She breathed excitedly:
'Did it work?'
'It went a bit wrong somehow.' I added, ''The dog it was that died.''
'What dog?' asked Poppy, at sea.
I saw that words of one syllable would always be needed where Poppy was concerned.
'The – er – business seems to have recoiled upon Ginger. Did you ever hear of that happening before?'
Poppy never had.
'Of course,' I said, 'this stuff they do at the Pale Horse down in Much Deeping – you know about that, don't you?'
'I didn't know where it was. Down in the country somewhere.'
'I couldn't quite make out from Ginger what it is they do…'
I waited carefully.
'Rays, isn't it?' said Poppy vaguely. 'Something like that. From outer space,' she added helpfully. 'Like the Russians!'
I decided that Poppy was now relying on her limited imagination.
'Something of that kind,' I agreed. 'But it must be quite dangerous. I mean, for Ginger to get ill like this.'
'But it was your wife who was to be ill and die, wasn't it?'
'Yes,' I said, accepting the role Ginger and Poppy had planted on me. 'But it seems to have gone wrong – backfired.'
'You mean -' Poppy made a terrific mental effort. 'Like when you plug an electric iron in wrong and you get a shock?'
'Exactly,' I said. 'Just like that. Did you ever know that sort of thing happen before?'
'Well, not that way -'
'What way, then?'
'Well, I mean if one didn't pay up – afterwards. A man I knew wouldn't.' Her voice dropped in an awe- stricken fashion. 'He was killed in the tube – fell off the platform in front of a train.'
'It might have been an accident.'
'Oh, no,' said Poppy, shocked at the thought. 'It was THEM.'
I poured some more champagne into Poppy's glass. Here, I felt, in front of me was someone who might be helpful if only you could tear out of her the disassociated facts that were flitting about in what she called her brain. She had heard things said, and assimilated about half of them, and got them jumbled up and nobody had been very careful what they said because it was 'only Poppy.'
The maddening thing was that I didn't know what to ask her. If I said the wrong thing she would shut up in alarm like a clam and go dumb on me.
'My wife,' I said, 'is still an invalid, but she doesn't seem any worse.'
'That's too bad,' said Poppy sympathetically, sipping champagne.
'So what do I do next?'
Poppy didn't seem to know.
'You see it was Ginger who – I didn't make any of the arrangements. Is there anyone I could get at?'
'There's a place in Birmingham,' said Poppy doubtfully.
'That's closed down,' I said. 'Don't you know anyone else who'd know anything about it?'
'Eileen Brandon might know something – but I don't think so.'
The introduction of a totally unexpected Eileen Brandon startled me. I asked who Eileen Brandon was.
'She's terrible really,' said Poppy. 'Very dim. Has her hair very tightly permed, and never wears stiletto heels. She's the end.' She added by way of explanation, 'I was at school with her – but she was pretty dim then. She was frightfully good at geography.'
'What's she got to do with the Pale Horse?'
'Nothing really. It was only an idea she got. And so she chucked it up.'
'Chucked what up?' I asked, bewildered.
'Her job with C.R.C.'
'What's C.R.C.?'
'Well, I don't really know exactly. They just say C.R.C. Something about Customers' Reactions or Research. It's quite a small show.'
'And Eileen Brandon worked for them? What did she have to do?'
'Just go round and ask questions – about toothpaste or gas stoves, and what kind of sponges you used. Too too depressing and dull. I mean, who cares?'
'Presumably C.R.C.' I felt a slight pricking of excitement.
It was a woman employed by an association of this kind who had been visited by Father Gorman on the fatal night. And – yes – of course, someone of that kind had called on Ginger at the flat.
Here was a link of some kind.
'Why did she chuck up her job? Because she got bored?'
'I don't think so. They paid quite well. But she got a sort of idea about it – that it wasn't what it seemed.'
'She thought that it might be connected, in some way, with the Pale Horse? Is that it?'
'Well, I don't know. Something of that kind. Anyway, she's working in an Espresso coffee bar off Tottenham Court Road now.'
'Give me her address.'
'She's not a bit your type.'
'I don't want to make sexual advances to her,' I said brutally. 'I want some hints on Customers Research. I'm thinking of buying some shares in one of those things.'
'Oh, I see,' said Poppy, quite satisfied with this explanation.
There was nothing more to be got out of her, so we finished up the champagne, and I took her home and thanked her for a lovely evening.
II
I tried to ring Lejeune next morning but failed. However, after some difficulty I managed to get through to Jim Corrigan.
'What about that psychological pipsqueak you brought along to see me, Corrigan. What does he say about Ginger?'
'A lot of long words. But I rather think, Mark, that he's truly baffled. And you know, people do get pneumonia. There's nothing mysterious or out of the way about that.'
'Yes,' I said. 'And several people we know of, whose names were on a certain list, have died of bronchopneumonia, gastro-enteritis, bulbar paralysis, tumour on the brain, epilepsy, paratyphoid and other well- authenticated diseases.'
'I know how you feel. But what can we do?'
'She's worse, isn't she?' I asked.
'Well – yes…'
'Then something's got to be done.'
'Such as?'
'I've got one or two ideas. Going down to Much Deeping, getting hold of Thyrza Grey and forcing her, by scaring the living daylights out of her, to reverse the spell or whatever it is.'
'Well – that might work.'
'Or – I might go to Venables -'
Corrigan said sharply:
'Venables? But he's out. How can he possibly have any connection with it? He's a cripple.'
