Third Girl hp-37 Read online

  "Well - " Restarick hesitated. "That is more or less what the doctor said when we consulted him - I mean - "

  "Aha," said Poirot, "so you consulted a doctor? You must have had some reason, is it not so, for calling in a doctor?"

  "Nothing really."

  "Ah no, you cannot say that to Hercule Poirot. It is not nothing. It was something serious and you had better tell me, because if I know just what has been in this girl's mind, I shall make more progress. Things will go quicker." Restarick was silent for several moments, then he made up his mind.

  "This is in absolute confidence, M. Poirot? I can rely on you - I have your assurance as to that?"

  "By all means. What was the trouble?"

  "I cannot be - be sure."

  "Your daughter entered into some action against your wife? Something more than being merely childishly rude or saying unpleasant things. It was something worse than that-something more serious. Did she perhaps attack her physically?"

  "No, it was not an attack - not a physical attack but - nothing was proved."

  "No, no. We will admit that."

  "My wife became far from well - " He hesitated.

  "Ah," said Poirot. "Yes, I see… And what was the nature of her illness?

  Digestive, possibly? A form of enteritis?"

  "You're quick, M. Poirot. You're very quick. Yes, it was digestive. This complaint of my wife's was puzzling, because she had always had excellent health. Finally they sent her to hospital for 'observation', as they call it. A check up."

  "And the result?"

  "I don't think they were completely satisfied… She appeared to regain her health completely and was sent home in due course. But the trouble recurred. We went carefully over the meals she had, the cooking. She seemed to be suffering from a form of intestinal poisoning for which there appeared to be no cause. A further step was taken, tests were made of the dishes she ate. By taking samples of everything, it was definitely proved that a certain substance had been administered in various dishes. In each case it was a dish of which only my wife had partaken."

  "In plain language somebody was giving her arsenic. Is that right?"

  "Quite right. In small doses which would in the end have a cumulative effect."

  "You suspected your daughter?"

  "No."

  "I think you did. Who else could have done it? You suspected your daughter." Restarick gave a deep sigh.

  "Frankly, yes."

  When Poirot arrived home, George was awaiting him "A woman named Edith rang up, sir - "

  "Edith?" Poirot frowned.

  "She is, I gather, in the service of Mrs. Oliver. She asked me to inform you that Mrs. Oliver is in St. Giles' Hospital."

  "What has happened to her?"

  "I understand she has been - er - coshed." George did not add the latter part of the message, and you tell him it's been all his fault." Poirot clicked his tongue. "I warned her - I was uneasy last night when I rang her up, and there was no answer. Les Femmes."

  Chapter Twelve

  "LET'S buy a peacock," said Mrs. Oliver suddenly and unexpectedly. She did not open her eyes as she made this remark, and her voice was weak though full of indignation.

  Three people brought startled eyes to bear upon her. She made a further statement.

  "Hit on the head." She opened badly focused eyes and endeavoured to make out where she was.

  The first thing she saw was a face entirely strange to her. A young man who was writing in a notebook. He held the pencil poised in his hand.

  "Policeman," said Mrs. Oliver decisively.

  "I beg your pardon. Madam?"

  "I said you were a policeman," said Mrs. Oliver. "Am I right?"

  "Yes, Madam."

  "Criminal assault," said Mrs. Oliver and closed her eyes in a satisfied manner. When she opened them again, she took in her surroundings more fully. She was in a bed, one of those rather high hygienic looking beds, she decided. The kind that you shoot up and down and round and about. She was not in her own home. She looked round and decided on her environment.

  "Hospital, or could be nursing home," she said.

  A sister was standing with an air of authority at the door, and a nurse was standing by her bed. She identified a fourth figure. "Nobody," said Mrs. Oliver, "could mistake those moustaches. What are you doing here, M. Poirot?" Hercule Poirot advanced towards the bed. "I told you to be careful, Madame," he said.

  "Anyone might lose their way," said Mrs. Oliver, somewhat obscurely, and added, "my head aches."

  "With good cause. As you surmise, you were hit on the head."

