The neck of Mr. Douglas Gold became slightly red.
Valentine Chantry said:
“Tony darling—would you mind? I want a little pot of face cream—it’s up on the dressing table. I meant to bring it down. Do get it for me—there’s an angel.”
The commander rose obediently. He stalked off into the hotel.
Marjorie Gold plunged into the sea, calling out:
“It’s lovely, Douglas—so warm. Do come.”
Pamela Lyall said to him:
“Aren’t you going in?”
He answered vaguely:
“Oh! I like to get well hotted up first.”
Valentine Chantry stirred. Her head was lifted for a moment as though to recall her husband—but he was just passing inside the wall of the hotel garden.
“I like my dip the last thing,” explained Mr. Gold.
Mrs. Chantry sat up again. She picked up a flask of sunbathing oil. She had some difficulty with it—the screw top seemed to resist her efforts.
She spoke loudly and petulantly.
“Oh, dear—I can’t get this thing undone!”
She looked towards the other group—
“I wonder—”
Always gallant, Poirot rose to his feet, but Douglas Gold had the advantage of youth and suppleness. He was by her side in a moment.
“Can I do it for you?”
“Oh, thank you—” It was the sweet, empty drawl again.
“You are kind. I’m such a fool at undoing things—I always seem to screw them the wrong way. Oh! you’ve done it! Thank you ever so much—”
Hercule Poirot smiled to himself.
He got up and wandered along the beach in the opposite direction. He did not go very far but his progress was leisurely. As he was on his way back, Mrs. Gold came out of the sea and joined him. She had been swimming. Her face, under a singularly unbecoming bathing cap, was radiant.
She said breathlessly, “I do love the sea. And it’s so warm and lovely here.”
She was, he perceived, an enthusiastic bather.
She said, “Douglas and I are simply mad on bathing. He can stay in for hours.”
And at that Hercule Poirot’s eyes slid over her shoulder to the spot on the beach where that enthusiastic bather, Mr. Douglas Gold, was sitting talking to Valentine Chantry.
His wife said:
“I can’t think why he doesn’t come. . . .”
Her voice held a kind of childish bewilderment.