Yes, she did.
That is quite right.’
‘And you were satisfied with her whilst she was with you?
How long was she with you, by the way?’
‘Oh! a year or two - I can’t remember exactly how long. She - she is very capable.
I’m sure you will find her quite satisfactory.
I didn’t know she was leaving Fernly. I hadn’t the least idea of it.’
‘Can you tell me anything about her?’ I asked. ‘Anything about her?’
‘Yes, where she comes from, who her people are - that sort of thing?’
Mrs Folliott’s face wore more than ever its frozen look.
‘I don’t know at all.’
‘Who was she with before she came to you?’
‘I’m afraid I don’t remember.’
There was a spark of anger now underlying her nervousness.
She flung up her head in a gesture that was vaguely familiar.
‘Is it really necessary to ask all these questions?’
‘Not at all,’ I said, with an air of surprise and a tinge of apology in my manner.
‘I had no idea you would mind answering them.
I am very sorry.’
Her anger left her and she became confused again.
‘Oh! I don’t mind answering them. I assure you I don’t. Why should I?
It - it just seemed a little odd, you know. That’s all. A little odd.’
One advantage of being a medical practitioner is that you can usually tell when people are lying to you.
I should have know from Mrs Folliott’s manner, if from nothing else, that she did mind answering my questions - minded intensely.
She was thoroughly uncomfortable and upset, and there was plainly some mystery in the background.
I judged her to be a woman quite unused to deception of any kind, and consequently rendered acutely uneasy when forced to practise u- A child could have seen through her.
But it was also clear the she had no intention of telling me ^ything further.
Whatever the mystery centring round Ursula Bourne might be, I was not going to learn it through Mrs Folliott.
Ill Defeated, I apologized once more for disturbing her, took my hat and departed.
I went to see a couple of patients and arrived home about six o’clock.
Caroline was sitting beside the wreck of tea things.
She had that look of suppressed exultation on her face which I know only too well. It is a sure sign with her of either the getting or the giving of information.
I wondered which it had been.
‘I’ve had a very interesting afternoon,’ began Caroline, as I dropped into my own particular easy-chair and stretched out my feet to the inviting blaze in the fireplace.
‘Have you?’ I said.
‘Miss Gannett drop in to tea?’
Miss Gannett is one of the chief of our newsmongers.
‘Guess again,’ said Caroline, with intense complacency.
I guessed several times, working slowly through all the members of Caroline’s Intelligence Corps. My sister received each guess with a triumphant shake of the head.
In the end she volunteered the information herself.
‘M. Poirot!’ she said.
‘Now, what do you think of that?’
I thought a good many things of it, but I was careful not to say them to Caroline.
‘Why did he come?’ I asked.
‘To see me, of course.
He said that, knowing my brother so well, he hoped he might be permitted to make the acquaintance of his charming sister - your charming sister, I’ve got mixed up - but you know what I mean.’
‘What did he talk about?’ I asked.
‘He told me a lot about himself and his cases.
You know that Prince Paul of Mauretania - the one who’s just married a dancer?’ ‘Yes?’
‘I saw a most intriguing paragraph about her in Society Snippets the other day, hinting that she was really a Russian Grand Duchess - one of the Czar’s daughters who managed to escape from the Bolsheviks.