"To-morrow, if you please. There is no time to waste."

"That is settled, then."

The girl rose, and held out her hand.

"One thing, Miss Hargreaves, not a word, mind, to anyone-anyone at all, that we are not what we seem."

"What do you think of it, Tuppence?" he asked, when he returned from showing the visitor out.

"I don't like it," said Tuppence decidedly. "Especially I don't like the chocolates having so little arsenic in them."

"What do you mean?"

"Don't you see? All those chocolates being sent round the neighborhood were a blind. To establish the idea of a local maniac. Then, when the girl was really poisoned, it would be thought to be the same thing. You see, but for a stroke of luck, no one would ever have guessed that the chocolates were actually sent by someone in the house itself."

"That was a stroke of luck. You're right. You think it's a deliberate plot against the girl herself?"

"I'm afraid so. I remember reading about old Lady Radclyffe's will. That girl has come into a terrific lot of money."

"Yes, and she came of age and made a will three weeks ago. It looks bad-for Dennis Radclyffe. He gains by her death."

Tuppence nodded.

"The worst of it is-that she thinks so too! That's why she won't have the police called in. Already she suspects him. And she must be more than half in love with him to act as she has done."

''In that case," said Tommy thoughtfully, "why the devil doesn't he marry her? Much simpler and safer."

Tuppence stared at him.

"You've said a mouthful," she observed. "Oh! boy. I'm getting ready to be Miss Van Dusen, you observe."

"Why rush to crime, where there is a lawful means near at hand?"

Tuppence reflected for a minute or two.

"I've got it," she announced. "Clearly he must have married a barmaid whilst at Oxford. Origin of the quarrel with his aunt. That explains everything."

"Then why not send poisoned sweets to the barmaid?" suggested Tommy. "Much more practical. I wish you wouldn't jump to these wild conclusions, Tuppence."

"They're deductions," said Tuppence, with a good deal of dignity. "This is your first corrida, my friend, but when you have been twenty minutes in the arena-"

Tommy flung the office cushion at her.