Third Girl (13 page)

“
Enchanté,
Mademoiselle,” he said, bowing over her hand.

“I'm not late, am I, Sir Roderick,” she said, looking past him. “I have not kept you waiting. Please I hope not.”

“Exactly to the minute, little girl,” said Sir Roderick. “All shipshape and Bristol fashion,” he added.

Sonia looked slightly perplexed.

“Made a good tea, I hope,” Sir Roderick went on. “I told you, you know, to have a good tea, buy yourself some buns or éclairs or whatever it is young ladies like nowadays, eh? You obeyed orders, I hope.”

“No, not exactly. I took the time to buy a pair of shoes. Look, they are pretty, are they not?” She stuck out a foot.

It was certainly a very pretty foot. Sir Roderick beamed at it.

“Well, we must go and catch our train,” he said. “I may be old-fashioned but I'm all for trains. Start to time and get there on time, or they should do. But these cars, they get in a queue in the rush hour and you may idle the time away for about an hour and a half more than you need. Cars! Pah!”

“Shall I ask Georges to get you a taxi?” asked Hercule Poirot. “It will be no trouble, I assure you.”

“I have a taxi already waiting,” said Sonia.

“There you are,” said Sir Roderick, “you see, she thinks of everything.” He patted her on the shoulder. She looked at him in a way that Hercule Poirot fully appreciated.

Poirot accompanied them to the hall door and took a polite leave of them. Mr. Goby had come out of the kitchen and was standing in the hall giving, it could be said, an excellent performance of a man who had come to see about the gas.

George shut the hall door as soon as they had disappeared into the lift, and turned to meet Poirot's gaze.

“And what is your opinion of that young lady, Georges, may I ask?” said Poirot. On certain points he always said George was infallible.

“Well, sir,” said George, “if I might put it that way, if you'll allow me, I would say he'd got it badly, sir. All over her as you might say.”

“I think you are right,” said Hercule Poirot.

“It's not unusual of course with gentlemen of that age. I remember Lord Mountbryan. He'd had a lot of experience in his life and you'd say he was as fly as anyone. But you'd be surprised. A young woman as came to give him massage. You'd be surprised at
what he gave her. An evening frock, and a pretty bracelet. Forget-me-nots, it was. Turquoise and diamonds. Not
too
expensive but costing quite a pretty penny all the same. Then a fur wrap—not mink, Russian ermine, and a petty point evening bag. After that her brother got into trouble, debt or something, though whether she ever
had
a brother I sometimes wondered. Lord Mountbryan gave her the money to square it—she was so upset about it! All platonic, mind you, too. Gentlemen seem to lose their sense that way when they get to that age. It's the clinging ones they go for, not the bold type.”

“I have no doubt that you are quite right, Georges,” said Poirot. “It is all the same not a complete answer to my question. I asked what you thought of the
young lady.
”

“Oh, the young lady…Well, sir, I wouldn't like to say definitely, but she's quite a definite type. There's never anything that you could put your finger on. But they know what they're doing, I'd say.”

Poirot entered his sitting room and Mr. Goby followed him, obeying Poirot's gesture. Mr. Goby sat down on an upright chair in his usual attitude. Knees together, toes turned in. He took a rather dog-eared little notebook from his pocket, opened it carefully and then proceeded to survey the soda water siphon severely.

“Re the backgrounds you asked me to look up.

“Restarick family, perfectly respectable and of good standing. No scandal. The father, James Patrick Restarick, said to be a sharp man over a bargain. Business has been in the family three generations. Grandfather founded it, father enlarged it, Simon Restarick kept it going. Simon Restarick had coronary trouble two years ago, health declined. Died of coronary thrombosis, about a year ago.

“Young brother Andrew Restarick came into the business soon after he came down from Oxford, married Miss Grace Baldwin. One daughter, Norma. Left his wife and went out to South Africa. A Miss Birell went with him. No divorce proceedings. Mrs. Andrew Restarick died two and a half years ago. Had been an invalid for some time. Miss Norma Restarick was a boarder at Meadowfield Girls' School. Nothing against her.”

Allowing his eyes to sweep across Hercule Poirot's face, Mr. Goby observed, “In fact everything about the family seems quite OK and according to Cocker.”

“No black sheep, no mental instability?”

“It doesn't appear so.”

“Disappointing,” said Poirot.

Mr. Goby let this pass. He cleared his throat, licked his finger, and turned over a leaf of his little book.