  "Yes. By the Peacock." The policeman stirred uneasily then said, "Excuse me. Madam, you say you were assaulted by a peacock?"

  "Of course. I'd had an uneasy feeling for some time - you know, atmosphere." Mrs. Oliver tried to wave her hand in an appropriate gesture to describe atmosphere, and winced. "Ouch," she said, "I'd better not try that again."

  "My patient must not get overexcited," said the sister with disapproval.

  "Can you tell me where this assault occurred?"

  "I haven't the faintest idea. I'd lost my way. I was coming from a kind of studio.

  Very badly kept. Dirty. The other young man hadn't shaved for days. A greasy leather jacket."

  "Is this the man who assaulted you?"

  "No, it's another one."

  "If you could just tell me - "

  "I am telling you, aren't I? I'd followed him, you see, all the way from the cafe - only I'm not very good at following people.

  No practice. It's much more difficult than you'd think." Her eyes focused on the policeman. "But I suppose you know all about that. You have courses - in following people, I mean? Oh, never mind, it doesn't matter.

  You see," she said, speaking with sudden rapidity, "it's quite simple. I had got off at The World's End, I think it was, and naturally I thought he had stayed with the others - or gone the other way. But instead, he came up behind me."

  "Who was this?"

  "The Peacock," said Mrs. Oliver, "and he startled me, you see. It does startle you when you find things are the wrong way round. I mean he was following you instead of you following him-only it was earlier - and I had a sort of uneasy feeling. In fact, you know, I was afraid. I don't know why. He spoke quite politely but I was afraid. Anyway there it was and he said 'Come up and see the studio' and so I came up rather a rickety staircase. A kind of ladder staircase and there was this other young man - the dirty young man - and he was painting a picture, and the girl was acting as model. She was quite clean.

  Rather pretty really. And so there we were and they were quite nice and polite, and then I said I must be getting home, and they told me the right way to get back to the King's Road. But they can't really have told me the right way. Of course I might have made a mistake. You know, when people tell you second left and third right, well, you sometimes do it the wrong way round. At least I do. Anyway, I got into a rather peculiar slummy part quite close to the river. The afraid feeling had gone away by then. I must have been quite off my guard when the Peacock hit me."

  "I think she's delirious," said the nurse in an explanatory voice.

  "No, I'm not," said Mrs. Oliver. "I know what I'm talking about." The nurse opened her mouth, caught the sister's admonitory eye and shut it again quickly.

  "Velvets and satins and long curly hair," said Mrs. Oliver.

  "A peacock in satin? A real peacock, Madam. You thought you saw a peacock near the river in Chelsea?"

  "A real peacock?" said Mrs. Oliver. "Of course not. How silly. What would a real peacock be doing down on Chelsea Embankment."

  Nobody appeared to have an answer to this question.

  "He struts," said Mrs. Oliver, "that's why I nicknamed him a peacock. Shows off, you know. Vain, I should think. Proud of his looks. Perhaps a lot of other things as well." She looked at Poirot. "David something.

  You know who I mean."

  "You say this young man of the name of David assa
ulted you by striking you on the head?"

  "Yes I do." Hercule Poirot spoke. "You saw him?"

  "I didn't see him," said Mrs. Oliver, "I didn't know anything about it. I just thought I heard something behind me, and before I could turn my head to look - it all happened! Just as if a ton of bricks or something fell on me. I think I'll go to sleep now," she added.

  She moved her head slightly, made a grimace of pain, and relapsed into what appeared to be a perfectly satisfactory unconsciousness.

  Chapter Thirteen

  POIROT seldom used the key to his flat. Instead, in an old-fashioned manner, he pressed the bell and waited for that admirable factotum, George, to open the door. On this occasion, however, after his visit to the hospital, the door was opened to him by Miss Lemon.

  "You've got two visitors," said Miss Lemon, pitching her voice in an admirable tone, not as carrying as a whisper but a good many notes lower than her usual pitch. "One's Mr. Goby and the other is an old gentleman called Sir Roderick Horsefield. I don't know which you want to see first."

