“Well, it did to me. I said nothing to you because I did not want to upset you unnecessarily⁠—but I took measures of my own. Your wife’s letters all seem to have been written from the ranch, but in reality she has been in a place of safety devised by me for over three months.”

I looked at him for a long time.

“You are sure of that?”

“ Parbleu! I know it. They tortured you with a lie!”

I turned my head aside. Poirot put his hand on my shoulder. There was something in his voice that I had never heard there before.

“You like not that I should embrace you or display the emotion, I know well. I will be very British. I will say nothing⁠—but nothing at all. Only this⁠—that in this last adventure of ours, the honours are all with you, and happy is the man who has such a friend as I have!”