'Goodbye.' Poirot leant back in his seat as David slammed the door.
Mrs. Oliver prowled round her sitting room.
She was very restless. An hour ago she had parcelled up a typescript that she had just finished correcting. She was about to send it off to her publisher who was anxiously awaiting it and constantly prodding her about it every three or four days.
'There you are,' said Mrs. Oliver, addressing the empty air and conjuring up an imaginary publisher. 'There you are, and I hope you like it! I don't. I think it's lousy! I don't believe you know whether anything I write is good or bad. Anyway, I warned you. I told you it was frightful.
You said 'Oh! no, no, I don't believe that for a moment.'
'You just wait and see,' said Mrs. Oliver vengefully. 'You just wait and see.' She opened the door, called to Edith, her maid, gave her the parcel and directed that it should be taken to the post at once.
'And now,' said Mrs. Oliver, 'what am I going to do with myself?' She began strolling about again. 'Yes,' thought Mrs. Oliver, 'I wish I had those tropical birds and things back on the wall instead of these idiotic cherries. I used to feel like something in a tropical wood. A lion or a tiger or a leopard or a cheetah!
What could I possibly feel like in a cherry orchard except a bird scarer?' She looked round again. 'Cheeping like a bird, that's what I ought to be doing,' she said gloomily. 'Eating cherries… I wish it was the right time of year for cherries. I'd like some cherries. I wonder now - ' She went to the telephone. 'I will ascertain. Madam,' said the voice of George in answer to her enquiry. Presently another voice spoke.
'Hercule Poirot, at your service, Madame,' he said.
'Where've you been?' said Mrs. Oliver. 'You've been away all day. I suppose you went down to look up the Restaricks. Is that it? Did you see Sir Roderick? What did you find out?'
'Nothing,' said Hercule Poirot.
'How dreadfully dull,' said Mrs. Oliver.
'No, I do not think it is really so dull.
It is rather astonishing that I have not found out anything.'
'Why is it so astonishing? I don't understand.'
'Because,' said Poirot, 'it means either there was nothing to find out, and that, let me tell you, does not accord with the facts, or else something was being very cleverly concealed. That, you see, would be interesting. Mrs. Restarick, by the way, did not know the girl was missing.'
'You mean - she has nothing to do with the girl having disappeared?'
'So it seems. I met there the young man.'
'You mean the unsatisfactory young man that nobody likes?'
'That is right. The unsatisfactory young man.'
'Did you think he was unsatisfactory?'
'From whose point of view?'
'Not from the girl's point of view, I suppose.'
'The girl who came to see me I am sure would have been highly delighted with him.'
'Did he look very awful?'
'He looked very beautiful,' said Hercule Poirot.
'Beautiful?' said Mrs. Oliver. 'I don't know that I like beautiful young men.'
'Girls do,' said Poirot.
'Yes, you're quite right. They like beautiful young men. I don't mean goodlooking young men or smart-looking young men or well dressed or well washed looking young men. I mean they either like young men looking as though they were just going on in a Restoration comedy, or else very dirty young men looking as though they were just going to take some awful tramp's job.'
'It seemed that he also did not know where the girl is now - '
'Or else he wasn't admitting it.'
'Perhaps. He had gone down there.
Why? He was actually in the house. He had taken the trouble to walk in without anyone seeing him. Again why? For what reason? Was he looking for the girl? Or was he looking for something else?'
'You think he was looking for something?'
'He was looking for something in the girl's room,' said Poirot.
'How do you know? Did you see him there?'
'No, I only saw him coming down the stairs, but I found a very nice little piece of damp mud in Norma's room that could have come from his shoe. It is possible that she herself may have asked him to bring her something from that room - there are a lot of possibilities. There is another girl in that house - and a pretty one - He may have come down there to meet her.
Yes - many possibilities.'
'What are you going to do next?' demanded Mrs. Oliver.
'Nothing,' said Poirot.
'That's very dull,' said Mrs. Oliver disapprovingly.
'I am going to receive, perhaps, a little information from those I have employed to find it, though it is quite possible that I shall receive nothing at all.'
'But aren't you going to do something?'
'Not till the right moment,' said Poirot.
'Well, I shall,' said Mrs. Oliver.
'Pray, pray be very careful!' he implored her.
'What nonsense! What could happen to me?'
'Where there is murder, anything can happen. I tell that to you. I, Poirot.'
Chapter Six
MR. GOBY sat in a chair. He was a small shrunken little man, so nondescript as to be practically nonexistent.
He looked attentively at the claw foot of an antique table and addressed his remarks to it. He never addressed anybody direct.
'Glad you got the names for me, Mr. Poirot,' he said. 'Otherwise, you know, it might have taken a lot of time. As it is, I've got the main facts - and a bit of gossip on the side… Always useful, that. I'll begin at Borodene Mansions, shall I?' Poirot inclined his head graciously.
'Plenty of porters,' Mr. Goby informed the clock on the chimney piece. 'I started there, used one or two different young men. Expensive, but worth it. Didn't want it thought that there was anyone making any particular enquiries! Shall I use initials, or names?'
'Within these walls you can use the names,' said Poirot.
'Miss Claudia Reece-Holland spoken of as a very nice young lady. Father an M.P.
Ambitious man. Gets himself in the news a lot. She's his only daughter. She does secretarial work. Serious girl. No wild parties, no drink, no beatniks. Shares flat with two others. Number two works for the Wedderburn Gallery in Bond Street. Arty type. Whoops it up a bit with the Chelsea set. Goes around to places arranging exhibitions and art shows.
'The third one is your one. Not been there long. General opinion is that she's a bit 'wanting'. Not all there in the top story. But it's all a bit vague. One of the porters is a gossipy type. Buy him a drink or two and you'll be surprised at the things he'll tell you! Who drinks, and who drugs, and who's having trouble with his income tax, and who keeps his cash behind the cistern. Of course you can't believe it all.
Anyway, there was some story about a revolver being fired one night.'
'A revolver fired? Was anyone injured?'
'There seems a bit of doubt as to that.
His story is he heard a shot fired one night, and he comes out and there was this girl, your girl, standing there
