Hercule Poirot finds it disagreeable to have to take his aperitif outside on a wind-swept autumn day. He dislikes even more the staged drama of a young man lying artistically at the pool's edge, the middle-aged woman with a revolver and the red paint dripping into the water. This was not the entertainment for lunch at an English country house...especially when the careful display was ruined. Poirot was looking at a man who, if not dead, was at least dying...