Having dismissed the last patient, I strolled into the little room at the back of the house which I call my workshop. I am rather proud of the homemade wireless set I turned out. Caroline hates my workroom. I have kept my tools there, and Annie is not allowed to wreak havoc with a dustpan and brush. I was just adjusting the interior of an alarm clock which had been denounced as wholly unreliable by the household, when the door opened and Caroline put her head in.

“Oh! there you are, James,” she said, with deep disapproval. “ M. Poirot wants to see you.”

“Well,” I said, rather irritably, for her sudden entrance had startled me and I had let go of a piece of delicate mechanism, “if he wants to see me, he can come in here.”

“In here?” said Caroline.

“That’s what I said⁠—in here.”