“Sure of that time—quarter to twelve?”
Linda, opening her eyes wide, said:
“Oh yes. I looked at my watch.”
“The watch you have on now?”
Linda glanced down at her wrist.
“Yes.”
Weston said:
“Mind if I see?”
She held our her wrist. He compared the watch with his own and with the hotel clock on the wall.
He said, smiling:
“Correct to a second. And after that you had a bathe?”
“Yes.”
“And you got back to the hotel—when?”
“Just about one o’clock. And—and then—I heard—about Arlena….”
Her voice changed.
Colonel Weston said:
“Did you—er—get on with your stepmother all right?”
She looked at him for a minute without replying. Then she said:
“Oh yes
.”
Poirot asked:
“Did you like her, Mademoiselle?”
Linda said again:
“Oh yes.” She added: “Arlena was quite kind to me.”
Weston said with rather uneasy facetiousness.
“Not the cruel stepmother, eh?”
Linda shook her head without smiling.
Weston said:
“That’s good. That’s good. Sometimes, you know, there’s a bit of difficulty in families—jealousy—all that. Girl and her father great pals and then she resents it a bit when he’s all wrapped up in the new wife. You didn’t feel like that, eh?”
Linda stared at him. She said with obvious sincerity: