Mrs. Gardener, industrious as ever, settled herself in her chair, and began to knit vigorously and talk at the same time.

"Well. M. Poirot. The beach seems very deserted this morning. Where is everybody?"

Poirot replied that the Mastermans and the Cowans, two families with young people in them, had gone off on an all-day sailing excursion.

"Why that certainly does make all the difference, not having them about laughing and calling out. And only one person bathing, Captain Marshall."

Marshall had just finished his swim. He came up the beach swinging his towel.

"Pretty good in the sea this morning," he said. "Unfortunately I've got a lot of work to do. Must go and get on with it."

"Why, if that isn't too bad, Captain Marshall. On a beautiful day like this, too. My, wasn't yesterday too terrible? I said to Mr. Gardener that if the weather was going to continue like that we'd just have to leave. It's the melancholy, you know, with the mist right up around the island. Gives you a kind of ghostly feeling, but then I've always been very susceptible to atmosphere ever since I was a child. Sometimes, you know, I'd feel I just had to scream and scream. And that, of course, was very trying to my parents. But my mother was a lovely woman and she said to my father, 'Sinclair, if the child feels like that, we must let her do it. Screaming is her way of expressing herself.' And of course, my father agreed. He was devoted to my mother and just did everything she said. They were a perfectly lovely couple, as I'm sure Mr. Gardener will agree. They were a very remarkable couple, weren't they, Odell?"

"Yes, darling," said Mr. Gardener.

"And where's your girl this morning, Captain Marshall?"

"Linda? I don't know. I expect she's mooning round the island somewhere."

"You know, Captain Marshall, that girl looks kind of peaky to me. She needs feeding up and very very sympathetic treatment."

Kenneth Marshall said curtly: "Linda's all right."

He went up to the hotel.

Patrick Redfern did not go into the water. He sat about, frankly looking up towards the hotel. He was beginning to look a shade sulky.

Miss Brewster was brisk and cheerful when she arrived.

The conversation was much as it had been on a previous morning. Gentle yapping from Mrs. Gardener and short staccato barks from Miss Brewster.

She remarked at last: "Beach seems a bit empty. Everyone off on excursions?"

Mrs. Gardener said: "I was saying to Mr. Gardener only this morning that we simply must make an excursion to Dartmoor. It's quite near and the a.s.sociations are all so romantic. And I'd like to see that convict prison-Princetown, isn't it? I think we'd better fix up right away and go there tomorrow, Odell."

Mr. Gardener said: "Yes, darling."

Hercule Poirot said to Miss Brewster.

"You are going to bathe, Mademoiselle?"

"Oh I've had my morning dip before breakfast. Somebody nearly brained me with a bottle, too. Chucked it out of one of the hotel windows."

"Now that's a very dangerous thing to do," said Mrs. Gardener. "I had a very dear friend who got concussion by a toothpaste tin falling on him in the street-thrown out of a thirty-fifth storey window it was. A most dangerous thing to do. He got very substantial damages." She began to hunt among her skeins of wool. "Why, Odell, I don't believe I've got that second shade of purple wool. It's in the second drawer of the bureau in our bedroom or it might be the third."

"Yes, darling."

Mr. Gardener rose obediently and departed on his search.

Mrs. Gardener went on: "Sometimes, you know, I do think that maybe we're going a little too far nowadays. What with all our great discoveries and all the electrical waves there must be in the atmosphere, I do think it leads to a great deal of mental unrest, and I just feel that maybe the time has come for a new message to humanity. I don't know, M. Poirot, if you've ever interested yourself in the prophecies from the Pyramids."

"I have not," said Poirot.

"Well, I do a.s.sure you that they're very, very interesting. What with Moscow being exactly a thousand miles due north of-now what was it?-would it be Nineveh?-but anyway you take a circle and it just shows the most surprising things-and one can just see that there must have been special guidance, and that those ancient Egyptians couldn't have thought of what they did all by themselves. And when you've gone into the theory of the numbers and their repet.i.tion, why it's all just so clear that I can't see how anyone can doubt the truth of it for a moment."

Mrs. Gardener paused triumphantly but neither Poirot nor Miss Emily Brewster felt moved to argue the point.

Poirot studied his white suede shoes ruefully.

Emily Brewster said: "You been paddling with your shoes on, M. Poirot?"

Poirot murmured: "Alas! I was precipitate."

Emily Brewster lowered her voice. She said: "Where's our vamp this morning? She's late."

Mrs. Gardener, raising her eyes from her knitting to study Patrick Redfern, murmured: "He looks just like a thundercloud. Oh dear, I do feel the whole thing is such a pity. I wonder what Captain Marshall thinks about it all. He's such a nice quiet man-very British and una.s.suming. You just never know what he's thinking about things."

Patrick Redfern rose and began to pace up and down the beach.

Mrs. Gardener murmured: "Just like a tiger."

Three pairs of eyes watched his pacing. Their scrutiny seemed to make Patrick Redfern uncomfortable. He looked more than sulky now. He looked in a flaming temper.

In the stillness a faint chime from the mainland came to their ears.

Emily Brewster murmured: "Wind's from the east again. That's a good sign when you can hear the church clock strike."

n.o.body said any more until Mr. Gardener returned with a skein of brilliant magenta wool.

"Why, Odell, what a long time you have been?"

"Sorry darling, but you see it wasn't in your bureau at all. I found it on your wardrobe shelf."

