Page:The Big Four (Christie).pdf/79

Rh small suit-case, and slips out the next morning. Nobody saw Halliday all that evening—no, because he was already in the hands of his enemies. Was it Halliday whom Madame Olivier received? Yes, for though she did not know him by sight, an impostor could hardly deceive her on her own special subject. He came here, he had his interview, he left. What happened next?”

Seizing me by the arm, Poirot was fairly dragging me back to the villa.

“Now, mon ami, imagine that it is the day after the disappearance, and that we are tracking footprints. You love footprints, do you not? See—here they go, a man’s, Mr. Halliday’s He turns to the right as we did, he walks briskly—ah! other footsteps following behind—very quickly—small footsteps, a woman’s. See, she catches him up—a slim young woman, in a widow’s veil. ‘Pardon, monsieur, Madame Olivier desires that I recall you.’ He stops, he turns. Now where would the young woman take him? She does not wish to be seen walking with him. Is it coincidence that she catches up with him just where a narrow alleyway opens, dividing two gardens. She leads him down it. ‘It is shorter this way, monsieur.’ On the right is the garden of Madame Olivier’s villa, on the