“David Baker. Unsatisfactory record. Been on probation twice. Police are inclined to be interested in him. He's been on the fringe of several rather dubious affairs, thought to have been concerned in an important art robbery but no proof. He's one of the arty lot. No particular means of subsistence but he does quite well. Prefers girls with money. Not above living on some of the girls who are keen on him. Not above being paid off by their fathers either. Thorough bad lot if you ask me but enough brains to keep himself out of trouble.”

Mr. Goby shot a sudden glance at Poirot.

“You met him?”

“Yes,” said Poirot.

“What conclusions did you form, if I may ask?”

“The same as you,” said Poirot. “A gaudy creature,” he added thoughtfully.

“Appeals to women,” said Mr. Goby. “Trouble is nowadays they won't look twice at a nice hardworking lad. They prefer the bad lots—the scroungers. They usually say ‘he hasn't had a
chance,
poor boy.'”

“Strutting about like peacocks,” said Poirot.

“Well, you might put it like that,” said Mr. Goby, rather doubtfully.

“Do you think he'd use a cosh on anyone?”

Mr. Goby thought, then very slowly shook his head at the electric fire.

“Nobody's accused him of anything like that. I don't say he'd be past it, but I wouldn't say it was his line. He is a smooth-spoken type, not one for the rough stuff.”

“No,” said Poirot, “no, I should not have thought so. He could be bought off? That was your opinion?”

“He'd drop any girl like a hot coal if it was made worth his while.”

Poirot nodded. He was remembering something. Andrew Restarick turning a cheque towards him so that he could read the signature on it. It was not only the signature that Poirot had read, it was the person to whom the cheque was made out. It had been made out to David Baker and it was for a large sum. Would David Baker demur at taking such a cheque, Poirot wondered. He thought not on the whole. Mr. Goby clearly was of that opinion. Undesirable young men had been bought off in any time or age, so had undesirable young women. Sons had sworn and daughters had wept but money was money. To Norma, David had been urging marriage. Was he sincere? Could it be that he really cared for Norma? If so, he would not be so easily paid off. He had sounded genuine
enough. Norma no doubt believed him genuine. Andrew Restarick and Mr. Goby and Hercule Poirot thought differently. They were very much more likely to be right.

Mr. Goby cleared his throat and went on.

“Miss Claudia Reece-Holland? She's all right. Nothing against her. Nothing dubious, that is. Father a Member of Parliament, well off. No scandals. Not like some MPs we've heard about. Educated Roedean, Lady Margaret Hall, came down and did a secretarial course. First secretary to a doctor in Harley Street, then went to the Coal Board. First-class secretary. Has been secretary to Mr. Restarick for the last two months. No special attachments, just what you'd call minor boyfriends. Eligible and useful if she wants a date. Nothing to show there's anything between her and Restarick. I shouldn't say there is, myself. Has had a flat in Borodene Mansions for the last three years. Quite a high rent there. She usually has two other girls sharing it, no special friends. They come and go. Young lady, Frances Cary, the second girl, has been there some time. Was at RADA for a time, then went to the Slade. Works for the Wedderburn Gallery—well-known place in Bond Street. Specialises in arranging art shows in Manchester, Birmingham, sometimes abroad. Goes to Switzerland and Portugal. Arty type and has a lot of friends amongst artists and actors.”

He paused, cleared his throat and gave a brief look at the little notebook.

“Haven't been able to get much from South Africa yet. Don't suppose I shall. Restarick moved about a lot. Kenya, Uganda, Gold Coast, South America for a while. He just moved about. Restless chap. Nobody seems to have known him particularly well. He'd got plenty of money of his own to go where he liked. He made
money, too, quite a lot of it. Liked going to out of the way places. Everyone who came across him seems to have liked him. Just seems as though he was a born wanderer. He never kept in touch with anyone. Three times I believe he was reported dead—gone off into the bush and not turned up again—but he always did in the end. Five or six months and he'd pop up in some entirely different place or country.

“Then last year his brother in London died suddenly. They had a bit of trouble in tracing him. His brother's death seemed to give him a shock. Perhaps he'd had enough, and perhaps he'd met the right woman at last. Good bit younger than him, she was, and a teacher, they say. The steady kind. Anyway he seems to have made up his mind then and there to chuck wandering about, and come home to England. Besides being a very rich man himself, he's his brother's heir.”

“A success story and an unhappy girl,” said Poirot. “I wish I knew more about her. You have ascertained for me all that you could, the facts I needed. The people who surrounded that girl, who might have influenced her, who perhaps
did
influence her. I wanted to know something about her father, her stepmother, the boy she is in love with, the people she lived with, and worked for in London. You are sure that in connection with this girl there have been no deaths? That is important—”

“Not a smell of one,” said Mr. Goby. “She worked for a firm called Homebirds—on the verge of bankruptcy, and they didn't pay her much. Stepmother was in hospital for observation recently—in the country, that was. A lot of rumours flying about, but they didn't seem to come to anything.”

