Third girl - Agatha Christie [57]
‘I come, Madame, to offer you my felicitations on your recovery.’
‘Yes,’ said Mrs Oliver, ‘I suppose I am all right again.’ She shook her head to and fro rather gingerly. ‘I get headaches, though,’ she said. ‘Quite bad headaches.’
‘You remember, Madame, that I warned you not to do anything dangerous.’
‘Not to stick my neck out, in fact. That I suppose is just what I did do.’ She added, ‘I felt something evil was about. I was frightened, too, and I told myself I was a fool to be frightened, because what was I frightened of? I mean, it was London. Right in the middle of London. People all about. I mean — how could I be frightened? It wasn’t like a lonely wood or anything.’
Poirot looked at her thoughtfully. He wondered, had Mrs Oliver really felt this nervous fear, had she really suspected the presence of evil, the sinister feeling that something or someone wished her ill, or had she read it into the whole thing afterwards? He knew only too well how easily that could be done. Countless clients had spoken in much the same words that Mrs Oliver had just used. ‘I knew something was wrong. I could feel evil. I knew something was going to happen,’ and actually they had not felt anything of the kind. What kind of a person was Mrs Oliver?
He looked at her consideringly. Mrs Oliver in her own opinion was famous for her intuition. One intuition succeeded another with remarkable rapidity and Mrs Oliver always claimed the right to justify the particular intuition which turned out to be right!
And yet one shared very often with animals the uneasiness of a dog or a cat before a thunderstorm, the knowledge that there is something wrong, although one does not know what it is that is wrong.
‘When did it come upon you, this fear?’
‘When I left the main road,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘Up till then it was all ordinary and quite exciting and — yes, I was enjoying myself, though vexed at finding how difficult it was to trail anybody.’
She paused, considering. ‘Just like a game. Then suddenly it didn’t seem so much like a game, because there were queer little streets and rather sort of broken-down places, and sheds and open spaces being cleared for building — oh, I don’t know, I can’t explain it. But it was all different. Like a dream really. You know how dreams are. They start with one thing, a party or something, and then suddenly you find you’re in a jungle or somewhere quite different — and it’s all sinister.’
‘A jungle?’ said Poirot. ‘Yet, it is interesting you should put it like that. So it felt to you as though you were in a jungle and you were afraid of a peacock?’
‘I don’t know that I was especially afraid of him. After all, a peacock isn’t a dangerous sort of animal. It’s — well I mean I thought of him as a peacock because I thought of him as a decorative creature. A peacock is very decorative, isn’t it? And this awful boy is decorative too.’
‘You didn’t have any idea anyone was following you before you were hit?’
‘No. No, I’d no idea — but I think he directed me wrong all the same.’
Poirot nodded thoughtfully.
‘But of course it must have been the Peacock who hit me,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘Who else? The dirty boy in the greasy clothes? He smelt nasty but he wasn’t sinister. And it could hardly be that limp Frances something — she was draped over a packing case with long black hair streaming all over the place. She reminded me of some actress or other.’
‘You say she was acting as a model?’
‘Yes. Not for the Peacock. For the dirty boy. I can’t remember if you’ve seen her or not.’
‘I have not yet had that pleasure — if it is a pleasure.’
‘Well, she’s quite nice looking in an untidy, arty sort of way. Very much made up. Dead white and lots of mascara and the usual kind of limp hair hanging over her face. Works in an art gallery so I suppose it’s quite natural