II

Miss Lemon, always efficient, had preceded him to the street, and waswaiting by a taxi. She asked no questions and displayed no curiosity. Shedid not tell Poirot how she would occupy her time whilst he was away. Shedid not need to tell him. She always knew what she was going to do andshe was always right in what she did.

Poirot duly arrived at the corner of Calthorpe Street. He descended, paidthe taxi, and looked around him. He saw The Merry Shamrock but he sawno one in its vicinity who looked at all like Mrs. Oliver, however well dis-guised. He walked to the end of the street and back. No Mrs. Oliver. Soeither the couple in which they were interested had left the café and Mrs.

Oliver had gone on a shadowing expedition, or else-To answer “or else”

he went to the café door. One could not see the inside very well from theoutside, on account of steam, so he pushed the door gently open andentered. His eyes swept round it.

He saw at once the girl who had come to visit him at the breakfast table.

She was sitting by herself at a table against the wall. She was smoking a ci-garette and staring in front of her. She seemed to be lost in thought. No,Poirot thought, hardly that. There did not seem to be any thought there.

She was lost in a kind of oblivion. She was somewhere else.

He crossed the room quietly and sat down in the chair opposite her. Shelooked up then, and he was at least gratified to see that he was recognised.

“So we meet again, Mademoiselle,” he said pleasantly. “I see you recog-nise me.”

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

“It is always gratifying to be recognised by a young lady one has onlymet once and for a very short time.”

She continued to look at him without speaking.

“And how did you know me, may I ask? What made you recognise me?”

“Your moustache,” said Norma immediately. “It couldn’t be anyoneelse.”

He was gratified by that observation and stroked it with the pride andvanity that he was apt to display on these occasions.

“Ah yes, very true. Yes, there are not many moustaches such as mine. Itis a fine one, hein?”

“Yes-well, yes-I suppose it is.”

“Ah, you are perhaps not a connoisseur of moustaches, but I can tellyou, Miss Restarick-Miss Norma Restarick, is it not?-that it is a very finemoustache.”

He had dwelt deliberately upon her name. She had at first looked so ob-livious to everything around her, so far away, that he wondered if shewould notice. She did. It startled her.

“How did you know my name?” she said.

“True, you did not give your name to my servant when you came to seeme that morning.”

“How did you know it? How did you get to know it? Who told you?”

He saw the alarm, the fear.

“A friend told me,” he said. “One’s friends can be very useful.”

“Who was it?”

“Mademoiselle, you like keeping your little secrets from me. I, too, havea preference for keeping my little secrets from you.”

“I don’t see how you could know who I was.”

“I am Hercule Poirot,” said Poirot, with his usual magnificence. Then heleft the initiative to her, merely sitting there smiling gently at her.

“I-” she began, then stopped. “-Would-” Again she stopped.

“We did not get very far that morning, I know,” said Hercule Poirot.

“Only so far as your telling me that you had committed a murder.”

“Oh that!”

“Yes, Mademoiselle, that.”

“But - I didn’t mean it of course. I didn’t mean anything like that. Imean, it was just a joke.”

“Vraiment? You came to see me rather early in the morning, at breakfasttime. You said it was urgent. The urgency was because you might havecommitted a murder. That is your idea of a joke, eh?”

A waitress who had been hovering, looking at Poirot with a fixed atten-tion, suddenly came up to him and proffered him what appeared to be apaper boat such as is made for children to sail in a bath.

“This for you?” she said. “Mr. Porritt? A lady left it.”

“Ah yes,” said Poirot. “And how did you know who I was?”

“The lady said I’d know by your moustache. Said I wouldn’t have seen amoustache like that before. And it’s true enough,” she added, gazing at it.

“Well, thank you very much.”

Poirot took the boat from her, untwisted it and smoothed it out; he readsome hastily pencilled words: “He’s just going. She’s staying behind, so I’mgoing to leave her for you, and follow him.” It was signed Ariadne.

“Ah yes,” said Hercule Poirot, folding it and slipping it into his pocket.

“What were we talking about? Your sense of humour, I think, Miss Re-starick.”

“Do you know just my name or-or do you know everything about me?”

“I know a few things about you. You are Miss Norma Restarick, your ad-dress in London is 67 Borodene Mansions. Your home address isCrosshedges, Long Basing. You live there with a father, a stepmother, agreat- uncle and - ah yes, an au pair girl. You see, I am quite well in-formed.”

“You’ve been having me followed.”

“No, no,” said Poirot. “Not at all. As to that, I give you my word of hon-our.”

“But you are not police, are you? You didn’t say you were.”

“I am not police, no.”

Her suspicion and defiance broke down.

“I don’t know what to do,” she said.

