It was only when he was sitting alone in a third-class smoking-carriage, staring out of the window at Melbury Bub, that the full bitterness of this last piece of news grew ripe for tasting.

“She ought to have known I’d look in today,” he thought. “She ought to have known it.” And then he thought: “Natural enough to go to Weymouth on a sunshiny March day! Mr. Malakite⁠ ⁠… and his daughter⁠ ⁠… at Weymouth. I expect they’ll lie down on those dry sands where the donkeys are. They’ll probably have lunch at the ‘Dorothy’ and then go for a row, or cross over the ferry to the Nothe and walk to Sandsfoot Castle. Perhaps they’ll go past Brunswick Terrace and walk across Lodmore.”

Oh, it was all natural enough! If only he hadn’t come across that exercise-book. But an imaginative girl like Christie might exaggerate a thousand little nothings. Besides, Slate was a story. It wasn’t a diary. It revealed nothing⁠ ⁠… nothing at all⁠ ⁠… except her thoughts!