‘Leave it to me. I’ll think of something. Shall you give a false name?’
‘Certainly not. Let us at least try to keep it simple.’
Mrs Oliver nodded, and hurried back to the abandoned telephone.
‘Naomi? I can’t remember what we were saying. Why does something always come to interrupt just when one has settled down to a nice gossip? I can’t even remember now what I rang you up for to begin with—Oh yes—that child Thora’s address—Norma, I mean—and you gave it to me. But there was something else I wanted to—oh, I remember. An old friend of mine. A most fascinating little man. Actually I was talking about him the other day down there. Hercule Poirot his name is. He’s going to be staying quite close to the Restaricks and he is most tremendously anxious to meet old Sir Roderick. He knows a lot about him and has a terrific admiration for him, and for some wonderful discovery of his in the war—or some scientific thing he did—anyway, he is very anxious to “call upon him and present his respects”, that’s how he put it. Will that be all right, do you think? Will you warn them? Yes, he’ll probably just turn up out of the blue. Tell them to make him tell them some wonderful espionage stories… He—what? Oh! your mowers? Yes, of course you must go. Goodbye.’
She put back the receiver and sank down in an armchair. ‘Goodness, how exhausting. Was that all right?’
‘Not bad,’ said Poirot.
‘I thought I’d better pin it all to the old boy. Then you’ll get to see the lot which I suppose is what you want. And one can always be vague about scientific subjects if one is a woman, and you can think up something more definite that sounds probable by the time you arrive. Now, do you want to hear what she was telling me?’
‘There has been gossip, I gather. About the health of Mrs Restarick?’
‘That’s it. It seems she had some kind of mysterious illness—gastric in nature—and the doctors were puzzled. They sent her into hospital and she got quite all right, but there didn’t seem any real cause to account for it. And she went home, and it all began to start again—and again the doctors were puzzled. And then people began to talk. A rather irresponsible nurse started it and her sister told a neighbour, and the neighbour went out on daily work and told someone else, and how queer it all was. And then people began saying that her husband must be trying to poison her. The sort of thing people always say—but in this case it really didn’t seem to make sense. And then Naomi and I wondered about the au pair girl, she’s a kind of secretary companion to the old boy—so really there isn’t any kind of reason why she should administer weed killer to Mrs Restarick.’
‘I heard you suggesting a few.’
‘Well, there is usually something possible…’
‘Murder desired…’ said Poirot thoughtfully…‘But not yet committed.’
Mrs Oliver drove into the inner court of Borodene Mansions. There were six cars filling the parking space. As Mrs Oliver hesitated, one of the cars reversed out and drove away. Mrs Oliver hurried neatly into the vacant space.
She descended, banged the door and stood looking up to the sky. It was a recent block, occupying a space left by the havoc of a land mine in the last war. It might, Mrs Oliver thought, have been lifted en bloc from the Great West Road and, first deprived of some such legend as SKYLARK’S FEATHER RAZOR BLADES, have been deposited as a block of flats in situ. It looked extremely functional and whoever had built it had obviously scorned any ornamental additions.
It was a busy time. Cars and people were going in and out of the courtyard as the day’s work came to a close.
Mrs Oliver glanced down at her wrist. Ten minutes to seven. About the right time, as far as she could judge. The kind of time when girls in jobs might be presumed to have returned, either to renew their make up, change their clothes to tight exotic pants or whatever their particular addiction was, and go out again, or else to settle down to home life and wash their smalls and their stockings. Anyway, quite a sensible time to try. The block was exactly the same on the east and the west, with big swing doors set in the centre. Mrs Oliver chose the left hand side but immediately found that she was wrong. All this side was numbers from 100 to 200. She crossed over to the other side.
No. 67 was on the sixth floor. Mrs Oliver pressed the button of the lift. The doors opened like a yawning mouth with a menacing clash. Mrs Oliver hurried into the yawning cavern. She was always afraid of modern lifts.
Crash. The doors came to again. The lift went up. It stopped almost immediately (that was frightening too!). Mrs Oliver scuttled out like a frightened rabbit.
She looked up at the wall and went along the right hand passage. She came to a door marked 67 in metal numbers affixed to the centre of the door. The numeral 7 detached itself and fell on her feet as she arrived.
‘This place doesn’t like me,’ said Mrs Oliver to herself as she winced with pain and picked the number up gingerly and affixed it by its spike to the door again.
She pressed the bell. Perhaps everyone was out.
However, the door opened almost at once. A tall handsome girl stood in the doorway. She was wearing a dark well-cut suit with a very short skirt, a white silk shirt, and was very well shod. She had swept-up dark hair, good but discreet make up, and for some reason was slightly alarming to Mrs Oliver.
‘Oh,’ said Mrs Oliver, galvanizing herself to say the right thing. ‘Is Miss Restarick in, by any chance?’
‘No, I’m sorry, she’s out. Can I give her a message?’
Mrs Oliver said, ‘Oh’ again—before proceeding. She made a play of action by producing a parcel rather untidily done up in brown paper. ‘I promised her a book,’ she explained. ‘One of mine that she hadn’t read. I hope I’ve remembered actually which it was. She won’t be in soon, I suppose?’
‘I really couldn’t say. I don’t know what she is doing tonight.’
‘Oh. Are you Miss Reece-Holland?’
The girl looked slightly surprised.
‘Yes, I am.’
‘I’ve met your father,’ said Mrs Oliver. She went on, ‘I’m Mrs Oliver. I write books,’ she added in the usual guilty style in which she invariably made such an announcement.
‘Won’t you come in?’
Mrs Oliver accepted the invitation, and Claudia Reece-Holland led her into a sitting-room. All the rooms of the flats were papered the same with an artificial raw wood pattern. Tenants could then display their modern pictures or apply any forms of decoration they fancied. There was a foundation of modern built-in furniture, cupboard, bookshelves and so on, a large settee and a pull-out type of table. Personal bits and pieces could be added by the tenants. There were also signs of individuality displayed here by a gigantic Harlequin pasted on one wall, and a stencil of a monkey swinging from branches of palm fronds on another wall.
‘I’m sure Norma will be thrilled to get your book, Mrs Oliver. Won’t you have a drink? Sherry? Gin?’
This girl had the brisk manner of a really good secretary. Mrs Oliver refused.
‘You’ve got a splendid view up here,’ she said, looking out of the window and blinking a little as she got the setting sun straight in her eyes.
‘Yes. Not so funny when the lift goes out of order.’
‘I shouldn’t have thought that lift would dare to go out of order. It’s so—so—robot-like.’
‘Recently installed, but none the better for that,’ said Claudia. ‘It needs frequent adjusting and all that.’
Another