"Why, isn't that too extraordinary? I could have declared I put it in that bureau drawer. I do think it's fortunate that I've never had to give evidence in a court case. I'd just worry myself to death in case I wasn't remembering a thing just right."

Mr. Gardener said: "Mrs. Gardener is very conscientious."

V.

It was some five minutes later that Patrick Redfern said: "Going for your row this morning, Miss Brewster? Mind if I come with you?"

Miss Brewster said heartily: "Delighted."

"Let's row right round the island," proposed Redfern.

Miss Brewster consulted her watch.

"Shall we have time? Oh yes, it's not half past eleven yet. Come on, then, let's start."

They went down the beach together.

Patrick Redfern took first turn at the oars. He rowed with a powerful stroke. The boat leapt forward.

Emily Brewster said approvingly: "Good. We'll see if you can keep that up."

He laughed into her eyes. His spirits had improved.

"I shall probably have a fine crop of blisters by the time we get back." He threw up his head, tossing back his black hair. "G.o.d, it's a marvellous day! If you do get a real summer's day in England there's nothing to beat it."

Emily Brewster said gruffly: "Can't beat England anyway in my opinion. Only place in the world to live in."

"I'm with you."

They rounded the point of the bay to the west and rowed under the cliffs. Patrick Redfern looked up.

"Any one on Sunny Ledge this morning? Yes, there's a sunshade. Who is it, I wonder?"

Emily Brewster said: "It's Miss Darnley, I think. She's got one of those j.a.panese affairs."

They rowed up the coast. On their left was the open sea.

Emily Brewster said: "We ought to have gone the other way round. This way we've got the current against us."

"There's very little current. I've swum out here and not noticed it. Anyway we couldn't go the other way, the causeway wouldn't be covered."

"Depends on the tide, of course. But they always say that bathing from Pixy Cove is dangerous if you swim out too far."

Patrick was rowing vigorously still. At the same time he was scanning the cliffs attentively.

Emily Brewster thought suddenly: "He's looking for the Marshall woman. That's why he wanted to come with me. She hasn't shown up this morning and he's wondering what she's up to. Probably she's done it on purpose. Just a move in the game-to make him keener."

They rounded the jutting point of rock to the south of the little bay named Pixy's Cove. It was quite a small cove, with rocks dotted fantastically about the beach. It faced nearly northwest and the cliff overhung it a good deal. It was a favourite place for picnic teas. In the morning, when the sun was off, it was not popular and there was seldom anyone there.

On this occasion, however, there was a figure on the beach.

Patrick Redfern's stroke checked and recovered.

He said in a would-be casual tone: "Hullo, who's that?"

Miss Brewster said dryly: "It looks like Mrs. Marshall."

Patrick Redfern said, as though struck by the idea.

"So it does."

He altered his course, rowing insh.o.r.e.

Emily Brewster protested.

"We don't want to land here, do we?"

Patrick Redfern said quickly: "Oh, plenty of time."

His eyes looked into hers-something in them, a nave pleading look rather like that of an importunate dog, silenced Emily Brewster. She thought to herself: "Poor boy, he's got it badly. Oh well, it can't be helped. He'll get over it in time."

The boat was fast approaching the beach.

Arlena Marshall was lying face downwards on the shingle, her arms outstretched. The white float was drawn up nearby.

Something was puzzling Emily Brewster. It was as though she was looking at something she knew quite well but which was in one respect quite wrong.

It was a minute or two before it came to her.

Arlena Marshall's att.i.tude was the att.i.tude of a sunbather. So had she lain many a time on the beach by the hotel, her bronzed body outstretched and the green cardboard hat protecting her head and neck.

But there was no sun on Pixy's Beach and there would be none for some hours yet. The overhanging cliff protected the beach from the sun in the morning. A vague feeling of apprehension came over Emily Brewster.

The boat grounded on the shingle. Patrick Redfern called: "Hullo, Arlena."

And then Emily Brewster's foreboding took definite shape. For the rec.u.mbent figure did not move or answer.

Emily saw Patrick Redfern's face change. He jumped out of the boat and she followed him. They dragged the boat ash.o.r.e then set off up the beach to where that white figure lay so still and unresponsive near the bottom of the cliff.

Patrick Redfern got there first but Emily Brewster was close behind him.

She saw, as one sees in a dream, the bronzed limbs, the white backless bathing dress-the red curl of hair escaping under the jade green hat-saw something else too-the curious unnatural angle of the outspread arms. Felt, in that minute, that this body had not lain down but had been thrown....

She heard Patrick's voice-a mere frightened whisper. He knelt down beside that still form-touched the hand-the arm....

He said in a low shuddering whisper: "My G.o.d, she's dead...."

And then, as he lifted the hat a little, peered at the neck: "Oh, G.o.d, she's been strangled...murdered."

VI.

It was one of those moments when time stands still.

With an odd feeling of unreality Emily Brewster heard herself saying: "We musn't touch anything... Not until the police come."

Redfern's answer came mechanically.

"No-no-of course not." And then in a deep agonized whisper. "Who? Who? Who could have done that to Arlena. She can't have-have been murdered. It can't be true!"

Emily Brewster shook her head, not knowing quite what to answer.

She heard him draw in his breath-heard the low controlled rage in his voice as he said: "My G.o.d, if I get my hands on the foul fiend who did this."

Emily Brewster shivered. Her imagination pictured a lurking murderer behind one of the boulders. Then she heard her voice saying: "Whoever did it wouldn't be hanging about. We must get the police. Perhaps-" she hesitated-"one of us ought to stay with-with the body."