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of

      Colonel Blunt – the local Squire, whose daughter Joan – is married to

      Peter Gaye – a young Atom Scientist.

      Miss Willing – a housekeeper.

      Quiett – a butler.

      Maya Stavisky – a girl hiker.

      Esteban Loyola – an uninvited guest.

      Poirot blinked and looked towards Mrs Oliver in mute incomprehension.

      ‘A magnificent Cast of Characters,’ he said politely. ‘But permit me to ask, Madame, what does the Competitor do?’

      ‘Turn the card over,’ said Captain Warburton.

      Poirot did so.

      On the other side was printed:

      Name and address .........................

      Solution:

      Name of Murderer: ........................

      Weapon: .............................................

      Motive: ...............................................

      Time and Place: ..............................

      Reasons for arriving at your conclusions:

      ...............................................................

      ‘Everyone who enters gets one of these,’ explained Captain Warburton rapidly. ‘Also a notebook and pencil for copying clues. There will be six clues. You go on from one to the other like a Treasure Hunt, and the weapons are concealed in suspicious places. Here’s the first clue. A snapshot. Everyone starts with one of these.’

      Poirot took the small print from him and studied it with a frown. Then he turned it upside down. He still looked puzzled. Warburton laughed.

      ‘Ingenious bit of trick photography, isn’t it?’ he said complacently. ‘Quite simple once you know what it is.’

      Poirot, who did not know what it was, felt a mounting annoyance.

      ‘Some kind of barred window?’ he suggested.

      ‘Looks a bit like it, I admit. No, it’s a section of a tennis net.’

      ‘Ah.’ Poirot looked again at the snapshot. ‘Yes, it is as you say—quite obvious when you have been told what it is!’

      ‘So much depends on how you look at a thing,’ laughed Warburton.

      ‘That is a very profound truth.’

      ‘The second clue will be found in a box under the centre of the tennis net. In the box are this empty poison bottle—here, and a loose cork.’

      ‘Only, you see,’ said Mrs Oliver rapidly, ‘it’s a screw-topped bottle[52], so the cork is really the clue.’

      ‘I know, Madame, that you are always full of ingenuity,

      but I do not quite see—’

      Mrs Oliver interrupted him.

      ‘Oh, but of course,’ she said, ‘there’s a story. Like in a magazine serial—a synopsis.’ She turned to Captain Warburton. ‘Have you got the leaflets?’

      ‘They’ve not come from the printers yet.’

      ‘But they promised!’

      ‘I know. I know. Everyone always promises. They’ll be ready this evening at six. I’m going in to fetch them in the car.’

      ‘Oh, good.’

      Mrs Oliver gave a deep sigh and turned to Poirot.

      ‘Well, I’ll have to tell it you, then. Only I’m not very good at telling things. I mean if I write things, I get them perfectly clear, but if I talk, it always sounds the most frightful muddle; and that’s why I never discuss my plots with anyone. I’ve learnt not to, because if I do, they just look at me blankly and say “—er—yes, but—I don’t see what happened—and surely that can’t possibly make a book.” So damping. And not true, because when I write it, it does!’

      Mrs Oliver paused for breath, and then went on:

      ‘Well, it’s like this. There’s Peter Gaye who’s a young Atom Scientist and he’s suspected of being in the pay of the Communists, and he’s married to this girl, Joan Blunt, and his first wife’s dead, but she isn’t, and she turns up because she’s a secret agent, or perhaps not, I mean she may really be a hiker—and the wife’s having an affair, and this man Loyola turns up either to meet Maya, or to spy upon her, and there’s a blackmailing letter which might be from the housekeeper, or again it might be the butler, and the revolver’s missing, and as you don’t know who the blackmailing letter’s to, and the hypodermic syringe[53] fell out at dinner, and after that it disappeared…’

      Mrs Oliver came to a full stop, estimating correctly Poirot’s reaction.

      ‘I know,’ she said sympathetically. ‘It sounds just a muddle, but it isn’t really—not in my head—and when you see the synopsis leaflet, you’ll find it’s quite clear.

      ‘And, anyway,’ she ended, ‘the story doesn’t really matter, does it? I mean, not to you. All you’ve got to do is to present the prizes—very nice prizes, the first’s a silver cigarette case shaped like a revolver—and say how remarkably clever the solver has been.’

      Poirot thought to himself that the solver would indeed have been clever. In fact, he doubted very much that there would be a solver. The whole plot and action of the Murder Hunt seemed to him to be wrapped in impenetrable fog[54].

      ‘Well,’ said Captain Warburton cheerfully, glancing at his wrist-watch, ‘I’d better be off to the printers and collect.’

      Mrs Oliver groaned.

      ‘If they’re not done—’

      ‘Oh, they’re done all right. I telephoned. So long.’

      He left the room.

      Mrs Oliver immediately clutched Poirot by the arm and demanded in a hoarse whisper:

      ‘Well?’

      ‘Well—what?’

      ‘Have you found out anything? Or spotted anybody?’

      Poirot replied with mild reproof in his tones:

      ‘Everybody and everything seems to me completely normal.’

      ‘Normal?’

      ‘Well, perhaps that is not quite the right word. Lady Stubbs, as you say, is definitely subnormal, and Mr Legge would appear to be rather abnormal.’

      ‘Oh, he’s all right,’ said Mrs Oliver impatiently. ‘He’s had a nervous breakdown.’

      Poirot did not question the somewhat doubtful wording of this sentence but accepted it at its face value.

      ‘Everybody appears to be in the expected state of nervous agitation, high excitement, general fatigue, and strong irritation, which are characteristic of preparations for this form of entertainment. If you could only indicate—’

      ‘Sh!’ Mrs Oliver grasped his arm again. ‘Someone’s coming.’

      It was just like a bad melodrama, Poirot felt, his own irritation mounting.

      The pleasant mild face of Miss Brewis appeared round the door.

      ‘Oh, there you are, M. Poirot. I’ve been looking for you to show you your room.’

      She led him up the staircase and along a passage to a big airy room looking out over the river.

      ‘There is a bathroom just opposite. Sir George talks of adding more bathrooms, but to do so would sadly impair the proportions of the rooms. I hope you’ll

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