Third girl - Agatha Christie [54]
Sonia looked slightly perplexed.
‘Made a good tea, I hope,’ Sir Roderick went on. ‘I told you, you know, to have a good tea, buy yourself some buns or éclairs or whatever it is young ladies like nowadays, eh? You obeyed orders, I hope.’
‘No, not exactly. I took the time to buy a pair of shoes. Look, they are pretty, are they not?’ She stuck out a foot.
It was certainly a very pretty foot. Sir Roderick beamed at it.
‘Well, we must go and catch our train,’ he said. ‘I may be old-fashioned but I’m all for trains. Start to time and get there on time, or they should do. But these cars, they get in a queue in the rush hour and you may idle the time away for about an hour and a half more than you need. Cars! Pah!’
‘Shall I ask Georges to get you a taxi?’ asked Hercule Poirot. ‘It will be no trouble, I assure you.’
‘I have a taxi already waiting,’ said Sonia.
‘There you are,’ said Sir Roderick, ‘you see, she thinks of everything.’ He patted her on the shoulder. She looked at him in a way that Hercule Poirot fully appreciated.
Poirot accompanied them to the hall door and took a polite leave of them. Mr Goby had come out of the kitchen and was standing in the hall giving, it could be said, an excellent performance of a man who had come to see about the gas.
George shut the hall door as soon as they had disappeared into the lift, and turned to meet Poirot’s gaze.
‘And what is your opinion of that young lady, Georges, may I ask?’ said Poirot. On certain points he always said George was infallible.
‘Well, sir,’ said George, ‘if I might put it that way, if you’ll allow me, I would say he’d got it badly, sir. All over her as you might say.’
‘I think you are right,’ said Hercule Poirot.
‘It’s not unusual of course with gentlemen of that age. I remember Lord Mountbryan. He’d had a lot of experience in his life and you’d say he was as fly as anyone. But you’d be surprised. A young woman as came to give him massage. You’d be surprised at what he gave her. An evening frock, and a pretty bracelet. Forget-me-nots, it was. Turquoise and diamonds. Not too expensive but costing quite a pretty penny all the same. Then a fur wrap — not mink, Russian ermine, and a petty point evening bag. After that her brother got into trouble, debt or something, though whether she ever had a brother I sometimes wondered. Lord Mountbryan gave her the money to square it — she was so upset about it! All platonic, mind you, too. Gentlemen seem to lose their sense that way when they get to that age. It’s the clinging ones they go for, not the bold type.’
‘I have no doubt that you are quite right, Georges,’ said Poirot. ‘It is all the same not a complete answer to my question. I asked what you thought of the young lady.’
‘Oh, the young lady…Well, sir, I wouldn’t like to say definitely, but she’s quite a definite type. There’s never anything that you could put your finger on. But they know what they’re doing, I’d say.’
Poirot entered his sitting-room and Mr Goby followed him, obeying Poirot’s gesture. Mr Goby sat down on an upright chair in his usual attitude. Knees together, toes turned in. He took a rather dog-eared little notebook from his pocket, opened it carefully and then proceeded to survey the soda water siphon severely.
‘Re the backgrounds you asked me to look up.
‘Restarick family, perfectly respectable and of good standing. No scandal. The father, James Patrick Restarick, said to be a sharp man over a bargain. Business has been in the family three generations. Grandfather founded it, father enlarged it, Simon Restarick kept it going. Simon Restarick had coronary trouble two years ago, health declined. Died of coronary thrombosis, about a year ago.
‘Young brother Andrew Restarick came into the business soon after he came down from Oxford, married Miss Grace Baldwin. One daughter, Norma. Left his wife and went out to South Africa. A Miss Birell went with him. No divorce proceedings. Mrs Andrew Restarick died two and a half years ago. Had been an invalid for some time. Miss Norma Restarick was a boarder at Meadowfield Girls’ School.