Hallowe'en Party - Agatha Christie [70]
‘Who does?’ said Hercule Poirot. ‘You are very wise.’
‘And anyway, what’s all this about?’
‘You could put up one or two guests, if need arose?’
‘I could,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘Who do you want me to put up? Not you yourself. You’ve got a splendid flat of your own. Ultra modern, very abstract, all squares and cubes.’
‘It is just that there might be a wise precaution to take.’
‘For whom? Somebody else going to be killed?’
‘I trust and pray not, but it might be within the bound of possibility.’
‘But who? Who? I can’t understand.’
‘How well do you know your friend?’
‘Know her? Not well. I mean, we liked each other on a cruise and got in the habit of pairing off together. There was something—what shall I say?—exciting about her. Different.’
‘Did you think you might put her in a book some day?’
‘I do hate that phrase being used. People are always saying it to me and it’s not true. Not really. I don’t put people in books. People I meet, people I know.’
‘Is it perhaps not true to say, Madame, that you do put people in books sometimes? People that you meet, but not, I agree, people that you know. There would be no fun in that.’
‘You’re quite right,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘You’re really rather good at guessing things sometimes. It does happen that way. I mean, you see a fat woman sitting in a bus eating a currant bun and her lips are moving as well as eating, and you can see she’s either saying something to someone or thinking up a telephone call that she’s going to make, or perhaps a letter she’s going to write. And you look at her and you study her shoes and the skirt she’s got on and her hat and guess her age and whether she’s got a wedding ring on and a few other things. And then you get out of the bus. You don’t want ever to see her again, but you’ve got a story in your mind about somebody called Mrs Carnaby who is going home in a bus, having had a very strange interview somewhere where she saw someone in a pastry cook’s and was reminded of someone she’d only met once and who she had heard was dead and apparently isn’t dead. Dear me,’ said Mrs Oliver, pausing for breath. ‘You know, it’s quite true. I did sit across from someone in a bus just before I left London, and here it is all working out beautifully inside my head. I shall have the whole story soon. The whole sequence, what she’s going back to say, whether it’ll run her into danger or somebody else into danger. I think I even know her name. Her name’s Constance. Constance Carnaby. There’s only one thing would ruin it.’
‘And what is that?’
‘Well, I mean, if I met her again in another bus, or spoke to her or she talked to me or I began to know something about her. That would ruin everything, of course.’
‘Yes, yes. The story must be yours, the character is yours. She is your child. You have made her, you begin to understand her, you know how she feels, you know where she lives and you know what she does. But that all started with a real, live human being and if you found out what the real live human being was like—well then, there would be no story, would there?’
‘Right again,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘As to what you were saying about Judith, I think that is true. I mean, we were together a lot on the cruise, and we went to see the places but I didn’t really get to know her particularly well. She’s a widow, and her husband died and she was left badly off with one child, Miranda, whom you’ve seen. And it’s true that I’ve got rather a funny feeling