Mrs. Mop fell.
'It's not that she isn't a nice young lady.
Scatty - but then they're nearly all scatty.
But I think as a doctor ought to see her.
There are times when she doesn't seem to know rightly what she's doing, or where she is. It gives you quite a turn, sometimes - Looks just how my husband's nephew does after he's had a fit. (Terrible fits he has - you wouldn't believe!) Only I've never known her have fits. Maybe she takes things -a lot do.'
'I believe there is a young man her family doesn't approve of.'
'Yes, so I've heard. He's come here to call for her once or twice - though I've never seen him. One of these Mods by all accounts. Miss Holland doesn't like it- but what can you do nowadays? Girls go their own way.'
'Sometimes one feels very upset about girls nowadays.' said Mrs. Oliver, and tried to look serious and responsible.
'Not brought up right, that's what I says.'
'I'm afraid not. No, I'm afraid not. One feels really a girl like Norma Restarick would be better at home than coming all alone to London and earning her living as an interior decorator.'
'She don't like it at home.'
'Really?'
'Got a stepmother. Girls don't like stepmothers. From what I've heard the stepmother's done her best, tried to pull her up, tried to keep flashy young men out of the house, that sort of thing. She knows girls pick up with the wrong young man and a lot of harm may come of it. Sometimes - ' the cleaning woman spoke impressively, '- I'm thankful I've never had any daughters.'
'Have you got sons?'
'Two boys, we've got. One's doing very well at school, and the other one, he's in a printers, doing well there too. Yes, very nice boys they are. Mind you, boys can cause you trouble, too. But girls is more worrying, I think. You feel you ought to be able to do something about them.'
'Yes,' said Mrs. Oliver, thoughtfully, 'one does feel that.' She saw signs of the cleaning woman wishing to return to her cleaning.
'It's too bad about my diary,' she said.
'Well, thank you very much and I hope I haven't wasted your time.'
'Well, I hope you'll find it, I'm sure,' said the other woman obligingly.
Mrs. Oliver went out of the flat and considered what she should do next. She couldn't think of anything she could do further that day, but a plan for tomorrow began to form in her mind.
When she got home, Mrs. Oliver, in an important way, got out a notebook and jotted down in it various things under the heading 'Facts I have learned'. On the whole the facts did not amount to very much but Mrs. Oliver, true to her calling, managed to make the most of them that could be made. Possibly the fact that Claudia Reece-Holland was employed by Norma's father was the most salient fact of any. She had not known that before, she rather doubted if Hercule Poirot had known it either. She thought of ringing him up on the telephone and acquainting him with it but decided to keep it to herself for the moment because of her plan for the morrow.
In fact, Mrs. Oliver felt at this moment less like a detective novelist than like an ardent bloodhound. She was on the trail, nose down on the scent, and tomorrow morning - well, tomorrow morning she would see.
True to her plan, Mrs. Oliver rose early, partook of two cups of tea and a boiled egg and started out on her quest. Once more she arrived in the vicinity of Borodene Mansions. She wondered whether she might be getting a bit well known there, so this time she did not enter the courtyard, but skulked around either one entrance to it or the other, scanning the various people who were turning out into the morning drizzle to trot off on their way to work.
They were mostly girls, and looked deceptively alike. How extraordinary human beings were when you considered them like this, emerging purposefully from these large tall buildings - just like anthills, thought Mrs. Oliver. One had never considered an anthill properly, she decided.
It always looked so aimless, as one disturbed it with the toe of a shoe. All those little things rushing about with bits of grass in their mouths, streaming along industriously, worried, anxious, looking as though they were running to and fro and going nowhere, but presumably they were just as well organised as these human beings here. That man, for instance, who had just passed her. Scurrying along, muttering to himself. 'I wonder what's upsetting you.' thought Mrs. Oliver. She walked up and down a little more, then she drew back suddenly.
Claudia Reece-Holland came out of the entrance way walking at a brisk businesslike pace. As before, she looked very well turned out. Mrs. Oliver turned away so that she should not be recognised. Once she had allowed Claudia to get a sufficient distance ahead of her, she wheeled round again and followed in her tracks. Claudia Reece-Holland came to the end of the street and turned right into a main thoroughfare.
She came to a bus stop and joined the queue. Mrs. Oliver, still following her, felt a momentary uneasiness. Supposing Claudia should turn round, look at her, recognise her? All Mrs. Oliver could think of was to do several protracted but noiseless blows of the nose. But Claudia Reece-Holland seemed totally absorbed in her own thoughts. She looked at none of her fellow waiters for buses. Mrs. Oliver was about third in the queue behind her. Finally the right bus came and there was a surge forward. Claudia got on the bus and went straight up to the top. Mrs. Oliver got inside and was able to get a seat close to the door as the uncomfortable third person.
When the conductor came round for fares Mrs. Oliver pressed a reckless one and sixpence into his hand. After all, she had no idea by what route the bus went or indeed how far the distance was to what the cleaning woman had described vaguely as 'one of those new buildings by St. Paul's'. She was on the alert and ready when the venerable dome was at last sighted. Any time now, she thought to herself and fixed a steady eye on those who descended from the platform above. Ah yes, there came Claudia, neat and chic in her smart suit. She got off the bus. Mrs. Oliver followed her in due course and kept at a nicely calculated distance.
'Very interesting,' thought Mrs. Oliver. 'Here I am actually trailing someone! Just like in my books. And, what's more, I must be doing it very well because she hasn't the least idea.' Claudia Reece-Holland, indeed, looked very much absorbed in her own thoughts.
'That's a very capable looking girl,' thought Mrs. Oliver, as indeed she had thought before. 'If I was thinking of having a go at guessing a murderer, a good capable murderer, I'd choose someone very like her.' Unfortunately, nobody had been murdered yet, that is to say, unless the girl Norma had been entirely right in her assumption that she herself had committed a murder.
This part of London seemed to have suffered or profited from a large amount of building in the recent years. Enormous skyscrapers, most of which Mrs. Oliver thought very hideous, mounted to the sky with a square matchbox-like air.
Claudia turned into a building. 'Now I shall find out exactly,' thought Mrs. Oliver and turned into it after her. Four lifts appeared to be all going up and down with frantic haste. This, Mrs. Oliver thought, was going to be more difficult. However, they were of a very large size and by getting into Claudia's one at the last minute Mrs. Oliver was able to interpose large masses of tall men between herself and the figure she was following.
Claudia's destination turned out to be the fourth floor. She went along a corridor and Mrs. Oliver, lingering behind two of her tall men, noted the door where she went in. Three doors from the end of the corridor.
Mrs. Oliver arrived at the same door in due course and was able to read the legend on it. 'Joshua Restarick Ltd' was the legend it bore.
Having got as far as that Mrs. Oliver felt as though she did not quite know what to do next. She had found Norma's father's place of business and the place where Claudia worked, but now, slightly disabused, she felt that this was not so much of a discovery as it might have been.
Frankly, did it help? Probably it didn't.
She waited around a few moments, walking from one end to the other of the corridor looking to see if anybody else interesting went in at the door of Restarick Enterprises. Two or three girls did but they did not look particularly interesting.
Mrs. Oliver went down again in the lift and walked rather disconsolately out of the building. She couldn't quite think what to do next. She took a walk round the adjacent streets, she meditated a visit to St. Paul's.
'I might go up in the Whispering Gallery and whisper,' thought Mrs. Oliver.
'I wonder now how the Whispering Gallery would do for the scene of a murder?'
'No,' she decided, 'too profane, I'm afraid. No, I don't think that would be quite nice.' She walked thoughtfully
