The puzzle of why most people, even intelligent people, were so illogical and pig-headed was one to which Poirot had devoted quite enough consideration while lying awake the previous night... — Sophie Hannah, The Mystery of Three Quarters

A house on the shore of Lough Erne

Near Enniskillen

12 May, 19—

Mrs. Rachael was yelling again. Nothing unusual there. Nellie would have been more surprised if the house had been quiet. Miss Octavia always had a bad effect on Mrs. Rachael's temper. Nellie didn't know what the latest fight was about. Probably Miss Octavia's new hairdo.

Nellie continued clearing away the breakfast dishes. The gardener strolled past the sitting room window pushing a wheelbarrow. A small boat appeared from behind one of the islands out in the lough, then disappeared from view behind the trees at the bottom of the garden. In the background Mrs. Rachael continued yelling, the only discordant note in what was otherwise a perfectly nice morning at Langdale Manor.

Occasionally her flow of words was interrupted when Miss Octavia was finally able to get a word in edgewise. Nellie couldn't hear what they were saying, but knowing George the footman he was outside the study door listening to every word. He'd relay all of it in the servant's hall later.

A shadow suddenly fell over the table. A shape, silhouetted against the brightness outside and with a head shaped like a saucer, pushed the window open and climbed through. Nellie yelped and upset the sugar bowl. For a moment all of the cook's wild stories about ghosts and monsters came back to her. Then she calmed down and forced an embarrassed smile, because it was only Miss Ophelia. What she'd thought was a bizarrely-shaped head was only the brim of Miss Ophelia's hat.

"Breakfast's over, miss," she said, politely pretending there was nothing unusual about her employer's niece climbing through windows. "But I can get you toast and a cup of tea if you want."

"No need," Miss Ophelia said, closing the window behind her. She winced as her aunt's voice reached an especially obnoxious pitch. "I'm about to go into town. I'll get my breakfast there. Is all the luggage packed?"

"Yes, miss. All sitting in the hall and ready to go in the car."

"Good. I've just been down to the boathouse to check the boats are locked up safely. Tell Reginald to get my car ready for me."

Something nagged at Nellie as she carried the breakfast things to the kitchen. She left them with Cook and went in search of Reginald the chauffeur. As she passed the path leading down to the boathouse she realised what it was.

Miss Ophelia said she'd been down there. The rain yesterday had turned the path into a morass. Yet Miss Ophelia's shoes and the hem of her dress had been perfectly clean.

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A police station in Yekaterinodar

20 May, 19—

This was the most ridiculous waste of time Constable Murogov had encountered in his life. Even worse than that time a politician's wife wanted him to arrest a dog for barking at her. It was dinnertime, he was hungry, and instead of being able to go to his favourite restaurant for a nice meal he had to stand in a crowded room and listen to his boss drone on and on interminably.

His only consolation was that his colleagues were as unhappy as he was. There were four of them present, which seemed excessive when they weren't being asked to arrest anyone and the superintendent wasn't making an important announcement. He was, in fact, doing nothing but reading excerpts from their reports for three weeks ago.

And yet there was something strange going on here. Because why did Mr. Turov and Mrs. Turova have to be present? The police hadn't tracked down Mrs. Turova's stolen jewels yet. It seemed rather silly to waste their time too.

Out of the corner of his eye Murogov caught someone making an impatient movement. He glanced over and frowned. Yes, there was definitely something strange going on here. The superintendent didn't make a habit of inviting random civilians into his office for no reason.

Mr. What's-his-name — So? Suh? Sho? Murogov hadn't caught it properly when the superintendent first introduced him, and had never bothered to ask — had been making a nuisance of himself around the police station for the past week, asking all sorts of pointless questions about the Turova jewel theft. Murogov knew only three things about him: that he was a friend of the superintendent's, that he was from China or Mongolia or one of those places, and that he was ridiculously rich. His glasses alone must have cost enough to pay a policeman's salary for a year, and he didn't even need them. Murogov had seen him recognise a person on the other side of the room when he wasn't wearing them.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"In conclusion," the superintendent said. His subordinates brightened up, then immediately tried to look as if they weren't waiting for him to shut up so they could leave, "no unusual activity has been seen anywhere near the Turovs' house since the jewels were brought there. Now I believe Mr. Seo has something to add."