“I am not urging you to employ me,” said Poirot. “For that you have saidalready that I am too old. Possibly you are right. But since I know who youare and something about you, there is no reason we should not discuss to-gether in a friendly fashion the troubles that afflict you. The old, you mustremember, though considered incapable of action, have nevertheless agood fund of experience on which to draw.”

Norma continued to look at him doubtfully, that wide-eyed stare thathad disquieted Poirot before. But she was in a sense trapped, and she hadat this particular moment, or so Poirot judged, a wish to talk about things.

For some reason, Poirot had always been a person it was easy to talk to.

“They think I’m crazy,” she said bluntly. “And-and I rather think I’mcrazy, too. Mad.”

“That is most interesting,” said Hercule Poirot, cheerfully. “There aremany different names for these things. Very grand names. Names rolledout happily by psychiatrists, psychologists and others. But when you saycrazy, that describes very well what the general appearance may be to or-dinary, everyday people. Eh bien, then, you are crazy, or you appear crazyor you think you are crazy, and possibly you may be crazy. But all thesame that is not to say the condition is serious. It is a thing that people suf-fer from a good deal, and it is usually easily cured with the proper treat-ment. It comes about because people have had too much mental strain,too much worry, have studied too much for examinations, have dwelledtoo much perhaps on their emotions, have too much religion or have alamentable lack of religion, or have good reasons for hating their fathersor their mothers! Or, of course, it can be as simple as having an unfortu-nate love affair.”

“I’ve got a stepmother. I hate her and I rather think I hate my father too.

That seems rather a lot, doesn’t it?”

“It is more usual to hate one or the other,” said Poirot. “You were, I sup-pose, very fond of your own mother. Is she divorced or dead?”

“Dead. She died two or three years ago.”

“And you cared for her very much?”

“Yes. I suppose I did. I mean of course I did. She was an invalid, youknow, and she had to go to nursing homes a good deal.”

“And your father?”

“Father had gone abroad a long time before that. He went to SouthAfrica when I was about five or six. I think he wanted Mother to divorcehim but she wouldn’t. He went to South Africa and was mixed up withmines or something like that. Anyway, he used to write to me at Christ-mas, and send me a Christmas present or arrange for one to come to me.

That was about all. So he didn’t really seem very real to me. He camehome about a year ago because he had to wind up my uncle’s affairs andall that sort of financial thing. And when he came home he-he broughtthis new wife with him.”

“And you resented the fact?”

“Yes, I did.”

“But your mother was dead by then. It is not unusual, you know, for aman to marry again. Especially when he and his wife have been estrangedfor many years. This wife he brought, was she the same lady he hadwished to marry previously, when he asked your mother for a divorce?”

“Oh, no, this one is quite young. And she’s very good-looking and sheacts as though she just owns my father!”

She went on after a pause - in a different, rather childish voice. “Ithought perhaps when he came home this time he would be fond of meand take notice of me and-but she won’t let him. She’s against me. She’scrowded me out.”

“But that does not matter at all at the age you are. It is a good thing. Youdo not need anyone to look after you now. You can stand on your ownfeet, you can enjoy life, you can choose your own friends-”

“You wouldn’t think so, the way they go on at home! Well, I mean tochoose my own friends.”

“Most girls nowadays have to endure criticism about their friends,” saidPoirot.

“It was all so different,” said Norma. “My father isn’t at all like I remem-ber him when I was five years old. He used to play with me, all the time,and be so gay. He’s not gay now. He’s worried and rather fierce and-ohquite different.”

“That must be nearly fifteen years ago, I presume. People change.”

“But ought people to change so much?”

“Has he changed in appearance?”

“Oh no, no, not that. Oh no! If you look at his picture just over his chair,although it’s of him when he was much younger, it’s exactly like him now.

But it isn’t at all the way I remember him.”

“But you know, my dear,” said Poirot gently, “people are never like whatyou remember them. You make them, as the years go by, more and morethe way you wish them to be, and as you think you remember them. If youwant to remember them as agreeable and gay and handsome, you makethem far more so than they actually were.”

“Do you think so? Do you really think so?” She paused and then said ab-ruptly, “But why do you think I want to kill people?” The question cameout quite naturally. It was there between them. They had, Poirot felt, got atlast to a crucial moment.

“That may be quite an interesting question,” said Poirot, “and there maybe quite an interesting reason. The person who can probably tell you theanswer to that will be a doctor. The kind of doctor who knows.”

She reacted quickly.

“I won’t go to a doctor. I won’t go near a doctor! They wanted to send meto a doctor, and then I’ll be shut up in one of those loony places and theywon’t let me out again. I’m not going to do anything like that.” She wasstruggling now to rise to her feet.

