She looked from one to the other of them, giggling a little, but her eyes were sharp and anxious, belying the affected gaiety of her words.
Lydia’s eyebrows rose. She said:
‘I must go and wash before lunch.’
Magdalene said, still with that affectation of childishness, but unable to keep the desperate note out of her voice:
‘I must just peep!’
She unrolled the piece of paper and gave a sharp exclamation. She stared at the thing in her hand.
Lydia stopped and Hilda too. Both women stared.
Magdalene said in a puzzled voice:
‘It’s a false moustache. But—but—why?’
Hilda said doubt
fully:
‘Disguise? But—’
Lydia finished the sentence for her.
‘But M. Poirot has a very fine moustache of his own!’
Magdalene was wrapping the parcel up again. She said:
‘I don’t understand. It’s—it’s mad. Why does M. Poirot buy a false moustache?’
II
When Pilar left the drawing-room she walked slowly along the hall. Stephen Farr was coming in through the garden door. He said:
‘Well? Is the family conclave over? Has the will been read?’
Pilar said, her breath coming fast:
‘I have got nothing—nothing at all! It was a will made many years ago. My grandfather left money to my mother, but because she is dead it does not go to me but goes back to them.’
Stephen said:
‘That seems rather hard lines.’
Pilar said:
‘If that old man had lived, he would have made another will. He would have left money to me—a lot of money! Perhaps in time he would have left me all the money!’
Stephen said, smiling:
‘That wouldn’t have been very fair either, would it?’
‘Why not? He would have liked me best, that is all.’
Stephen said:
‘What a greedy child you are. A real little gold-digger.’