Cat Among the Pigeons - Agatha Christie [75]
“It seems possible, yes,” said Poirot. He went on, “I am interested, Mademoiselle Jennifer, in the woman who came and offered you a new racquet for your old one. Do you remember?”
“I should think I do remember,” said Jennifer. “I’ve never found out to this day who really sent it. It wasn’t Aunt Gina at all.”
“What did this woman look like?” said Poirot.
“The one who brought the racquet?” Jennifer half closed her eyes as though thinking. “Well, I don’t know. She had on a sort of fussy dress with a little cape, I think. Blue, and a floppy sort of hat.”
“Yes?” said Poirot. “I meant perhaps not so much her clothes as her face.”
“A good deal of makeup, I think,” said Jennifer vaguely. “A bit too much for the country, I mean, and fair hair. I think she was an American.”
“Had you ever seen her before?” asked Poirot.
“Oh no,” said Jennifer. “I don’t think she lived down there. She said she’d come down for a luncheon party or a cocktail party or something.”
Poirot looked at her thoughtfully. He was interested in Jennifer’s complete acceptance of everything that was said to her. He said gently,
“But she might not have been speaking the truth?”
“Oh,” said Jennifer. “No, I suppose not.”
“You’re quite sure you hadn’t seen her before? She could not have been, for instance, one of the girls dressed up? Or one of the mistresses?”
“Dressed up?” Jennifer looked puzzled.
Poirot laid before her the sketch Eileen Rich had done for him of Mademoiselle Blanche.
“This was not the woman, was it?”
Jennifer looked at it doubtfully.
“It’s a little like her—but I don’t think it’s her.”
Poirot nodded thoughtfully.
There was no sign that Jennifer recognized that this was actually a sketch of Mademoiselle Blanche.
“You see,” said Jennifer, “I didn’t really look at her much. She was an American and a stranger, and then she told me about the racquet—”
After that, it was clear, Jennifer would have had eyes for nothing but her new possession.
“I see,” said Poirot. He went on, “Did you ever see at Meadowbank anyone that you’d seen out in Ramat?”
“In Ramat?” Jennifer thought. “Oh no—at least—I don’t think so.”
Poirot pounced on the slight expression of doubt. “But you are not sure, Mademoiselle Jennifer.”
“Well,” Jennifer scratched her forehead with a worried expression, “I mean, you’re always seeing people who look like somebody else. You can’t quite remember who it is they look like. Sometimes you see people that you have met but you don’t remember who they are. And they say to you ‘You don’t remember me,’ and then that’s awfully awkward because really you don’t. I mean, you sort of know their face but you can’t remember their names or where you saw them.”
“That is very true,” said Poirot. “Yes, that is very true. One often has that experience.” He paused a moment then he went on, prodding gently, “Princess Shaista, for instance, you probably recognized her when you saw her because you must have seen her in Ramat.”
“Oh, was she in Ramat?”
“Very likely,” said Poirot. “After all she is a relation of the ruling house. You might have seen her there?”
“I don’t think I did,” said Jennifer frowning. “Anyway, she wouldn’t go about with her face showing there, would she? I mean, they all wear veils and things like that. Though they take them off in Paris and Cairo, I believe. And in London, of course,” she added.
“Anyway, you had no feeling of having seen anyone at Meadowbank whom you had seen before?”
“No, I’m sure I hadn’t. Of course most people do look rather alike and you might have seen them anywhere. It’s only when somebody’s got an odd sort of face like Miss Rich, that you notice it.”
“Did you think you’d seen Miss Rich somewhere before?”
“I hadn’t really. It must have been someone like her. But it was someone much fatter than she was.”
“Someone much fatter,” said Poirot thoughtfully.
“You couldn’t imagine Miss Rich being fat,” said Jennifer with a giggle. “She’s so frightfully thin and nobbly. And