"Your sister?" Hercule Poirot repeated, therefore, with an incredulous note in his voice.

Miss Lemon nodded a vigorous assent.

"Yes," she said. "I don't think I've ever mentioned her to you. Practically all her life has been spent in Singapore. Her husband was in the rubber business there." Hercule Poirot nodded understandingly. It seemed to him appropriate that Miss Lemon's sister should have spent most of her life in Singapore. That was what places like Singapore were for. The sisters of women like Miss Lemon married men in business in Singapore, so that the Miss Lemons of this world could devote themselves with machine-like efficiency to their employers" affairs (and of course to the invention of filing systems in their moments of relaxation).

"I comprehend," he said. "Proceed." Miss Lemon proceeded.

"She was left a widow four years ago. No children.

I managed to get her fixed up in a very nice little flat at quite a reasonable rent-was (of course Miss Lemon would manage to do just that almost impossible thing.) "She is reasonably off-Sough money doesn't go as far as it did, but her tastes aren't expensive and she has enough to be quite comfortable if she is careful." Miss Lemon paused and then continued: "But the truth is, of course, she was lonely. She had never lived in England and she'd got no old friends or cronies and of course she had a lot of time on her hands. Anyway, she told me about six months ago that she was thinking of taking up this job." "Job?, "Warden, I think they call it-or Matron of a Hostel for Students. It was owned by a woman who was partly Greek and she wanted someone to run it for her.

Manage the catering and see that things went smoothly.

It's an old fashioned roomy house-in Hickory Road, if you know where that is" Poirot did not. "It used to be quite a superior neighbourhood once, and the houses are well built. My sister was to have very nice accommodation, bedroom and sitting room and a tiny bath kitchenette of her own" Miss Lemon paused. Poirot made an encouraging noise. So far this did not seem at all like a tale of disaster.