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"Well - I - er - couldn't say as to the exact time."
"Ah," said Sugden. "But we can! We always check up on these things very carefully. Very carefully
indeed. The call was put through at 8:59 and it was terminated at 9:04. Your father, Mr Lee, was killed
about 9:15. I must ask you once more for an account of your movements."
"I've told you - I was telephoning!"
"No, Mr Lee, you weren't."
"Nonsense - you must have made a mistake! Well, I may, perhaps, have just finished telephoning - I
think I debated making another call - was just considering whether it was - er - worth - the expense -
when I heard the noise upstairs."
"You would hardly debate whether or not to make a telephone call for ten minutes."
George went purple. He began to splutter.
"What do you mean? What the devil do you mean? Damned impudence! Are you doubting my word?
Doubting the word of a man of my position. I - er - why should I have to account for every minute of
my time?"
Superintendent Sugden said with a stolidness that Poirot admired: "It's usual."
George turned angrily on the chief constable.
"Colonel Johnson. Do you countenance this - this unprecedented attitude?"
The chief constable said crisply: "In a murder case, Mr Lee, these questions must be asked - and
answered."
"I have answered them! I had finished telephoning and was - er - debating a further call."
"You were in this room when the alarm was raised upstairs?"
"I was - yes, I was."
Johnson turned to Magdalene.
"I think, Mrs Lee," he said, "that you stated that you were telephoning when the alarm broke out, and
that at the time you were alone in this room?"
Magdalene was flustered. She caught her breath, looked sideways at George - at Sugden, then
appealingly at Colonel Johnson. She said: "Oh, really - I don't know - I don't remember what I said... I
was so upset..."
Sugden said: "We've got it all written down, you know."
She turned her batteries on him - wide appealing eyes - quivering mouth. But she met in return the rigid
aloofness of a man of stern respectability who didn't approve of her type.
She said uncertainly: "I - I - of course I telephoned. I can't be quite sure just when -"
She stopped.
George said: "What's all this? Where did you telephone from? Not in here."
Superintendent Sugden said: "I suggest, Mrs Lee, that you didn't telephone at all. In that case, where
were you and what were you doing?"
Magdalene glanced distractedly about her and burst into tears. She sobbed: "George, don't let them bully
me! You know that if anyone frightens me and thunders questions at me, I can't remember anything at
all! I - I don't know what I was saying that night - it was all so horrible - and I was so upset - and they're
being so beastly to me..."
She jumped up and ran sobbing out of the room.
Springing up, George Lee blustered: "What d'you mean? I won't have my wife bullied and frightened
out of her life! She's very sensitive. It's disgraceful! I shall have a question asked in the House about the
disgraceful bullying methods of the police. It's absolutely disgraceful!"
He strode out of the room and banged the door.
Superintendent Sugden threw his head back and laughed.
He said: "We've got them going properly! Now we'll see!"
Johnson said frowning: "Extraordinary business! Looks fishy. We must get a further statement out of
her."
Sugden said easily: "Oh! She'll be back in a minute or two. When she's decided what to say. Eh, Mr
Poirot?"
Poirot, who had been sitting in a dream, gave a start.
"Pardon!"
"I said she'll be back."
"Probably - yes, possibly - oh, yes!"
Sugden said, staring at him: "What's the matter, Mr Poirot? Seen a ghost?"
Poirot said slowly: "You know - I am not sure that I have not done just exactly that."
Colonel Johnson said impatiently: "Well, Sugden, anything else?"
Sugden said: "I've been trying to check up on the order in which everyone arrived on the scene of the
murder. It's quite clear what must have happened. After the murder when the victim's dying cry had
given the alarm, the murderer slipped out, locked the door with pliers, or something of that kind, and a
moment or two later became one of the people hurrying to the scene of the crime. Unfortunately it's not
easy to check exactly whom everyone has seen because people's memories aren't very accurate on a
point like that. Tressilian says he saw Harry and Alfred Lee cross the hall from the dining-room and
race upstairs. That lets them out, but we don't suspect them anyway. As far as I can make out. Miss
Estravados got there late - one of the last. The general idea seems to be that Farr, Mrs George, and Mrs
David were the first. Each of those three says one of the others was just ahead of them. That's what's so
difficult, you can't distinguish between a deliberate lie and a genuine haziness of recollection.
Everybody ran there - that's agreed, but in what order they ran isn't so easy to get at."
Poirot said slowly: "You think that important?"
Sugden said: "It's the time element. The time, remember, was incredibly short."
Poirot said: "I agree with you that the time element is very important in this case."
Sugden went on: "What makes it more difficult is that there are two staircases. There's the main one in
the hall here about equidistant from the dining-room and the drawing-room doors. Then there's one the
other end of the house. Stephen Farr came up by the latter. Miss Estravados came along the upper
landing from that end of the house (her room is right the other end). The others say they went up by this
one."
Poirot said: "It is a confusion, yes."
The door opened and Magdalene came quickly in. She was breathing fast and had a bright spot of
colour in each cheek. She came up to the table and said quietly: "My husband thinks I'm lying down. I
slipped out of my room quietly. Colonel Johnson," she appealed to him with wide, distressed eyes, "if I
tell you the truth you will keep quiet about it, won't you? I mean you don't have to make everything
public?"
Colonel Johnson said: "You mean, I take it, Mrs Lee, something that has no connection with the crime?"
"Yes, no connection at all. Just something in my - my private life."
The chief constable said: "You'd better make a clean breast of it, Mrs Lee, and leave us to judge."
Magdalene said, her eyes swimming: "Yes, I will trust you. I know I can. You look so kind. You see, it's
like this. There's somebody -" She stopped.
"Yes, Mrs Lee?"
"I wanted to telephone to somebody last night - a man - a friend of mine, and I didn't want George to
know about it. I know it was very wrong of me - but well, it was like that. So I went to telephone after
dinner when I thought George would be safely in the dining-room. But when I got here I heard him
telephoning, so I waited."
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