Arlena Stuart had come to the water’s edge. Two young men, little more than boys, had sprung up and come eagerly toward her. She stood smiling at them. Her eyes slid past them to where Patrick Redfern was coming along the beach. It was, Hercule Poirot thought, like watching the needle of a compass. Patrick Redfern was deflected, his feet changed their direction. The needle, do what it will, must obey the law of magnetism and turn to the North. Patrick Redfern’s feet brought him to Arlena Stuart.
She stood smiling at him. Then she moved slowly along the beach by the side of the waves. Patrick Redfern went with her. She stretched herself out by a rock. Redfern dropped to the shingle beside her. Abruptly, Christine Redfern got up and went into the hotel.
There was an uncomfortable little silence after she had left.
Then Emily Brewster said: “It’s rather too bad. She’s a nice little thing. They’ve only been married a year or two.”
“Gal I was speaking of,” said Major Barry, “the one in Simla. She upset a couple of really happy marriages. Seemed a pity, what?”
“There’s a type of woman,” said Miss Brewster, “who likes smashing up homes.” She added after a minute or two, “Patrick Redfern’s a fool!”
Hercule Poirot said nothing. He was gazing down the beach, but he was not looking at Patrick Redfern and Arlena Stuart. Miss Brewster said:
“Well, I’d better go and get hold of my boat.” She left them.
Major Barry turned his boiled gooseberry eyes with mild curiosity on Poirot.
“Well, Poirot,” he said. “What are you thinking about? You’ve not opened your mouth. What do you think of the siren? Pretty hot?”
Poirot said: “C’est possible.”
“Now then, you old dog. I know you Frenchmen!”
Poirot said coldly: “I am not a Frenchman!”
“Well, don’t tell me you haven’t got an eye for a pretty girl! What do you think of her, eh?”
Hercule Poirot said: “She is not young.”
“What does that matter? A woman’s as old as she looks! Her looks are all right.”
Hercule Poirot nodded.
He said: “Yes, she is beautiful. But it is not beauty that counts in the end. It is not beauty that makes every head (except one) turn on the beach to look at her.”
“It’s it, my boy,” said the Major. “That’s what it is – it.” Then he said with sudden curiosity: “What are you looking at so steadily?”
Hercule Poirot replied: “I’m looking at the exception. At the one man who did not look up when she passed.”
Major Barry followed his gaze to where it rested on a man of about forty, fair-haired and sun-tanned.
