implications of the position.
“Mademoiselle, I must ask you one question, and you must answer it truthfully, for on it everything may hang: What time was it when you parted from Captain Ralph Paton in the summerhouse? Now, take a little minute so that your answer may be very exact.”
The girl gave a half laugh, bitter enough in all conscience.
“Do you think I haven’t gone over that again and again in my own mind? It was just half-past nine when I went out to meet him. Major Blunt was walking up and down the terrace, so I had to go round through the bushes to avoid him. It must have been about twenty-seven minutes to ten when I reached the summerhouse. Ralph was waiting for me. I was with him ten minutes—not longer, for it was just a quarter to ten when I got back to the house.”
I saw now the insistence of her question the other day. If only Ackroyd could have been proved to have been killed before a quarter to ten, and not after.
I saw the reflection of that thought in Poirot’s next question.
“Who left the summerhouse first?”
“I did.”
“Leaving Ralph Paton in the summerhouse?”
“Yes—but you don’t think—”
“Mademoiselle, it is of no importance what I think. What did you do when you got back to the house?”
“I went up to my room.”
“And stayed there until when?”