was his mother. But he turned out badly, he drank, then took to drugs. I managed

to pay his passage out to Canada. I didn’t hear of him for a year or two. Then,

somehow or other, he found out that I was his mother. He wrote asking me for

money. Finally, I heard from him back in this country again. He was coming to

see me at Fernly, he said.

 

I dared not let him come to the house. I have always been considered so—so very

respectable. If any one got an inkling—it would have been all up with my post as

housekeeper. So I wrote to him in the way I have just told you.”

 

“And in the morning you came to see Dr. Sheppard?”

 

“Yes. I wondered if something could be done. He was not a bad boy—before he took

to drugs.”

 

“I see,” said Poirot. “Now let us go on with the story. He came that night to

the summer-house?”

 

“Yes, he was waiting for me when I got there. He was very rough and abusive. I

had brought with me all the money I had, and I gave it to him. We talked a

little, and then he went away.”

 

“What time was that?”

 

“It must have been between twenty and twenty-five minutes past nine. It was not