“Where should I find him, mademoiselle?”

 

“I thought, perhaps, you’d found him in Cranchester,” said Caroline, with

intense meaning in her tone.

 

Poirot looked merely bewildered.

 

“In Cranchester? But why in Cranchester?”

 

I enlightened him with a touch of malice.

 

“One of our ample staff of private detectives happened to see you in a car on

the Cranchester road yesterday,” I explained.

 

Poirot’s bewilderment vanished. He laughed heartily.

 

“Ah, that! A simple visit to the dentist, _c’est tout_. My tooth, it aches. I go

there. My tooth, it is at once better. I think to return quickly. The dentist,

he says No. Better to have it out. I argue. He insists. He has his way! That

particular tooth, it will never ache again.”

 

Caroline collapsed rather like a pricked balloon.

 

We fell to discussing Ralph Paton.