“She did not die,” said Poirot. “What I need,” he added in a bloodthirsty manner, “is a
death.
”

Mr. Goby said he was sorry about that and rose to his feet. “Will there be anything more you are wanting at present?”

“Not in the nature of information.”

“Very good, sir.” As he replaced his notebook in his pocket, Mr. Goby said: “You'll excuse me, sir, if I'm speaking out of turn, but that young lady you had here just now—”

“Yes, what about her?”

“Well, of course it's—I don't suppose it's anything to do with this, but I thought I might just mention it to you, sir—”

“Please do. You have seen her before, I gather?”

“Yes. Couple of months ago.”

“Where did you see her?”

“Kew Gardens.”

“Kew Gardens?” Poirot looked slightly surprised.

“I wasn't following
her.
I was following someone else, the person who met her.”

“And who was that?”

“I don't suppose as it matters mentioning it to you, sir. It was one of the junior attachés of the Hertzogovinian Embassy.”

Poirot raised his eyebrows. “That is interesting. Yes, very interesting. Kew Gardens,” he mused. “A pleasant place for a rendezvous. Very pleasant.”

“I thought so at the time.”

“They talked together?”

“No, sir, you wouldn't have said they knew each other. The young lady had a book with her. She sat down on a seat. She read
the book for a little then she laid it down beside her. Then my bloke came and sat there on the seat also. They didn't speak—only the young lady got up and wandered away. He just sat there and presently he gets up and walks off. He takes with him the book that the young lady has left behind. That's all, sir.”

“Yes,” said Poirot. “It is very interesting.”

Mr. Goby looked at the bookcase and said good night to it. He went.

Poirot gave an exasperated sigh.

“
Enfin,
” he said, “it is too much! There is far too much. Now we have espionage and counterespionage. All I am seeking is one perfectly simple murder. I begin to suspect that that murder only occurred in a drug addict's brain!”

“C
hère
Madame,” Poirot bowed and presented Mrs. Oliver with a bouquet, very stylised, a posy in the Victorian manner.

“M. Poirot! Well, really, that is very nice of you, and it's very like you somehow. All my flowers are always so untidy.” She looked towards a vase of rather temperamental-looking chrysanthemums, then back to the prim circle of rosebuds. “And how nice of you to come and see me.”

“I come, Madame, to offer you my felicitations on your recovery.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Oliver, “I suppose I am all right again.” She shook her head to and fro rather gingerly. “I get headaches, though,” she said. “Quite bad headaches.”

“You remember, Madame, that I warned you not to do anything dangerous.”

“Not to stick my neck out, in fact. That I suppose is just what I did do.” She added, “I felt something evil was about. I was fright
ened, too, and I told myself I was a fool to be frightened, because what was I frightened of? I mean, it was London. Right in the middle of London. People all about. I mean—how
could
I be frightened? It wasn't like a lonely wood or anything.”

Poirot looked at her thoughtfully. He wondered, had Mrs. Oliver really felt this nervous fear, had she really suspected the presence of evil, the sinister feeling that something or someone wished her ill, or had she read it into the whole thing afterwards? He knew only too well how easily that could be done. Countless clients had spoken in much the same words that Mrs. Oliver had just used. “I knew something was wrong. I could feel evil. I knew something was going to happen,” and actually they had not felt anything of the kind. What kind of a person was Mrs. Oliver?

He looked at her consideringly. Mrs. Oliver in her own opinion was famous for her intuition. One intuition succeeded another with remarkable rapidity and Mrs. Oliver always claimed the right to justify the particular intuition which turned out to be right!

And yet one shared very often with animals the uneasiness of a dog or a cat before a thunderstorm, the knowledge that there is
something
wrong, although one does not know what it is that is wrong.

“When did it come upon you, this fear?”

“When I left the main road,” said Mrs. Oliver. “Up till then it was all ordinary and quite exciting and—yes, I was enjoying myself, though vexed at finding how difficult it was to trail anybody.”

She paused, considering. “Just like a
game.
Then suddenly it didn't seem so much like a game, because there were queer little streets and rather sort of broken-down places, and sheds and open spaces being cleared for building—oh, I don't know, I can't ex
plain it. But it was all
different.
Like a dream really. You know how dreams are. They start with one thing, a party or something, and then suddenly you find you're in a jungle or somewhere quite different—and it's all sinister.”

