The Pale Horse - Agatha Christie [3]
The principal item was a letter from my cousin Rhoda Despard, asking me to do her a favour. I grasped at this, since I was not feeling in the mood for work this morning, and it made a splendid excuse for postponing it.
I went out into King’s Road, hailed a taxi, and was driven to the residence of a friend of mine, a Mrs. Ariadne Oliver.
Mrs. Oliver was a well-known writer of detective stories. Her maid, Milly, was an efficient dragon who guarded her mistress from the onslaughts of the outside world.
I raised my eyebrows inquiringly, in an unspoken question. Milly nodded a vehement head.
“You’d better go right up, Mr. Mark,” she said. “She’s in a mood this morning. You may be able to help her snap out of it.”
I mounted two flights of stairs, tapped lightly on a door, and walked in without waiting for encouragement. Mrs. Oliver’s workroom was a good-sized room, the walls papered with exotic birds nesting in tropical foliage. Mrs. Oliver herself, in a state apparently bordering on insanity, was prowling round the room, muttering to herself. She threw me a brief uninterested glance and continued to prowl. Her eyes, unfocused, swept round the walls, glanced out of the window, and occasionally closed in what appeared to be a spasm of agony.
“But why,” demanded Mrs. Oliver of the universe, “why doesn’t the idiot say at once that he saw the cockatoo? Why shouldn’t he? He couldn’t have helped seeing it! But if he does mention it, it ruins everything. There must be a way…there must be….”
She groaned, ran her fingers through her short grey hair and clutched it in a frenzied hand. Then, looking at me with suddenly focused eyes, she said, “Hallo, Mark. I’m going mad,” and resumed her complaint.
“And then there’s Monica. The nicer I try to make her, the more irritating she gets… Such a stupid girl… Smug, too! Monica… Monica? I believe the name’s wrong. Nancy? Would that be better? Joan? Everybody is always Joan. Anne is the same. Susan? I’ve had a Susan. Lucia? Lucia? Lucia? I believe I can see a Lucia. Red-haired. Polo-necked jumper… Black tights? Black stockings, anyway.”
This momentary gleam of good cheer was eclipsed by the memory of the cockatoo problem, and Mrs. Oliver resumed her unhappy prowling, picking up things off tables unseeingly and putting them down again somewhere else. She fitted with some care her spectacle case into a lacquered box which already contained a Chinese fan and then gave a deep sigh and said:
“I’m glad it’s you.”
“That’s very nice of you.”
“It might have been anybody. Some silly woman who wanted me to open a bazaar, or the man about Milly’s insurance card which Milly absolutely refuses to have—or the plumber (but that would be too much good fortune, wouldn’t it?). Or, it might be someone wanting an interview—asking me all those embarrassing questions which are always the same every time. What made you first think of taking up writing? How many books have you written? How much money do you make? Etc. etc. I never know the answers to any of them and it makes me look such a fool. Not that any of that matters because I think I am going mad, over this cockatoo business.”
“Something that won’t jell?” I said sympathetically. “Perhaps I’d better go away.”
“No, don’t. At any rate you’re a distraction.”
I accepted this doubtful compliment.
“Do you want a cigarette?” Mrs. Oliver asked with vague hospitality. “There are some somewhere. Look in the typewriter lid.”
“I’ve got my own, thanks. Have one. Oh no, you don’t smoke.”
“Or drink,” said Mrs. Oliver. “I wish I did. Like those American detectives that always have pints of rye conveniently in their collar drawers. It seems to solve all their problems. You know. Mark, I really can’t think how anyone ever gets away with a murder in real life. It seems to me that the moment you’ve done a murder the whole thing is so terribly obvious.”
“Nonsense. You’ve done lots of them.”
“Fifty-five at least,” said Mrs. Oliver. “The murder part is quite easy and simple. It’s the covering up that’s so difficult. I mean, why should it be anyone else but you? You stick