“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—”