Twenty-eight COLIN LAMB’S NARRATIVE¹ I

I arrived at Crowdean at eleven o’clock at night, five days later. I went to the Clarendon Hotel, gota room, and went to bed. I’d been tired the night before and I overslept. I woke up at a quarter toten.
I sent for coffee and toast and a daily paper. It came and with it a large square note addressed tome with the words BY HAND in the top left-hand corner.
I examined it with some surprise. It was unexpected. The paper was thick and expensive, thesuperscription neatly² printed.
After turning it over and playing with it, I finally opened it.
Inside was a sheet of paper. Printed on it in large letters were the words:
CURLEW HOTEL 11:30
ROOM 413
(Knock three times)
I stared at it, turned it over in my hand—what was all this?
I noted³ the room number—413—the same as the clocks. A coincidence? Or not a coincidence.
I had thoughts of ringing the Curlew Hotel. Then I thought of ringing Dick Hardcastle. I didn’tdo either.
My lethargy was gone. I got up, shaved, washed, dressed and walked along the front to theCurlew Hotel and got there at the appointed time.
The summer season was pretty well over now. There weren’t many people about inside thehotel.
I didn’t make any inquiries⁴ at the desk. I went up in the lift to the fourth floor and walked alongthe corridor to No. 413.
I stood there for a moment or two: then, feeling a complete fool, I knocked three times….
A voice said, “Come in.”
I turned the handle, the door wasn’t locked. I stepped inside and stopped dead.
I was looking at the last person on earth I would have expected to see.
Hercule Poirot sat facing me. He beamed at me.
“Une petite surprise, n’est-ce pas?” he said. “But a pleasant one, I hope.”
“Poirot, you old fox,” I shouted. “How did you get here?”
“I got here in a Daimler limousine—most comfortable.”
“But what are you doing here?”
“It was most vexing⁵. They insisted,

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