“Yes, but now⁠—” Van Aldin looked searchingly at the other. “What actually happened? Tell me that, M. Poirot.”

Poirot shrugged his shoulders.

“It is quite simple,” he said; “someone stepped in ahead of the Comte.”

There was a long pause.

Van Aldin seemed to be turning things over in his mind. When he spoke it was without beating about the bush.

“How long have you suspected my son-in-law, M. Poirot?”