first actions was to ring up the hospital where she was working."

"Well?"

"Well, I learnt that Miss Howard had been on afternoon duty on
Tuesday, and that--a convoy coming in unexpectedly--she had
kindly offered to remain on night duty, which offer was
gratefully accepted. That disposes of that."

"Oh!" I said, rather nonplussed. "Really," I continued, "it's
her extraordinary vehemence against Inglethorp that started me
off suspecting her. I can't help feeling she'd do anything
against him. And I had an idea she might know something about
the destroying of the will. She might have burnt the new one,
mistaking it for the earlier one in his favour. She is so
terribly bitter against him."

"You consider her vehemence unnatural?"

"Y--es. She is so very violent. I wondered really whether she
is quite sane on that point."

Poirot shook his head energetically.

"No, no, you are on a wrong tack there. There is nothing
weak-minded or degenerate about Miss Howard. She is an excellent
specimen of well-balanced English beef and brawn. She is sanity
itself."

"Yet her hatred of Inglethorp seems almost a mania. My idea