Mrs McGinty's Dead - Agatha Christie [54]
‘It certainly would.’
‘So you see, he must be thirty-five,’ said Robin triumphantly.
‘Then he can’t be Sven Hjerson. Just make him a Norwegian young man who’s in the Resistance Movement.’
‘But darling Ariadne, the whole point of the play is Sven Hjerson. You’ve got an enormous public who simply adore Sven Hjerson, and who’ll flock to see Sven Hjerson. He’s box office, darling!’
‘But people who read my books know what he’s like! You can’t invent an entirely new young man in the Norwegian Resistance Movement and just call him Sven Hjerson.’
‘Ariadne darling, I did explain all that. It’s not a book, darling, it’s a play. And we’ve just got to have glamour! And if we get this tension, this antagonism between Sven Hjerson and this—what’s-her-name?—Karen—you know, all against each other and yet really frightfully attracted—’
‘Sven Hjerson never cared for women,’ said Mrs Oliver coldly.
‘But you can’t have him a pansy, darling. Not for this sort of play. I mean it’s not green bay trees or anything like that. It’s thrills and murders and clean open-air fun.’
The mention of open air had its effect.
‘I think I’m going out,’ said Mrs Oliver abruptly. ‘I need air. I need air badly.’
‘Shall I come with you?’ asked Robin tenderly.
‘No, I’d rather go alone.’
‘Just as you like, darling. Perhaps you’re right. I’d better go and whip up an egg nog for Madre. The poor sweet is feeling just a teeny weeny bit left out of things. She does like attention, you know. And you’ll think about that scene in the cellar, won’t you? The whole thing is coming really wonderfully well. It’s going to be the most tremendous success. I know it is!’
Mrs Oliver sighed.
‘But the main thing,’ continued Robin, ‘is for you to feel happy about it!’
Casting a cold look at him, Mrs Oliver threw a showy military cape which she had once bought in Italy about her ample shoulders and went out into Broadhinny.
She would forget her troubles, she decided, by turning her mind to the elucidation of real crime. Hercule Poirot needed help. She would take a look at the inhabitants of Broadhinny, exercise her woman’s intuition which had never failed, and tell Poirot who the murderer was. Then he would only have to get the necessary evidence.
Mrs Oliver started her quest by going down the hill to the post office and buying two pounds of apples. During the purchase, she entered into amicable conversation with Mrs Sweetiman.
Having agreed that the weather was very warm for the time of year, Mrs Oliver remarked that she was staying with Mrs Upward at Laburnums.
‘Yes, I know. You’ll be the lady from London that writes the murder books? Three of them I’ve got here now in Penguins.’
Mrs Oliver cast a glance over the Penguin display. It was slightly overlaid by children’s waders.
‘The Affair of the Second Goldfish,’ she mused, ‘that’s quite a good one. The Cat it was Who Died—that’s where I made a blowpipe a foot long and it’s really six feet. Ridiculous that a blowpipe should be that size, but someone wrote from a museum to tell me so. Sometimes I think there are people who only read books in the hope of finding mistakes in them. What’s the other one of them? Oh! Death of a Débutante—that’s frightful tripe! I made sulphonal soluble in water and it isn’t, and the whole thing is wildly impossible from start to finish. At least eight people die before Sven Hjerson gets his brainwave.’
‘Very popular they are,’ said Mrs Sweetiman, unmoved by this interesting self-criticism. ‘You wouldn’t believe! I’ve never read any myself, because I don’t really get time for reading.’
‘You had a murder of your own down here, didn’t you?’ said Mrs Oliver.
‘Yes, last November that was. Almost next door here, as you might say.’
‘I hear there’s a detective down here, looking into it?’
‘Ah, you mean the little foreign gentleman up at Long Meadows? He was in here only yesterday and—’
Mrs Sweetiman broke off as another customer entered for stamps.
She bustled round to the post office side.
‘Good morning, Miss Henderson. Warm for the time of year today.’
‘Yes, it is.