"There is a lady below, asking for Mr Hastings."
"A lady?"
I jumped up. Poirot followed me down the narrow stairs. Mary
Cavendish was standing in the doorway.
"I have been visiting an old woman in the village," she
explained, "and as Lawrence told me you were with Monsieur Poirot
I thought I would call for you."
"Alas, madame," said Poirot, "I thought you had come to honour me
with a visit!"
"I will some day, if you ask me," she promised him, smiling.
"That is well. If you should need a father confessor, madame"
--she started ever so slightly--"remember, Papa Poirot is always
at your service."
She stared at him for a few minutes, as though seeking to read
some deeper meaning into his words. Then she turned abruptly
away.
"Come, will you not walk back with us too, Monsieur Poirot?"
"Enchanted, madame."
All the way to Styles, Mary talked fast and feverishly. It
struck me that in some way she was nervous of Poirot's eyes.
The weather had broken, and the sharp wind was almost autumnal in
its shrewishness.
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