Third Girl

‘No, no,’ Hercule Poirot hastily waved aside the offer. ‘I could not dream of troubling Madame any more. I am quite all right. Quite all right. I can find my way perfectly. It has been a great pleasure to meet you again.’

He left the room.

‘Haven’t the faintest idea who that chap was,’ said Sir Roderick, after Poirot had gone.

‘You do not know who he was?’ Sonia asked, looking at him in a startled manner.

‘Personally I don’t remember who half the people are who come up and talk to me nowadays. Of course, I have to make a good shot at it. One learns to get away with that, you know. Same thing at parties. Up comes a chap and says, “Perhaps you don’t remember me. I last saw you in 1939.” I have to say “Of course I remember,” but I don’t. It’s a handicap being nearly blind and deaf. We got pally with a lot of frogs like that towards the end of the war. Don’t remember half of them. Oh, he’d been there all right. He knew me and I knew a good many of the chaps he talked about. That story about me and the stolen car, that was true enough. Exaggerated a bit, of course, they made a pretty good story of it at the time. Ah well, I don’t think he knew I didn’t remember him. Clever chap, I should say, but a thorough frog, isn’t he? You know, mincing and dancing and bowing and scraping. Now then, where were we?’

Sonia picked up a letter and handed it to him. She tentatively proffered a pair of spectacles which he immediately rejected.

‘Don’t want those damned things—I can see all right.’

He screwed up his eyes and peered down at the letter he was holding. Then he capitulated and thrust it back into her hands.

‘Well, perhaps you’d better read it to me.’

She started reading it in her clear soft voice.

CHAPTER 5 (#u72a82931-120f-55ed-8b72-3c187f977913)

Hercule Poirot stood upon the landing for a moment. His head was a little on one side with a listening air. He could hear nothing from downstairs. He crossed to the landing window and looked out. Mary Restarick was below on the terrace, resuming her gardening work. Poirot nodded his head in satisfaction. He walked gently along the corridor. One by one in turn he opened the doors. A bathroom, a linen cupboard, a double bedded spare room, an occupied single bedroom, a woman’s room with a double bed (Mary Restarick’s?). The next door was that of an adjoining room and was, he guessed, the room belonging to Andrew Restarick. He turned to the other side of the landing. The door he opened first was a single bedroom. It was not, he judged, occupied at the time, but it was a room which possibly was occupied at weekends. There were toilet brushes on the dressing-table. He listened carefully, then tip-toed in. He opened the wardrobe. Yes, there were some clothes hanging up there. Country clothes.

There was a writing table but there was nothing on it. He opened the desk drawers very softly. There were a few odds and ends, a letter or two, but the letters were trivial and dated some time ago. He shut the desk drawers. He walked downstairs, and going out of the house, bade farewell to his hostess. He refused her offer of tea. He had promised to get back, he said, as he had to catch a train to town very shortly afterwards.

‘Don’t you want a taxi? We could order you one, or I could drive you in the car.’

‘No, no, Madame, you are too kind.’

Poirot walked back to the village and turned down the lane by the church. He crossed a little bridge over a stream. Presently he came to where a large car with a chauffeur was waiting discreetly under a beech tree. The chauffeur opened the door of the car, Poirot got inside, sat down and removed his patent leather shoes, uttering a gasp of relief.

‘Now we return to London,’ he said.

The chauffeur closed the door, returned to his seat and the car purred quietly away. The sight of a young man standing by the roadside furiously thumbing a ride was not an unusual one. Poirot’s eyes rested almost indifferently on this member of the fraternity, a brightly dressed young man with long and exotic hair. There were many such but in the moment of passing him Poirot suddenly sat upright and addressed the driver.

‘If you please, stop. Yes, and if you can reverse a little… There is someone requesting a lift.’

The chauffeur turned an incredulous eye over his shoulder. It was the last remark he would have expected. However, Poirot was gently nodding his head, so he obeyed.

The young man called David advanced to the door. ‘Thought you weren’t going to stop for me,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Much obliged, I’m sure.’

He got in, removed a small pack from his shoulders and let it slide to the floor, smoothed down his copper brown locks. ‘So you recognised me,’ he said.

‘You are perhaps somewhat conspicuously dressed.’

‘Oh, do you think so? Not really. I’m just one of a band of brothers.’

‘The school of Vandyke. Very dressy.’

‘Oh. I’ve never thought of it like that. Yes, there may be something in what you say.’

‘You should wear a cavalier’s hat,’ said Poirot, ‘and a lace collar, if I might advise.’

‘Oh, I don’t think we go quite as far as that.’ The young man laughed. ‘How Mrs Restarick dislikes the mere sight of me. Actually I reciprocate her dislike. I don’t care much for Restarick, either. There is something singularly unattractive about successful tycoons, don’t you think?’

‘It depends on the point of view. You have been paying attentions to the daughter, I understand.’

‘That is such a nice phrase,’ said David. ‘Paying attentions to the daughter. I suppose it might be called that. But there’s plenty of fifty-fifty about it, you know. She’s paying attention to me, too.’

‘Where is Mademoiselle now?’

David turned his head rather sharply. ‘And why do you ask that?’

‘I should like to meet her.’ He shrugged his shoulders.

‘I don’t believe she’d be your type, you know, any more than I am. Norma’s in London.’

‘But you said to her stepmother—’

‘Oh! We don’t tell stepmothers everything.’

‘And where is she in London?’

‘She works in an interior decorator’s down the King’s Road somewhere in Chelsea. Can’t remember the name of it for the moment. Susan Phelps, I think.’

‘But that is not where she lives, I presume. You have her address?’

‘Oh yes, a great block of flats. I don’t really understand your interest.’

‘One is interested in so many things.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘What brought you to that house—(what is its name?—Crosshedges) today. Brought you secretly into the house and up the stairs.’

‘I came in the back door, I admit.’

‘What were you looking for upstairs?’

‘That’s my business. I don’t want to be rude—but aren’t you being rather nosy?’

‘Yes, I am displaying curiosity. I would like to know exactly where this young lady is.’

‘I see. Dear Andrew and dear Mary—lord rot ’em—are employing you, is that it? They are trying to find her?’

‘As yet,’ said Poirot, ‘I do not think they know that she is missing.’

‘Someone must be employing you.’