What happened to the LEFT function in VB Express 2005?

I tried this code:

Dim a, b As String
a = "ABCDEFGHI"
b = Left(a, 3)
MsgBox(b)

And I got this error:

Error 2 'Public Property Left() As Integer' has no parameters and its return type cannot be indexed.
Any ideas why the left function wouldn't work in VB Express 2005?

Many thanks for any help.

--DB

[343 byte] By [Darkbob] at [2007-12-16]