  "Sir Roderick Horsefield," mused Poirot.

  He considered this with his head on one side, looking rather like a robin while he decided how this latest development was likely to affect the general picture. Mr. Goby, however, materialised with his usual suddenness from the small room which was sacred to Miss Lemon's typewriting and where she had evidently kept him in storage.

  Poirot removed his overcoat. Miss Lemon hung it up on the hall-stand, and Mr. Goby, as was his fashion, addressed the back of Miss Lemon's head.

  "I'll have a cup of tea in the kitchen with George," said Mr. Goby. "My time is my own. I'll keep." He disappeared obligingly into the kitchen.

  Poirot went into his sitting-room where Sir Roderick was pacing up and down full of vitality.

  "Run you down, my boy," he said genially. "Wonderful thing the telephone."

  "You remembered my name? I am gratified."

  "Well, I didn't exactly remember your name," said Sir Roderick. "Names, you know, have never been my strong point.

  Never forget a face," he ended proudly.

  "No. I rang up Scotland Yard."

  "Oh!" Poirot looked faintly startled, though reflecting that that was the sort of thing that Sir Roderick would do.

  "Asked me who I wanted to speak to. I said, put me on to the top. That's the thing to do in life, my boy. Never accept second in charge. No good. Go to the top, that's what I say. I said who I was, mind you.

  Said I wanted to speak to the top brass and I got on to it in the end. Very civil fellow.

  Told him I wanted the address of a chap in Allied Intelligence who was out with me at a certain place in France at a certain date.

  The chap seemed a bit at sea, so I said: "You know who I mean.' A Frenchman, I said, or a Belgian. Belgian, weren't you? I said: 'He's got a Christian name something like Achilles. It's not Achilles,' I said, 'but it's like Achilles. Little chap,' I said, 'big moustaches.' And then he seemed to catch on, and he said you'd be in the telephone book, he thought. I said that's all right, but I said: 'He won't be listed under Achilles or Hercules (as he said it was), will he? and I can't remember his second name.' So then he gave it me. Very civil sort of fellow.

  Very civil, I must say."

  "I am delighted to see you," said Poirot, sparing a hurried thought for what might be said to him later by Sir Roderick's telephone acquaintance. Fortunately it was not likely to have been quite the top brass.

  It was presumably someone with whom he was already acquainted, and whose job it was to produce civility on tap for distinguished persons of a bygone day.

  "Anyway," said Sir Roderick, "I got here."

  "I am delighted. Let me offer you some refreshment. Tea, a grenadine, a whisky and soda, some strop de cassis - "

  "Good lord, no," said Sir Roderick, alarmed at the mention ofsirop de cassis. "I'll take whisky for choice. Not that I'm allowed it," he added, "but doctors are all fools, as we know. All they care for is stopping you having anything you've a fancy for." Poirot rang for George and gave him the proper instructions. The whisky and the siphon were placed at Sir Roderick's elbow and George withdrew.

  "Now," said Poirot, "what can I do for you?"

  "Got a job for you, old boy." After the lapse of time, he seemed even more convinced of the close liaison between him and Poirot in the past, which was as well, thought Poirot, since it would produce an even greater dependence on his, Poirot's, capabilities by Sir Roderick's nephew.

  "Papers," said Sir Roderick, dropping his voice. "Lost some papers and I've got to find 'em, see? So I thought what with my eyes not being as good as they were, and the memory being a trifle off key sometimes, I'd better go to someone in the know.

  See? You came along in the nick of time the other day, just in time to be useful, because I've got to cough 'em up, you understand."

  "It sounds most interesting," said Poirot.

  "What are these papers, if I may ask?"

  "Well, I suppose if you're going to find them, you'll have to ask, won't you? Mind you, they're very secret and confidential.

  Top secret - or they were once. And it seems as though they are going to be again.

  An inter-change of letters, it was. Not of any particular importance at the time - or it was thought they were of no importance, but then of course politics change. You know the way it is. They go round and face the other way. You know how it was when the war broke out. None of us knew whether we were on our head or on our heels. One war we're pals with the Italians, next war we're enemies. I don't know which of them all was the worst. First war the Japanese were our dear allies, and the next war there they are blowing up Pearl Harbour! Never knew where you were!