The policemen who had thought they were about to be freed slumped down in despair.

Mr. Seo walked over to stand in front of the superintendent's desk. He turned to face the room at large like an actor about to begin a soliloquy.

"You have heard there were no suspicious-looking loiterers around the Turovs' house," he began.

Murogov and his fellow officers exchanged startled looks. Every time they'd met Mr. Seo before he spoke strongly-accented, ungrammatical Russian like any other tourist. Now he spoke it as perfectly as if he'd lived his whole life in St. Petersburg.

Seo continued, "That is very odd, because Mrs. Turova insists she saw men lurking outside on several occasions. In fact that's why she demanded the police to patrol the street regularly. Curiously, for someone so concerned with the safety of her new jewels, she did not ask to have the house watched constantly.

"Then, on 11th May, the house is broken into and the jewels stolen. Another odd feature in this case: the jewels can only have been stolen in the afternoon, because the Turovs invited their friends over for dinner in the evening. It was during the dinner that Mrs. Turova's maid discovered the robbery and burst into the dining room with the news. The jewels had most certainly not been stolen earlier, because Mrs. Turova wore them to the opera the night before. Yet the Turovs were home all day. I ask you, what self-respecting thief would take such a risk as to break into a house in broad daylight while the owners were there?"

A sudden movement in the audience interrupted him. Mrs. Turova had started to get up when her husband pulled her down again. She rounded on him as if she was about to strike him, then thought better of it. Seo waited until they'd both settled down again. He was smiling faintly, Murogov noticed, like a theatre-goer who had seen this play before and knew a humorous scene was about to begin.

"I have examined the house, the room where the robbery was committed, and the box the jewels were taken from. Now I have a story to tell you all which I think you will find interesting.

"A woman buys a set of expensive jewellery. Shortly afterwards she discovers they are fake. Her humiliation is great. No one must know of this! But if she continues to wear them it's only a matter of time before someone suspects. So she and her husband make a plan. They will pretend someone is planning to rob them. They inform the police and apparently take precautions. Then, before she goes down to dinner, the woman removes them from their box and hides them in her husband's study, to be dealt with later. She stages the scene to look like a robbery. The apparent robbery is discovered. Everything goes according to plan.

"Except for one thing. Because when the woman tries to retrieve the jewels from the study, she discovers they really have been stolen."

This time it was Mr. Turov who tried to jump up, and it was his wife's turn to restrain him.

"Now we must go back a few weeks. Who was it that first told the woman to have the jewels checked? Her husband, who was alarmed by hearing a story of fake jewellery being passed off as real. Who was it she took them to? A jeweller who happened to be a friend of her husband's. And when I checked her husband's bank account, what did I discover? He had paid a large sum of money to that jeweller just before he raised questions about the jewels, a sum he could hardly afford when his finances were in a, shall we say, precarious position. And who knew where the woman hid the jewels after removing them from their box? Her husband."

Mrs. Turova turned and gave her husband a look that could have curdled milk.

Seo's voice suddenly became much colder. He wasn't a particularly tall man, but he towered over the cringing couple seated in front of him. "The jewels were real, as Mr. Turov knew all along. He bribed the jeweller to lie so his wife would be eager to get rid of them. He went along with her plan of staging a robbery, then stole the jewels for real and sold them to pay off his debts."

Here he was interrupted again. Mrs. Turova couldn't restrain herself any longer. She leapt to her feet and snatched up her umbrella.

"You bastard! You lied to me!"

She tried to hit her husband with the umbrella. Seo yanked it out of her hand before she could. The superintendent stepped in before she attacked her husband with her bare hands.

"Mr. Turov and Mrs. Turova, you're both under arrest!"

"And that, gentlemen," Seo finished, turning to address the policemen, "is the explanation for the incredible disappearing jewels, and the reason you were given extra work and sent on a wild goose chase."

Murogov recovered enough presence of mind to remove his handcuffs from his belt and clap them on Mr. Turov's wrists. One of his colleagues did the same with Mrs. Turova. The pair of them were escorted to the police station's cells, still yelling curses at each other, the police, and Mr. Seo.