I opened my eyes in surprise.
“Anger against his son, of course.”
“Yet he wrote him affectionate letters to Paris?”
“So Jack Renauld says, but he cannot produce them.”
“Well, let us pass from that.”
“Now we come to the day of the tragedy. You have placed the events of the morning in a certain order. Have you any justification for that?”
“I have ascertained that the letter to me was posted at the same time as the telegram was dispatched. Masters was informed he could take a holiday shortly afterward. In my opinion the quarrel with the tramp took place anterior to these happenings.”
“I do not see that you can fix that definitely—unless you question Mademoiselle Daubreuil again.”
“There is no need. I am sure of it. And if you do not see that, you see nothing, Hastings!”
I looked at him for a moment.
“Of course! I am an idiot. If the tramp was Georges Conneau, it was after the stormy interview with him that Mr. Renauld apprehended danger. He sent away the chauffeur, Masters, whom he suspected of being in the other’s pay, he wired to his son, and sent for you.”
A faint smile crossed Poirot’s lips.
“You do not think it strange that he should use exactly the same expressions in his letter as Madame Renauld used later in her story? If the mention of Santiago was a blind, why should Renauld speak of it, and—what is more—send his son there?”
“It is puzzling, I admit, but perhaps we shall find some explanation later. We come now to the evening, and the visit of the mysterious lady. I confess that that fairly baffles me, unless it was Madame Daubreuil, as Françoise all along maintained.”
Poirot shook his head.
“My friend, my friend, where are your wits wandering? Remember the fragment of check and the fact that the name
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