To our great surprise our visitor proved to be Bryan Martin.

The actor looked older by daylight. He was still handsome, but it was a kind of ravaged handsomeness. It flashed across my mind that he might conceivably take drugs. There was a kind of nervous tension about him that suggested the possibility.

‘Good morning, M. Poirot,’ he said in a cheerful manner. ‘You and Captain Hastings breakfast at a reasonable hour, I am glad to see. By the way, I suppose you are very busy just now?’ 

Poirot smiled at him amiably.

‘No,’ he said. ‘At the moment I have practically no business of importance on hand.’

‘Come now,’ laughed Bryan. ‘Not called in by Scotland Yard? No delicate matters to investigate for Royalty? I can hardly believe it.’

‘You confound fiction with reality, my friend,’ said Poirot, smiling. ‘I am, I assure you, at the moment completely out of work, though not yet on the dole.Dieu merci.’

‘Well, that’s luck for me,’ said Bryan with another laugh. ‘Perhaps you’ll take on something for me.’

Poirot considered the young man thoughtfully.

‘You have a problem for me-yes?’ he said in a minute or two.

‘Well-it’s like this. I have and I haven’t.’

This time his laugh was rather nervous. Still considering him thoughtfully, Poirot indicated a chair. The young man took it. He sat facing us, for I had taken a seat by Poirot’s side.

‘And now,’ said Poirot, ‘let us hear all about it.’

Bryan Martin still seemed to have a little difficulty in getting under way.

‘The trouble is that I can’t tell you quite as much as I’d like to.’ He hesitated. ‘It’s difficult. You see, the whole business started in America.’

‘In America? Yes?’ 

‘A mere incident first drew my attention to it. As a matter of fact, I was travelling by train and I noticed a certain fellow. Ugly little chap, clean-shaven, glasses, and a gold tooth.’