didn't see as it was any call for me-'
'But now you feel differently?'
'It's that nasty death-that child that was pushed into a bucket of apples. Saying things about a murder, saying she'd seen something or known something about a murder. And I thought maybe as Miss Olga had murdered the old lady because she knew all this money was coming to her and then she got the wind up when there was a fuss and lawyers and the police, maybe, and so she ran away. So then I thought well, perhaps I ought to-well, I ought to tell someone, and I thought you'd be a lady as has got friends in legal departments.
Friends in the police perhaps, and you'd explain to them that I was only dusting a bookshelf, and this paper was there in a book and I put it back where it belonged. I didn't take it away or anything.'
'But that's what happened, was it, on that occasion? You saw Mrs. Llewellyn- Smythe write a codicil to her Will. You saw her write her name and you yourself and this Jim someone were both there and you both wrote your own names yourselves. That's it, isn't it?'
'That's right.'
'So if you both saw Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe write her name, then that signature couldn't have been a forgery, could it? Not if you saw her write it herself.'
'I saw her write it herself and that's the absolute truth I'm speaking.
And Jim'd say so too only he's gone to Australia, he has. Went over a year ago and I don't know his address or anything. He didn't come from these parts, anyway.'
'And what do you want me to do?'
'Well, I want you to tell me if there's anything I ought to say, or do now.
Nobody's asked me, mind you. Nobody ever asked me if I knew anything about a Will.'
'Your name is lear nan What Christian name?'
'Harriet.'
'Harriet Leaman. And Jim, what was his last name?'
'Well, now, what was it? Jenkins.
That's right. James Jenkins. I'd be much obliged if you could help me because it worries me, you see. All this trouble coming along and if that Miss Olga did it, murdered Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe, I mean, and young Joyce saw her do it? She was ever so cock-a-hoop about it all, Miss Olga was, I mean about hearing from the lawyers as she'd come into a lot of money. But it was different when the police came round asking questions, and she went off very sudden, she did. Nobody asked me anything, they didn't. But now I can't help wondering if I ought to have said something at the time.'
'I think,' said Mrs. Oliver, 'that you will probably have to tell this story of yours to whoever represented Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe as a lawyer. I'm sure a good lawyer will quite understand your feelings and your motive.'
'Well, I'm sure if you'd say a word for me and tell them, being a lady as knows what's what, how it came about, and how I never meant to well, not to do anything dishonest in any way. I mean, all I did '
'All you did was to say nothing,' said Mrs. Oliver.
'It seems quite a reasonable explanation.'
'And if it could come from you saying a word for me first, you know, to explain, I'd be ever so grateful.'
'I'll do what I can,' said Mrs. Oliver.
Her eyes strayed to the garden path where she saw a neat figure approaching.
'Well, thanks ever so much. They said as you were a very nice lady, and I'm sure I'm much obliged to you.'
She rose to her feet, replaced the cotton gloves which she had twisted entirely off in her anguish, made a kind of half nod or bob, and trotted off. Mrs. Oliver waited until Poirot approached.
'Come here,' she said, 'and sit down.
What's the matter with you? You look upset.'
'My feet are extremely painful,' said Hercule Poirot.
'It's those awful tight patent leather shoes of yours,' said Mrs. Oliver. 'Sit down. Tell me what you came to tell me, and then I'll tell you something that you may be surprised to hear!'
Poirot sat down, stretched out his legs and said: 'Ah! that is better.'
'Take your shoes off,' said Mrs. Oliver, 'and rest your feet.'
'No, no. I could not do that.' Poirot sounded shocked at the possibility.
'Well, we're old friends together,' said Mrs. Oliver, 'and Judith wouldn't mind if she came out of the house. You know, if you'll excuse me saying so, you oughtn't to wear patent leather shoes in the country.
Why don't you get yourself a nice pair of suede shoes? Or the things all the hippy- looking boys wear nowadays? You know, the sort of shoes that slip on, and you never have to clean them- apparently they clean themselves by some extraordinary process or other. One of these labour-saving gimmicks.'
'I would not care for that at all,' said Poirot severely.
'No, indeed!'
'The trouble with you is,' said Mrs. Oliver, beginning to unwrap a package on the table which she had obviously recently purchased, 'the trouble with you is that you insist on being smart. You mind more about your clothes and your moustaches and how you look and what you wear than comfort. Now comfort is really the great thing. Once you've passed, say, fifty, comfort is the only thing that matters.'
'Madame, chere Madame, I do not know that I agree with you.'
'Well, you'd better,' said Mrs. Oliver. 'If not, you will suffer a great deal, and it will be worse year after year.'
Mrs. Oliver fished a gaily covered box from its paper bag. Removing the lids of this, she picked up a small portion of its contents and transferred it to her mouth.
She then licked her fingers, wiped them on a handkerchief, and murmured, rather indistinctly:
'Sticky.'
'Do you no longer eat apples? I have always seen you with a bag of apples in your hand, or eating them, or on occasions the bag breaks and they tumble out on the road.'
'I told you,' said Mrs. Oliver, 'I told you that I never want to see an apple again. No. I hate apples. I suppose I shall get over it some day and eat them again, but well, I don't like the associations of apples.'
'And what is it that you eat now?'
Poirot picked up the gaily coloured lid decorated with a picture of a palm tree.
'Tunis dates,' he read.
'Ah, dates now.'
'That's right,' said Mrs. Oliver. 'Dates.'
She took another date and put it in her mouth, removed a stone which she threw into a bush and continued to munch.
'Dates,' said Poirot. 'It is extraordinary.'
'What is extraordinary about eating dates? People do.'
'No, no, I do not mean that. Not eating them. It is extraordinary that you should say to me like that dates.'
'Why?' asked Mrs. Oliver.
'Because,' said Poirot, 'again and again you indicate to me the path, the how do you say, the chemin that I should take or that I should have already taken. You show me the way that I should go.