“A jungle?” said Poirot. “Yet, it is interesting you should put it like that. So it felt to you as though you were in a jungle and you were afraid of a peacock?”

“I don't know that I was especially afraid of him. After all, a peacock isn't a dangerous sort of animal. It's—well I mean I thought of him as a peacock because I thought of him as a
decorative
creature. A peacock is very decorative, isn't it? And this awful boy is decorative too.”

“You didn't have any idea anyone was following you before you were hit?”

“No. No, I'd no idea—but I think he directed me wrong all the same.”

Poirot nodded thoughtfully.

“But of course it must have been the Peacock who hit me,” said Mrs. Oliver. “Who else? The dirty boy in the greasy clothes? He smelt nasty but he wasn't sinister. And it could hardly be that limp Frances something—she was draped over a packing case with long black hair streaming all over the place. She reminded me of some actress or other.”

“You say she was acting as a model?”

“Yes. Not for the Peacock. For the dirty boy. I can't remember if you've seen her or not.”

“I have not yet had that pleasure—if it is a pleasure.”

“Well, she's quite nice looking in an untidy, arty sort of way. Very much made up. Dead white and lots of mascara and the usual
kind of limp hair hanging over her face. Works in an art gallery so I suppose it's quite natural that she should be all among the beatniks, acting as a model. How these girls
can!
I suppose she
might
have fallen for the Peacock. But it's probably the dirty one. All the same I don't see her coshing me on the head somehow.”

“I had another possibility in mind, Madame. Someone may have noticed you following David—and in turn followed you.”

“Someone saw
me
trailing David, and then they trailed
me?
”

“Or someone may have been already in the mews or the yard, keeping perhaps an eye on the same people that you were observing.”

“That's an idea, of course,” said Mrs. Oliver. “I wonder who they could be?”

Poirot gave an exasperated sigh. “Ah, it is there. It is difficult—too difficult. Too many people, too many things. I cannot see anything clearly. I see only a girl who said that she may have committed a murder! That is all that I have to go on and you see even there there are difficulties.”

“What do you mean by difficulties?”

“Reflect,” said Poirot.

Reflection had never been Mrs. Oliver's strong point.

“You always mix me up,” she complained.

“I am talking about a murder, but what murder?”

“The murder of the stepmother, I suppose.”

“But the stepmother is not murdered. She is alive.”

“You really are the most maddening man,” said Mrs. Oliver.

Poirot sat up in his chair. He brought the tips of his fingers together and prepared—or so Mrs. Oliver suspected—to enjoy himself.

“You refuse to reflect,” he said. “But to get anywhere we
must
reflect.”

“I don't want to reflect. What I want to know is what you've been doing about everything while I've been in hospital. You must have done
something.
What
have
you done?”

Poirot ignored this question.

“We must begin at the beginning. One day you ring me up. I was in distress. Yes, I admit it, I was in distress. Something extremely painful had been said to me. You, Madame, were kindness itself. You cheered me, you encouraged me. You gave me a delicious
tasse de chocolat.
And what is more you not only offered to help me, but you
did
help me. You helped me to find a girl who had come to me and said that she thought she might have committed a murder! Let us ask ourselves, Madame, what about this murder? Who has been murdered? Where have they been murdered? Why have they been murdered?”

“Oh do stop,” said Mrs. Oliver. “You're making my head ache again, and that's bad for me.”

Poirot paid no attention to this plea. “Have we got a murder at all? You say—the stepmother—but I reply that the stepmother is not dead—so as yet we
have
no murder. But there
ought
to have been a murder. So me, I inquire first of all,
who
is dead? Somebody comes to me and mentions a murder. A murder that has been committed somewhere and somehow. But I cannot
find
that murder, and what you are about to say once again, that the attempted murder of Mary Restarick will do very well, does not satisfy Hercule Poirot.”

“I really can't think what more you want,” said Mrs. Oliver.

“
I want a murder,
” said Hercule Poirot.

“It sounds very bloodthirsty when you say it like that!”

“I look for a murder and I cannot find a murder. It is exasperating—so I ask you to reflect with me.”

“I've got a splendid idea,” said Mrs. Oliver. “Suppose Andrew Restarick murdered his first wife before he went off in a hurry to South Africa. Had you thought of that possibility?”

“I certainly did not think of any such thing,” said Poirot indignantly.

“Well,
I've
thought of it,” said Mrs. Oliver. “It's very interesting. He was in love with this other woman, and he wanted like Crippen to go off with her, and so he murdered the first one and nobody ever suspected.”

