All faces were turned to him.
"I should make it very simple, I think. There's always accident – a shooting accident for instance – or the domestic kind of accident."
Then he shrugged his shoulders and picked up his wineglass. "But who am I to pronounce – with so many experts present?"
He drank. The candlelight threw a red shade from the wine onto his face with its waxed mustache, its little imperial, its fantastic eyebrows.
There was a momentary silence.
Mrs. Oliver said, "Is it twenty to or twenty past? An angel passing. My feet are crossed – it must be a black angel!"
Chapter 3
A GAME OF BRIDGE
When the company returned to the drawing-room a bridge table had been set out. Coffee was handed round.
"Who plays bridge?" asked Mr. Shaitana. "Mrs. Lorrimer, I know. And Doctor Roberts. Do you play, Miss Meredith?"
"Yes. I'm not frightfully good, though."
"Excellent. And Major Despard? Good. Supposing you four play here."
"Thank goodness there's to be bridge," said Mrs. Lorrimer in an aside to Poirot. "I'm one of the worst bridge fiends that ever lived. It's growing on me. I simply will not go out to dinner now if there's no bridge afterward! I just fall asleep. I'm ashamed of myself, but there it is."
They cut for partners. Mrs. Lorrimer was partnered with Anne Meredith against Major Despard and Doctor Roberts.
"Women against men," said Mrs. Lorrimer as she took her seat and began shuffling the cards in an expert manner. "The blue cards, don't you think, partner? I'm a forcing two."
"Mind you win," said Mrs. Oliver, her feminist feelings rising. "Show the men they can't have it all their own way."
"They haven't got a hope, the poor dears," said Doctor Roberts cheerfully as he started shuffling the other pack. "Your deal, I think, Mrs. Lorrimer."