Third girl - Agatha Christie [34]
‘I wonder,’ said Poirot.
She scooped up her bag and began feeling in it with shaking fingers.
‘I’m not going to stop here and have you say these horrible things to me.’ She signalled to the waitress who came, scribbled on a pad of paper, detached it and laid it down by Norma’s plate.
‘Permit me,’ said Hercule Poirot.
He removed the slip of paper deftly, and prepared to draw his notecase from his pocket. The girl snatched it back again.
‘No, I won’t let you pay for me.’
‘As you please,’ said Poirot.
He had seen what he wanted to see. The bill was for two. It would seem therefore that David of the fine feathers had no objection to having his bills paid by an infatuated girl.
‘So it is you who entertain a friend to elevenses, I see.’
‘How did you know that I was with anyone?’
‘I tell you, I know a good deal.’
She placed coins on the table and rose. ‘I’m going now,’ she said, ‘and I forbid you to follow me.’
‘I doubt if I could,’ said Poirot. ‘You must remember my advanced age. If you were to run down the street I should certainly not be able to follow you.’
She got up and went towards the door.
‘Do you hear? You are not to follow me.’
‘You permit me at least to open the door for you.’ He did so with something of a flourish. ‘Au revoir, Mademoiselle.’
She threw a suspicious glance at him and walked away down the street with a rapid step, turning her head back over her shoulder from time to time. Poirot remained by the door watching her, but made no attempt to gain the pavement or to catch her up. When she was out of sight, he turned back into the café.
‘And what the devil does all that mean?’ said Poirot to himself.
The waitress was advancing upon him, displeasure on her face. Poirot regained his seat at the table and placated her by ordering a cup of coffee. ‘There is something here very curious,’ he murmured to himself. ‘Yes, something very curious indeed.’
A cup of pale beige fluid was placed in front of him. He took a sip of it and made a grimace.
He wondered where Mrs Oliver was at this moment.
Chapter 9
Mrs Oliver was seated in a bus. She was slightly out of breath though full of the zest of the chase. What she called in her own mind the Peacock, had led a somewhat brisk pace. Mrs Oliver was not a rapid walker. Going along the Embankment she followed him at a distance of some twenty yards or so. At Charing Cross he got into the underground. Mrs Oliver also got into the underground. At Sloane Square he got out, so did Mrs Oliver. She waited in a bus queue some three or four people behind him. He got on a bus and so did she. He got out at World’s End, so did Mrs Oliver. He plunged into a bewildering maze of streets between King’s Road and the river. He turned into what seemed a builder’s yard. Mrs Oliver stood in the shadow of a doorway and watched. He turned into an alleyway, Mrs Oliver gave him a moment or two and then followed — he was nowhere to be seen. Mrs Oliver reconnoitred her general surroundings. The whole place appeared somewhat decrepit. She wandered farther down the alleyway. Other alleyways led off from it — some of them cul-de-sacs. She had completely lost her sense of direction when she once more came to the builder’s yard and a voice spoke behind her, startling her considerably. It said, politely, ‘I hope I didn’t walk too fast for you.’
She turned sharply. Suddenly what had recently been almost fun, a chase undertaken light-heartedly and in the best of spirits, now was that no longer. What she felt now was a sudden unexpected throb of fear. Yes, she was afraid. The atmosphere had suddenly become tinged with menace. Yet the voice was pleasant, polite; but behind it she knew there was anger. The sudden kind of anger that recalled to her in a confused fashion all the things one read in newspapers. Elderly women attacked by gangs of young men. Young men who were ruthless, cruel, who were driven by hate and the desire to do harm. This was the young man whom she had been following. He had known she was there, had given her the slip and had then followed her into this