ing voice. “We found this coiled round the handle of the dagger. A woman’s hair.”
“Ah!” said Poirot. “A woman's hair? What woman’s, I wonder?”
“I wonder also,” said Giraud. Then, with a bow, he left us.
“He was insistent, the good Giraud,” said Poirot thoughtfully, as we walked toward the hotel. “I wonder in what direction he hopes to mislead me? A woman’s hair—h’m!”
We lunched heartily, but I found Poirot somewhat distrait and inattentive. Afterward we went up to our sitting-room and there I begged him to tell me something of his mysterious journey to Paris.
“Willingly, my friend. I went to Paris to find this.”
He took from his pocket a small faded newspaper cutting. It was the reproduction of a woman’s photograph. He handed it to me. I uttered an exclamation.
“You recognize it, my friend?”
I nodded. Although the photo obviously dated from very many years back, and the hair was dressed in a different style, the likeness was unmistakable.
“Madame Daubreuil!” I exclaimed.
Poirot shook his head with a smile.
“Not quite correct, my friend. She did not call herself by that name in those days. That is a picture of the notorious Madame Beroldy!”
Madame Beroldy! In a flash the whole thing came back to me. The murder trial that had evoked such world-wide interest.
The Beroldy Case.
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