"A thousand thanks for your hospitality, Mesdemoiselles," he cried; "it has been a most charming luncheon. Ma foi, I needed it!" He swelled out his chest and thumped it. "I am now a lion—a giant. Ah, Mademoiselle Katherine, you have not seen me as I can be. You have seen the gentle, the calm Hercule Poirot; but there is another Hercule Poirot. I go now to bully, to threaten, to strike terror into the hearts of those who listen to me."
He looked at them in a self-satisfied way, and they both appeared to be duly impressed, though Lenox was biting her under lip, and the corners of Katherine's mouth had a suspicious twitch.
"And I shall do it," he said gravely. "Oh yes, I shall succeed."
He had gone but a few steps when Katherine's voice made him turn.
"M. Poirot, I—I want to tell you. I think you were right in what you said. I am going back to England almost immediately."
Poirot stared at her very hard, and under the directness of his scrutiny she blushed.
"I see," he said gravely.
"I don't believe you do," said Katherine.
"I know more than you think, Mademoiselle," he said quietly.
He left her, with an odd little smile upon his lips. Entering a waiting car, he drove to Antibes.