Hickory Dickory Dock

"I've got it," she said triumphantly.

"Good morning, Mr. Poirot. I've got it, Inspector Sharpe. It came to me quite suddenly.

Whythat suicide note looked wrong, I mean.

Celia couldn't possibly have written it." "Why not, Mrs. Hubbard?" "Because it's written in ordinary blue black ink. And Celia filled her pen with green ink-that ink over there," Mrs. Hubbard nodded towards the shelf, "at breakfast'time yesterday morning." Inspector Sharpe, a somewhat different Inspector Sharpe, came back into the room which he had left abruptly after Mrs. Hubbard's statement.

"Quite right," he said. "I've checked up. The only pen in the girl's room, the one that was by her bed, has green ink in it. Now that green ink" Mrs. Hubbard held up the nearly empty bottle.

Then she explained, clearly and concisely, the scene at the breakfast table.

"I feel sure," she ended, "that the scrap of paper was torn out of the letter she had written to me yesterday-and which I never opened." "What did she do with it? Can you remember?" Mrs. Hubbard shook her head.

"I left her alone in here and went to do my housekeeping. She must, I think, have left it lying somewhere in here, and forgotten about it." "And somebody found it… and opened it somebody-was He broke off.

"You realize," he said, "what this means? I haven't been very happy about this torn bit of paper all along. There was quite a pile of lecture notepaper in her room commuch more natural to write a suicide note on one of them. This means that somebody saw the possibility of using the opening phrase of her letter to you-to suggest something very different. To suggest suicide-was He paused and then said slowly, "This means-was "Murder," said Hercule Poirot.

THOUGH PERSONALLY DEPRECATING le five o'clock as inhibiting the proper appreciation of the supreme meal of the day, dinner, Poirot was now getting quite accustomed to serving it.

The resourceful George had on this occasion produced large cups, a pot of really strong- Indian tea and, in addition to the hot and buttery square crumpets, bread and jam and a large square of rich plum cake.

All this for the delectation of Inspector Sharpe who was leaning back contentedly sipping his third cup of tea.

"You don't mind my coming along like this, M.

Poirot? I've got an hour to spare until the time when the students will be getting back. I shall want to question them all and, frankly, it's not a business I'm lookin, forward to. You met some of them the other night and I wondered If you could give me any useful dope comon the foreigners, anyway." "You think I am a good judge of foreigners?

But, mon cher, there were no Belgians amongst them." "No Belg- Oh, I see what you mean! You mean that as you're a Belgian, all the other nationalities are as foreign to you as they are to me.

Butthat's not quite true, is it? I mean you probably know more about the Continental types than I do-though not the Indians and the West Africans and that lot." "Your best assistance will probably be from Mrs.

Hubbard. She has been there for some months in intimate association with these young people and she is quite a good judge of human nature." "Yes, thoroughly competent woman. I'm relying on her. I shall have to see the proprietress of the place, too. She wasn't there this morning.