  Start one way with the Russians, and finish the opposite way. I tell you, Poirot, nothing's more difficult nowadays than the question of allies. They can change overnight."

  "And you have lost some papers," said Poirot, recalling the old man to the subject of his visit.

  "Yes. I've got a lot of papers, you know, and I've dug 'em out lately. I had 'em put away safely. In a bank, as a matter of fact, but I got 'em all out and I began sorting through them because I thought why not write my memoirs. All the chaps are doing it nowadays. We've had Montgomery and Alanbrooke and Auchinleck all shooting their mouths off in print, mostly saying what they thought of the other generals. We've even had old Moran, a respectable physician, blabbing about his important patient. Don't know what things will come to next! Anyway, there it is, and I thought I'd be quite interested myself in telling a few facts about some people I knew! Why shouldn't I have a go as well as everyone else? I was in it all."

  "I am sure it could be a matter of much interest to people," said Poirot.

  "Ah-ha, yes! One knew a lot of people in the news. Everyone looked at them with awe. They didn't know they were complete fools, but I knew. My goodness, the mistakes some of those brass-hats made - you'd be surprised. So I got out my papers, and I had the little girl help me sort 'em out. Nice little girl, that, and quite bright.

  Doesn't know English very well, but apart from that, she's very bright and helpful.

  I'd salted away a lot of stuff, but everything was in a bit of a muddle. The point of the whole thing is, the papers I wanted weren't there."

  "Weren't there?"

  "No. We thought we'd given it a miss by mistake to begin with, but we went over it again and I can tell you, Poirot, a lot of stuff seemed to me to have been pinched.

  Some of it wasn't important. Actually, the stuff I was looking for wasn't particularly important - I mean, nobody had thought it was, otherwise I suppose I shouldn't have been allowed to keep it. But anyway, these particular letters weren't there."

  "I wish of course to be discreet," said Poirot, "but can you tell me at all the nature of these letters you refer to?"

  "Don't know that I can, old boy. The nearest I can go is of somebody who's shooting off his mouth nowadays about what he did and what he said in the past.
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  But he's not speaking the truth, and these letters just show exactly how much of a liar he is! Mind you, I don't suppose they'd be published now. We'll just send him nice copies of them, and tell him this is exactly what he did say at the time, and that we've got it in writing. I shouldn't be surprised if-well, things went a bit differently after that. See? I hardly need ask that, need I? You're familiar with all that kind of talky-talky."

  "You're quite right. Sir Roderick. I know exactly the kind of thing you mean, but you see also that it is not easy to help you recover something if one does not know what that something is, and where it is likely to be now."

  "First things first: I want to know who pinched 'em because you see that's the important point. There may be more top secret stuff in my little collection, and I want to know who's tampering with it."

  "Have you any ideas yourself?"

  "You think I ought to have, hell?"

  "Well, it would seem that the principal possibility - "

  "I know. You want me to say it's the little girl. Well, I don't think it is the little girl. She says she didn't, and I believe her.

  Understand?"

  "Yes," said Poirot with a slight sigh, "I understand."

  "For one thing she's too young. She wouldn't know these things were important.

  It's before her time."

  "Someone else might have instructed her as to that." Poirot pointed out.

  "Yes, yes, that's true enough. But it's too obvious as well." Poirot sighed. He doubted if it was any use insisting in view of Sir Roderick's obvious partiality. "Who else had access?"

  "Andrew and Mary, of course, but I doubt if Andrew would even be interested in such things. Anyway, he's always been a very decent boy. Always was. Not that I've ever known him very well. Used to come for the holidays once or twice with his brother and that's about all. Of course, he ditched his wife, and went off with an attractive bit of goods to South Africa, but that might happen to any man, especially with a wife like Grace. Not that I ever saw much of her, either. Kind of woman who looked down her nose and was full of good works. Anyway you can't imagine a chap like Andrew being a spy.