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"What is it?"
Mrs. Rice answered him in the quiet hopeless tone of despair:
"Those women are going to blackmail us. They heard
everything last night. And it makes the whole thing a thousand times
worse..."
VI

Harold Waring was walking despairingly by the lake. He came
at last to the spot where he had first noticed the two grim women who
held his and Elsie's life in their evil hands. He said aloud:
"Curse them! Damn this pair of devilish blood-sucking
harpies."
A slight cough made him turn round. He saw the moustached
stranger who had just come out from the shade of the trees.
Harold murmured unhappily:
"Er – oh – good afternoon."
In perfect English the other replied:
"But for you, I fear, it is not a good afternoon?"
"Well, er – I – "
The little man said:
"You are, I think, in trouble, Monsieur? Can I be of any
assistance to you?"
"Oh, no, thanks."
The other said gently:
"I am Hercule Poirot. Shall we walk a little way into the wood
and you shall tell me your story? As I say, I think I can help you."
To this day Harold is not quite certain what made him suddenly
give the whole story to a man he had only spoken to a few minutes
before. Anyway, it happened. He told Hercule Poirot the whole story.
The latter listened in silence. When Harold came to a stop the
other said dreamily:
"The Stymphalean Birds, with iron beaks, - who feed on human
flesh and who live by the Stymphalean Lake..."
"I beg your pardon," said Harold staring.
Perhaps, he thought, this curious-looking little man is mad.
Hercule Poirot smiled:
"I reflect, that is all. I have my own way of looking at things,
you understand. Now as to this business of yours. It is a serious