six costumes but then reveals that there were actually five. Underneath Pierrot's loose garb is that of the slimmer-fitting Harlequin. Davidson leaps forward and curses Poirot but is quickly arrested by Japp. Poirot reveals that the strength with which the knife was plunged into Cronshaw meant that a man was responsible for the crime. The stiffness of the body meant he had been dead for some time and not killed in the ten-minute interval between being seen in the box and then being found dead on the floor, therefore the figure seen as Harlequin was one of the others. It could not have been Beltane as his costume was too elaborate to change quickly. Davidson killed Cronshaw earlier, hid the body in the curtained recess, then took Courtenay home where he fed her an overdose of the drug. He did not stay there as he claimed but returned immediately. His motive was self-preservation as it was he who had been supplying Courtenay with drugs and Cronshaw was on the point of finding out and exposing him. "The Adventure of the Clapham Cook" Poirot is not interested in investigating some of the cases which appear in the newspapers and which Hastings tries to bring to his attention. These include a bank clerk (Mr Davis) who disappears with fifty thousand pounds of securities, a suicidal man and a missing typist. He is put on the spot though when visited by a Mrs Todd who is determined that he investigate her missing cook. Challenged, he decides, with some humour and to avoid an argument, to take the seemingly trivial case. Eliza Dunn, a middle-aged woman, walked out of her job and the Todds' house in Clapham two days ago without working her notice and has not communicated with her employer since, except for sending for her trunk that day. Interviewing the maid in the house, Poirot finds out that the trunk was already packed, meaning that Eliza had planned to leave even though her departure was swift. The other occupants of the house are Mr Todd, who works in the City, and their lodger, Mr Simpson, who works in the same bank at which Mr Davis worked. Struck by this coincidence as he is, Poirot cannot see a connection between an absconding bank clerk and a missing cook. Poirot places advertisements in the newspaper enquiring as to the whereabouts of Eliza and several