“Very good. That gives us exactly a quarter of an hour in which the crime must have been committed. I make a list of everyone in the house, and work through it, setting down opposite their names where they were and what they were doing between the hour of 9:45 and 10 p.m. ”

He handed a sheet of paper to Poirot. I read it over his shoulder. It ran as follows, written in a neat script: