'I tell you, I know a good deal.' She placed coins on the table and rose.
'I'm going now,' she said, 'and I forbid 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 follow you.' 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 something of a flourish. 'Au revoir, Mademoiselle.' She threw a suspicious glance at him and walked away down the street with a rapid step, turning her head back over her shoulder from time to time. Poirot remained by the door watching her, but made no attempt to gain the pavement or to catch her up. When she was out of sight, he turned back into the cafe.
'And what the devil does all that mean?' said Poirot to himself.
The waitress was advancing upon him, displeasure on her face. Poirot regained 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 it and made a grimace.
He wondered where Mrs. Oliver was at this moment.
Chapter Nine
MRS. OLIVER was seated in a bus.
She was slightly out of breath though full of the zest of the chase.
What she called in her own mind the Peacock, had led a somewhat brisk pace.
Mrs. Oliver was not a rapid walker.
Going along the Embankment she followed him at a distance of some twenty yards or so. At Charing Cross he got into the underground. Mrs. Oliver also got into the underground. At Sloane Square he got out, so did Mrs. Oliver. She waited in a bus queue some three or four people behind him. He got on a bus and so did she.
He got out at World's End, so did Mrs. Oliver. He plunged into a bewildering maze of streets between King's Road and the river. He turned into what seemed a builder's yard. Mrs. Oliver stood in the shadow of a doorway and watched. He turned into an alleyway, Mrs. Oliver gave him a moment or two and then followed - he was nowhere to be seen. Mrs. Oliver reconnoitred her general surroundings.
The whole place appeared somewhat decrepit. She wandered farther down the alleyway. Other alleyways led off from it - some of them culs-de-sac. She had completely lost her sense of direction when she once more came to the builder's yard and a voice spoke behind her, startling her considerably.
It said, politely, 'I hope I didn't walk too fast for you.' She turned sharply. Suddenly what had recently been almost fun, a chase undertaken light-heartedly and in the best of spirits, now was that no longer. What she felt now was a sudden unexpected throb of fear. Yes, she was afraid. The atmosphere had suddenly become tinged with menace.
Yet the voice was pleasant, polite, but behind it she knew there was anger. The sudden kind of anger that recalled to her in a confused fashion all the things one read in newspapers. Elderly women attacked by gangs of young men. Young men who were ruthless, cruel, who were driven by hate and the desire to do harm.
This was the young man whom she had been following. He had known she was there, had given her the slip and had then followed her into this alleyway, and he stood there now barring her way out.
As is the precarious fashion of London, one moment you are amongst people all round you and the next moment there is nobody in sight. There must be people in the next street, someone in the houses near, but nearer than that is a masterful figure, a figure with strong cruel hands.
She felt sure that in this moment he was thinking of using those hands… The Peacock. A proud peacock. In his velvets, his tight, elegant black trousers, speaking in that quiet ironical amused voice that held behind it anger… Mrs. Oliver took three big gasps. Then, in a lightning moment of decision she put up a quickly imagined defence. Firmly and immediately she sat on a dustbin which was against the wall quite close to her.
'Goodness, how you startled me,' she said. 'I'd no idea you were there. I hope you're not annoyed.'
'So you were following me?'
'Yes, I'm afraid I was. I expect it must have been rather annoying to you. You see I thought it would be such an excellent opportunity. I'm sure you're frightfully angry but you needn't be, you know. Not really. You see-' Mrs. Oliver settled herself more firmly on the dustbin, 'you see I write books. I write detective stories and I've really been very worried this morning. In fact I went into a cafe to have a cup of coffee just to try and think things out. I'd just got to the point in my book where I was following somebody. I mean my hero was following someone and I thought to myself, 'really I know very little about following people.' I mean, I'm always using the phrase in a book and I've read a lot of books where people do follow other people, and I wondered if it was as easy as it seems to be in some people's books or if it was as almost entirely impossible as it seemed in other people's books. So I thought 'Well, really, the only thing was to try it out myself - because until you try things out yourself you can't really tell what it's like. I mean you don't know what you feel like, or whether you get worried at losing a person. As it happened, I just looked up and you were sitting at the next table to me in the cafe and I thought you'd be - I hope you won't be annoyed again - but I thought you'd be an especially good person to follow.' He was still staring at her with those strange, cold blue eyes, yet she felt somehow that the tension had left them.
'Why was I an especially good person to follow?'
'Well, you were so decorative,' explained Mrs. Oliver. 'They are really very attractive clothes - almost Regency, you know, and I thought, well, I might take advantage of your being fairly easy to distinguish from other people. So you see, when you went out of the cafe I went out too. And it's not really easy at all.' She looked up at him. 'Do you mind telling me if you knew I was there all the time?'
'Not at once, no.'
'I see,' said Mrs. Oliver thoughtfully.
'But of course I'm not as distinctive as you are. I mean you wouldn't be able to tell me very easily from a lot of other elderly women. I don't stand out very much, do I?'
'Do you write books that are published?
Have I ever come across them?'
'Well, I don't know. You may have.
I've written forty-three by now. My name's Oliver.'
'Ariadne Oliver?'
'So you do know my name,' said Mrs. Oliver. 'Well, that's rather gratifying, of course, though I daresay you wouldn't like my books very much. You probably would find them rather old-fashioned- not violent enough.'
'You didn't know me personally beforehand?' Mrs. Oliver shook her head. 'No, I'm sure I don't - didn't, I mean.'
'What about the girl I was with?'
'You mean the one you were having - baked beans was it - with in the cafe?
No, I don't think so. Of course I only saw the back of her head. She looked to me - well, I mean girls do look rather alike, don't they?'
'She knew you,' said the boy suddenly.
His tone in a moment had a sudden acid sharpness. 'She mentioned once that she'd met you not long ago. About a week ago, I believe.'
'Where? Was it at a party? I suppose I might have met her. What's her name?
Perhaps I'd know that.' She thought he was in two moods whether to mention the name or not, but he decided to and he watched her face very keenly as he did so.
'Her name's Norma Restarick.'
'Norma Restarick. Oh, of course, yes, it was at a party in the country. A place called - wait a minute - Long Norton was it? - I don't remember the name of the house. I went there with some friends.
I don't think I would have recognised her anyway, though I believe she did say something about my books. I even promised I'd give her one. It's very odd, isn't it, that I should make up my mind and actually choose to follow a person who was sitting with somebody I more or less knew.