Poirot drew a long, exasperated sigh. “
But his wife did not die until eleven or twelve years after he'd left this country for South Africa,
and his child could not have been concerned in the murder of her own mother at the age of five years old.”

“She could have given her mother the wrong medicine or perhaps Restarick just said that she died. After all, we don't
know
that she's dead.”

“I do,” said Hercule Poirot. “I have made inquiries. The first Mrs. Restarick died on the 14th April, 1963.”

“How can you know these things?”

“Because I have employed someone to check the facts. I beg of you, Madame, do not jump to impossible conclusions in this rash way.”

“I thought I was being rather clever,” said Mrs. Oliver obstinately. “If I was making it happen in a book that's how
I
would arrange it. And I'd make the child have done it. Not meaning to, but just by her father telling her to give her mother a drink made of pounded up box hedge.”

“
Non d'un nom d'un nom!
” said Poirot.

“All right,” said Mrs. Oliver. “You tell it your way.”

“Alas, I have nothing to tell. I look for a murder and I do not find one.”

“Not after Mary Restarick is ill and goes to hospital and gets better and comes back and is ill again, and if they looked they'd probably find arsenic or something hidden away by Norma somewhere.”

“That is exactly what they did find.”

“Well, really, M. Poirot, what
more
do you want?”

“I want you to pay some attention to the meaning of language. That girl said to me the same thing as she had said to my manservant, Georges. She did not say on either occasion ‘I have tried to kill someone' or ‘I have tried to kill my stepmother.' She spoke each time of a deed that
had
been
done,
something that had already
happened.
Definitely
happened.
In the
past
tense.”

“I give up,” said Mrs. Oliver. “You just won't believe that Norma tried to kill her stepmother.”

“Yes, I believe it is perfectly possible that Norma may have tried to kill her stepmother. I think it is probably what happened—it is in accord psychologically. With her distraught frame of mind. But it is not
proved.
Anyone, remember, could have hidden a preparation of arsenic amongst Norma's things. It could even have been put there by the husband.”

“You always seem to think that husbands are the ones who kill their wives,” said Mrs. Oliver.

“A husband is usually the most likely person,” said Hercule Poirot, “so one considers him first. It could have been the girl, Norma, or it could have been one of the servants, or it could have
been the
au pair
girl, or it could have been old Sir Roderick. Or it could have been
Mrs. Restarick herself.
”

“Nonsense. Why?”

“There
could
be reasons. Rather far-fetched reasons, but not beyond the bounds of belief.”

“Really, Monsieur Poirot, you can't suspect
everybody.
”

“
Mais oui,
that is just what I can do. I suspect everybody. First I suspect, then I look for reasons.”

“And what reason would that poor foreign child have?”

“It might depend on what she is doing in that house, and what her reasons are for coming to England and a good deal more beside.”

“You're really crazy.”

“Or it could have been the boy David. Your Peacock.”

“Much too far-fetched. David wasn't there. He's never been near the house.”

“Oh yes he has. He was wandering about its corridors the day I went there.”

“But not putting poison in Norma's room.”

“How do you know?”

“But she and that awful boy are in love with each other.”

“They appear to be so, I admit.”

“You always want to make everything difficult,” complained Mrs. Oliver.

“Not at all. Things have been made difficult for
me.
I need information and there is only one person who can give me information. And she has disappeared.”

“You mean Norma.”

“Yes, I mean Norma.”

“But she hasn't disappeared. We found her, you and I.”

“She walked out of that café and once more she has disappeared.”

“And you let her go?” Mrs. Oliver's voice quivered with reproach.

“Alas!”

“
You let her go?
You didn't even try to find her again?”

“I did not say I had not tried to find her.”

“But so far you have not succeeded. M. Poirot, I really am disappointed with you.”

“There is a pattern,” said Hercule Poirot almost dreamily. “Yes, there is a pattern. But because there is one factor missing, the pattern does not make sense. You see that, don't you?”

“No,” said Mrs. Oliver, whose head was aching.

Poirot continued to talk more to himself than his listener. If Mrs. Oliver could be said to be listening. She was highly indignant with Poirot and she thought to herself that the Restarick girl had been quite right and that Poirot
was
too old! There, she herself had found the girl for him, had telephoned him so that he might arrive in time, had gone off herself to shadow the other half of the couple. She had left the girl to Poirot, and what had Poirot done—lost her! In fact she could not really see that Poirot had done anything at all of any use at any time whatever. She was disappointed in him. When he stopped talking she would tell him so again.