“It is not I who can send you to one! You need not be alarmed. You couldgo to a doctor entirely on your own behalf if you liked. You can go and sayto him the things you have been saying to me, and you may ask him why,and he will perhaps tell you the cause.”

“That’s what David says. That’s what David says I should do but I don’tthink-I don’t think he understands. I’d have to tell a doctor that I-I mighthave tried to do things….”

“What makes you think you have?”

“Because I don’t always remember what I’ve done-or where I’ve been.

I lose an hour of time-two hours-and I can’t remember. I was in a cor-ridor once-a corridor outside a door, her door. I’d something in my hand-I don’t know how I got it. She came walking along towards me-Butwhen she got near me, her face changed. It wasn’t her at all. She’dchanged into somebody else.”

“You are remembering, perhaps, a nightmare. There people do changeinto somebody else.”

“It wasn’t a nightmare. I picked up the revolver-It was lying there atmy feet-”

“In a corridor?”

“No, in the courtyard. She came and took it away from me.”

“Who did?”

“Claudia. She took me upstairs and gave me some bitter stuff to drink.”

“Where was your stepmother then?”

“She was there, too-No, she wasn’t. She was at Crosshedges. Or in hos-pital. That’s where they found out she was being poisoned-and that itwas me.”

“It need not have been you-It could have been someone else.”

“Who else could it have been?”

“Perhaps-her husband.”

“Father? Why on earth should Father want to poison Mary. He’s devotedto her. He’s silly about her!”

“There are others in the house, are there not?”

“Old Uncle Roderick? Nonsense!”

“One does not know,” said Poirot, “he might be mentally afflicted. Hemight think it was his duty to poison a woman who might be a beautifulspy. Something like that.”

“That would be very interesting,” said Norma, momentarily diverted,and speaking in a perfectly natural manner. “Uncle Roderick was mixedup a good deal with spies and things in the last war. Who else is there? So-nia? I suppose she might be a beautiful spy, but she’s not quite my idea ofone.”

“No, and there does not seem very much reason why she should wish topoison your stepmother. I suppose there might be servants, gardeners?”

“No, they just come in for the days. I don’t think-well, they wouldn’t bethe kind of people to have any reason.”

“She might have done it herself.”

“Committed suicide, do you mean? Like the other one?”

“It is a possibility.”

“I can’t imagine Mary committing suicide. She’s far too sensible. Andwhy should she want to?”

“Yes, you feel that if she did, she would put her head in the gas oven, orshe would lie on a bed nicely arranged and take an overdose of sleepingdraughts. Is that right?”

“Well, it would have been more natural. So you see,” said Norma earnes-tly, “it must have been me.”

“Aha,” said Poirot, “that interests me. You would almost, it would seem,prefer that it should be you. You are attracted to the idea that it was yourhand who slipped the fatal dose of this, that or the other. Yes, you like theidea.”

“How dare you say such a thing! How can you?”

“Because I think it is true,” said Poirot. “Why does the thought that youmay have committed murder excite you, please you?”

“It’s not true.”

“I wonder,” said Poirot.

She scooped up her bag and began feeling in it with shaking fingers.

“I’m not going to stop here and have you say these horrible things tome.” She signalled to the waitress who came, scribbled on a pad of paper,detached it and laid it down by Norma’s plate.

“Permit me,” said Hercule Poirot.

He removed the slip of paper deftly, and prepared to draw his notecasefrom his pocket. The girl snatched it back again.

“No, I won’t let you pay for me.”

“As you please,” said Poirot.

He had seen what he wanted to see. The bill was for two. It would seemtherefore that David of the fine feathers had no objection to having hisbills paid by an infatuated girl.

“So it is you who entertain a friend to elevenses, I see.”

“How did you know that I was with anyone?”

“I tell you, I know a good deal.”

She placed coins on the table and rose. “I’m going now,” she said, “and Iforbid you to follow me.”

“I doubt if I could,” said Poirot. “You must remember my advanced age.

If you were to run down the street I should certainly not be able to followyou.”

She got up and went towards the door.

“Do you hear? You are not to follow me.”

“You permit me at least to open the door for you.” He did so with some-thing of a flourish. “Au revoir, Mademoiselle.”

She threw a suspicious glance at him and walked away down the streetwith a rapid step, turning her head back over her shoulder from time totime. Poirot remained by the door watching her, but made no attempt togain the pavement or to catch her up. When she was out of sight, heturned back into the café.

“And what the devil does all that mean?” said Poirot to himself.

The waitress was advancing upon him, displeasure on her face. Poirotregained his seat at the table and placated her by ordering a cup of coffee.

“There is something here very curious,” he murmured to himself. “Yes,something very curious indeed.”

A cup of pale beige fluid was placed in front of him. He took a sip of itand made a grimace.

He wondered where Mrs. Oliver was at this moment.