off, can you?' " "Out, damned spot, in fact?" "I cannot say that she reminded me particularly of Lady Macbeth. She was - how shall I put it - perfectly composed.

She laid the knife down on the table and sat down on a chair." "What else did she say?" asked Chief Inspector Neele, his eyes dropping to a scrawled note in front of him.

"Something about hate. That it wasn't safe to hate anybody." "She said something about 'poor David', didn't she? Or so you told Sergeant Conoily.

And that she wanted to be free of him." "I'd forgotten that. Yes. She said something about his making her come here - and something about Louise, too." "What did she say about Louise?" It was Poirot who asked, leaning forward sharply.

Miss Jacobs looked at him doubtfully.

"Nothing, really, just mentioned the name. ^Like Louise9, she said, and then stopped. It was after she had said about its not being safe to hate people…" "And then?" "Then she told me, quite calmly, I had better ring up the police. Which I did. We just - sat there until they came… I did not think I ought to leave her. We did not say anything. She seemed absorbed in her thoughts, and I - well, frankly, I couldn't think of anything to say." "You could see, couldn't you, that she was mentally unstable?" said Andrew Restarick. "You could see that she didn't know what she had done or why, poor child?" He spoke pleadingly - hopefully.

"If it is a sign of mental instability to appear perfectly cool and collected after committing a murder, then I will agree with you." Miss Jacobs spoke in the voice of one who quite decidedly did not agree.