They went into the morning room.
Nurse Hopkins exclaimed:
“Well, I never, she’s fallen asleep.”
Mary Gerrard was sitting in a big armchair by the window. She had dropped down a little in it. There was a queer sound in the room: stertorous, laboured breathing.
Nurse Hopkins went across and shook the girl.
“Wake up, my dear—”
She broke off. She bent lower, pulled down an eyelid. Then she started shaking the girl in grim earnest.
She turned on Elinor. There was something menacing in her voice as she said:
“What’s all this?”
Elinor said:
“I don’t know what you mean. Is she ill?”
Nurse Hopkins said:
“Where’s the phone? Get hold of Dr. Lord as soon as you can.”
Elinor said:
“What’s the matter?”
“The matter? The girl’s ill. She’s dying.”
Elinor recoiled a step.
“Dying?”
Nurse Hopkins said:
“She’s been poisoned….”
Her eyes, hard with suspicion, glared at Elinor.
PART II
One
Hercule Poirot, his egg-shaped head gently tilted to one side, his eyebrows raised inquiringly, his fingertips joined together, watched the young man who was striding so savagely up and down the room, his pleasant freckled face puckered and drawn.
Hercule Poirot said:
“Eh bien, my friend, what is all this?”
Peter Lord stopped dead in his pacing.
He said:
“M. Poirot. You’re the only man in the world who can help me. I’ve heard Stillingfleet talk about you; he’s told me what you did in that Benedict Farley case. How every mortal soul thought it was suicide and you showed that it was murder.”
Hercule Poirot said: