She stretched out her hand, but Poirot was before her./lis hah closed over it.

'I think not.' His voice had changed.

'What do you mean?' Her voice seemed to have grown sharpe 'At any rate, permit me to abstract its further contents. Yo observe that the original cavity has been reduced by hall In th top half, the compromising letter; in the bottom - ' He made a nimble gesture, then held out his haod. On the pair were four large glittering stones, and two big milky white pearl: 'The jewels stolen in Bond Street the other day, I rather fancy murmured Poirot. 'Japp will tell us.' To my utter amazement, Japp himself stepped out from Poirot bedroom.

'An old friend of yours, I believe,' said Poirot politely to La Milllcent.

'Nabbed, by the Lord!' said Lady Millicent, with a comple change of manner. 'You nippy old devill' She looked at Poirot wit almost affectionate awe.

'Well, Gertie, my dear,' said Japp, 'the game's up this time, I fancy. Fancy seeing you again so sooni We've got your pal, too, the gentleman who called here the other day calling himself Lavington. As for Lavington himself, alias Croker, alias Reed, I wonder which of the gang it was who stuck a knife into him the other day in Holland? Thought he'd got the goods with him, didn't you? And he hadn't. He double-crossed you properly - hid 'em in his own house. You had two fellows looking for them, and then you tackled M. Poirot here, and by a piece of amazing luck he found them.'

'You do like talking, don't you?' said the late Lady Millicent.

'Easy there, now. I'll go quietly. You can't say that I'm not the perfect lady. Ta-ta, all!'

'The shoes were wrong,' said Poirot dreamily, while I was still too stupefied to speak. 'I have made my little observations of your English nation, and a lady, a born lady, is always particular about her shoes. She may have shabby clothes, but she will be well shod.

Now, this Lady Millicent had smart, expensive clothes, and cheap shoes. It was not likely that either you or I should have seen the real Lady Millicent; she has been very little in London, and this girl had a certain superficial resemblance which would pass well enough. As I say, the shoes first awakened my suspicions, and then her story - and her veil - were a little melodramatic, eh?

The Chinese box with a bogus compromising letter in the top must have been known to all the gang, but the log of wood was the late Mr Lavington's own idea. Eh, par exernple, Hastings, I hope you will not again wound my feelings as you did yesterday by aying that I am unknown to the criminal classes. Ma roi, they even employ me when they themselves fail?

Chapter XVII. Problem at Sea

'Colonel Clapperton!' said General Forbes.

He said it with an effect midway between a snort and a sniff.

Miss Ellie Henderson leaned forward, a strand of her soft grey hair blowing across her face. Her eyes, dark and snapping, gleamed with a wicked pleasure.

'Such a soldierly-looking man? she said with malicious intent, and smoothed back the lock of hair to await the result.

'Soldierly!' exploded General Forbes. He tugged at his military moustache and his face became bright red.

'In the Guards, wasn't he?' murmured Miss Henderson, completing her work.

'Guards? Guards? Pack of nonsense. Fellow was on the music hall stagel Fact! Joined up and was out in France counting tins of plum and apple. Huns dropped a stray bomb and he went home with a flesh wound in the arm. Somehow or other got into Lady Carrington's hospital.' 'So that's how they met.' 'Fact! Fellow played the wounded hero. Lady Carrington had no sense and oceans of money. Old Carrington had been in munitions. She'd been a widow only six months. This fellow snaps her up in no time. She wangled him a job at the War Office. Colonel Clappertonl Pahl' he snorted.

'And before the war he was on the music hall stage,' mused Miss Henderson, trying to reconcile the distinguished grey-haired Colonel Clapperton with a red-nosed comedian singing mirth-provoking songs.

'Fact!' said General Forbes. 'Heard it from old Basaingtonffrench.

And he heard it from old Badger Cotterill who'd got it from Snooks Parker.' Miss Henderson nodded brightly. 'That does seem to settle it!' she said.

A fleeting smile showed for a minute on the face of a small man sitting near them. Miss Henderson noticed the smile. She was observant. It had shown appreciation of the irony underlying her last remark - irony which the General never for a moment suspected.

The General himself did not notice the smiles. He glanced at his watch, rose and remarked: 'Exercise. Got to keep oneself fit on a boat,' and passed out through the open door on to the deck.

Miss Henderson glanced at the man who had smiled. It was a well-bred glance indicating that she was ready to enter into conversation with a fellow traveller.

'He is energetic - yes?' said the little man.

'He goes round the deck forty-eight times exactly,' said Miss Henderson. 'What an old gossip! And they say we are the scandal-loving sex.' 'What an impoliteness!' 'Frenchmen are always polite,' said Miss Henderson - there was the nuance of a question in her voice.

The little man responded promptly. 'Belgian, mademoiselle.' 'Obi Belgian.' 'Hercule Poirot. At your service.' The name aroused some memory. Surely she had heard it before -? 'Are you enjoying this trip, M. Poirot?' 'Frankly, no. It was an imbecility to allow myself to be persuaded to come. I detest la mcr. Never does it remain tranquil no, not for a little minute.' 'Well, you admit it's quite calm now.' M. Poirot admitted this grudgingly. '.4 ce moment, yes. That is why I revive. I once more interest myself in what passes around me - your very adept handling of the General Forbes, for instance.' 'You mean -' Miss Henderson paused. ttercule Poirot bowed. 'Your methods of extracting the scandalous matter. Admirable?

Miss Henderson laughed in an unashamed manner. 'That touch about the Guards? I knew that would bring the old boy up spluttering and gasping.' She leaned forward confidentially. 'I admit I life scandal - the more ill-natured, the betterl'

Poirot looked thoughtfully at her - her slim well-preserved figure, her keen dark eyes, her grey hair; a woman of forty-five who was content to look her age.

Ellie said abruptly: 'I have it! Aren't you the great detective?' Poirot bowed. 'You are too amiable, mademoiselle.' But he made no disclaimer.

'How thrilling,' said Miss Henderson. 'Are you "hot on the trail" as they say in books? Have we a criminal secretly in our midst? Or am I being indiscreet?' 'Not at all. Not at all. It pains me to disappoint your expectations, but I am simply here, like everyone else, to amuse myself.' He said it in such a gloomy voice that Miss Henderson laughed.

'Oh! Well, you will be able to get ashore tomorrow at Alexandria.

You have been to Egypt before?' 'Never, mademoiselle.' Miss Henderson rose somewhat abruptly.

'I think I shall join the General on his constitutional,' she announced.

Poirot sprang politely to his feet.

She gave him a little nod and passed out on to the deck.

A faint puzzled look showed for a moment in Poirot's eyes, then, a little smile creasing his lips, he rose, put his head through the door and glanced down the deck. Miss Henderson was leaning against the rail talking to a tall, soldierly-looking man.

Poirot's smile deepened. He drew himself back into the smoking-room with the same exaggerated care with which a tortoise withdraws itself into its shell. For the moment he had the smoking-room to himself, though he rightly conjectured that that would not last long.

It did not. Mrs Clapperton, her cdrefully waved platinum head protected with a net, her massaged and dieted form dressed in a smart sports suit, came through the door from the bar with the purposeful air of a woman who has always been able to pay top price for anything she needed.