The Pale Horse - Agatha Christie [78]
“I don’t think it’s quite as simple as that,” I said slowly. “I have an idea that the women are quite genuine. But they come into it somehow. I think we may be able to find out something if we talk to a woman called Eileen Brandon, who works in an Espresso off Tottenham Court Road.”
II
Eileen Brandon had been fairly accurately described by Poppy—allowing, that is to say, for Poppy’s own particular point of view. Her hair was neither like a chrysanthemum, nor an unruly birds’ nest. It was waved back close to her head, she wore the minimum of makeup and her feet were encased in what is called, I believe, sensible shoes. Her husband had been killed in a motor accident, she told us, and left her with two small children. Before her present employment, she had been employed by a firm called Customers’ Reactions Classified for over a year. She had left of her own accord as she had not cared for the type of work.
“Why didn’t you care for it, Mrs. Brandon?”
Lejeune asked the question. She looked at him.
“You’re a detective-inspector of police? Is that right?”
“Quite right, Mrs. Brandon.”
“You think there’s something wrong about that firm?”
“It’s a matter I’m inquiring into. Did you suspect something of that kind? Is that why you left?”
“I’ve nothing definite to go upon. Nothing definite that I could tell you.”
“Naturally. We understand that. This is a confidential inquiry.”
“I see. But there is really very little I could say.”
“You can say why you wanted to leave.”
“I had a feeling that there were things going on that I didn’t know about.”
“You mean you didn’t think it was a genuine concern?”
“Something of the kind. It didn’t seem to me to be run in a businesslike way. I suspected that there must be some ulterior object behind it. But what that object was I still don’t know.”
Lejeune asked more questions as to exactly what work she had been asked to do. Lists of names in a certain neighbourhood had been handed out. Her job was to visit those people, ask certain questions, and note down the answers.
“And what struck you as wrong about that?”
“The questions did not seem to me to follow up any particular line of research. They seemed desultory, almost haphazard. As though—how can I put it?—they were a cloak for something else.”
“Have you any idea what the something else might have been?”
“No. That’s what puzzled me.”
She paused a moment and then said doubtfully:
“I did wonder, at one time, whether the whole thing could have been organised with a view perhaps to burglaries, a spying out of the land, so to speak. But that couldn’t be it, because I was never asked for any description of the rooms, fastenings, etc, or when the occupants of the flat or house were likely to be out or away.”
“What articles did you deal with in the questions?”
“It varied. Sometimes it was foodstuffs. Cereals, cake mixes, or it might be soap flakes and detergents. Sometimes cosmetics, face powders, lipsticks, creams, etc. Sometimes patent medicines or remedies, brands of aspirin, cough pastilles, sleeping pills, pep pills, gargles, mouthwashes, indigestion remedies and so on.”
“You were not asked,” Lejeune spoke casually, “to supply samples of any particular goods?”
“No. Nothing of that kind.”
“You merely asked questions and noted down the answers?”
“Yes.”
“What was supposed to be the object of these inquiries?”
“That was what seemed so odd. We were never told exactly. It was supposed to be done in order to supply information to certain manufacturing firms—but it was an extraordinarily amateurish way of going about it. Not systematic at all.”
“Would it be possible, do you think, that amongst the questions you were told to ask, there was just one question or one group of questions, that was the object of the enterprise, and that the others might have been camouflage?”
She considered the point, frowning a little, then she nodded.
“Yes,” she said. “That would account for the haphazard choice—but I haven’t the least idea what question or questions were the important ones.”
Lejeune looked at