The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories (Hercule Poirot 21)

that, though Miss Lemon used the word "tore,"

she had neatly cut the entry out with scissors,

Poirot read the announcement taken from the

Births, Deaths and Marriages in the Morning

Post: "On March 26th--suddenly--at Rosebank,

Charman's Green, Amelia Jane Barrowby, in her

58

Agatha Christie

seventy-third year. No flowers, by request."

Poirot read it over. He murmured under his

breath, "Suddenly." Then he said briskly, "If

you will be so obliging as to take a letter, Miss

Lemon?"

The pencil hovered. Miss Lemon, her mind

dwelling on the intricacies of the filing system,

took down in rapid and correct shorthand:

Dear Miss Barrowby: I have received no

reply from you, but as I shall be in the neigh-borhood

of Charman's Green on Friday, I

will call upon you on that day and discuss

more fully the matter you mentioned to me in

your letter.

Yours, etc.

"Type this letter, please; and if it is posted at

once, it should get to Charman's Green tonight."

On the following morning a letter in a black-edged

envelope arrived by the second post:

Dear Sir: In reply to your letter my aunt,

Miss Barrowby, passed away on the twenty-sixth,

so the matter you speak of is no longer