"No, no, you do not understand. She is safe and well. She has never been in their hands for one instant."
"But I got a cable from Bronsen?"
"No, no, you did not. You may have got a cable from South America signed Bronsen—that is a very different matter. Tell me, has it never occurred to you that an organisation of this kind, with ramifications all over the world, might easily strike at us through that little girl, Cinderella, whom you love so well?"
"No, never," I replied.
"Well, it did to me. I said nothing to you because I did not want to upset you unnecessarily—but I took measures of my own. Your wife's letters all seem to have been written from the ranch, but in reality she has been in a place of safety devised by me for over three months."
I looked at him for a long time.
"You are sure of that?"
"Parbleu! I know it. They tortured you with a lie!"
I turned my head aside. Poirot put his hand on my shoulder. There was something in his voice that I had never heard there before.
"You like not that I should embrace you or display the emotion, I know well. I will be very British. I will say nothing—but nothing at all. Only this—that in this last adventure of ours, the honours are all with you, and happy is the man who has such a friend as I have!"