Very deliberately and carefully Poirot retold the conversation he had held with Shaitana at Wessex House.

Superintendent Battle pursed his lips. He very nearly whistled.

"Exhibits – eh? Murderers all alive, oh! And you think he meant it? You don't think he was pulling your leg?"

Poirot shook his head. "Oh, no, he meant it. Shaitana was a man who prided himself on his Mephistophelean attitude toward life. He was a man of great vanity. He was also a stupid man – that is why he is dead."

"I get you," said Superintendent Battle, following things out in his mind. "A party of eight and himself. Four sleuths, so to speak – and four murderers!"

"It's impossible," cried Mrs. Oliver. "Absolutely impossible. None of those people can be criminals."

Superintendent Battle shook his head thoughtfully.

"I wouldn't be so sure of that, Mrs. Oliver. Murderers look and behave very much like everybody else. Nice, quiet, well-behaved reasonable folk, very often."

"In that case, it's Doctor Roberts," said Mrs. Oliver firmly. "I felt instinctively that there was something wrong with that man as soon as I saw him. My instincts never lie."

Battle turned to Colonel Race.

"What do you think, sir?"

Race shrugged his shoulders. He took the question as referring to Poirot's statement and not to Mrs. Oliver's suspicions. "It could be," he said. "It could be. It shows that Shaitana was right in one case, at least! After all he can only have suspected that these people were murderers, he can't have been sure. He may have been right in all four cases, he may have been right in only one case – but he was right in one case; his death proves that."

"One of them got the wind up – think that's it, Monsieur Poirot?"

Poirot nodded. "The late Mr. Shaitana had a reputation," he said. "He had a dangerous sense of humor and was reputed to be merciless. The victim thought that Shaitana was giving himself an evening's amusement, leading up to a moment when he'd hand the victim over to the police – you! He or she must have thought that Shaitana had definite evidence."