Third girl - Agatha Christie [60]
Poirot was quietly and methodically outlining what he called ‘the pattern’.
‘It interlocks. Yes, it interlocks and that is why it is difficult. One thing relates to another and then you find that it relates to something else that seems outside the pattern. But it is not outside the pattern. And so it brings more people again into a ring of suspicion. Suspicion of what? There again one does not know. We have first the girl and through all the maze of conflicting patterns I have to search the answer to the most poignant of questions. Is the girl a victim, is she in danger? Or is the girl very astute? Is the girl creating the impression she wants to create for her own purposes? It can be taken either way. I need something still. Some one sure pointer, and it is there somewhere. I am sure it is there somewhere.’
Mrs Oliver was rummaging in her handbag.
‘I can’t think why I can never find my aspirin when I want it,’ she said in a vexed voice.
‘We have one set of relationships that hook up. The father, the daughter, the stepmother. Their lives are interrelated. We have the elderly uncle, somewhat gaga, with whom they live. We have the girl Sonia. She is linked with the uncle. She works for him. She has pretty manners, pretty ways. He is delighted with her. He is, shall we say, a little soft about her. But what is her role in the household?’
‘Wants to learn English, I suppose,’ said Mrs Oliver.
‘She meets one of the members of the Herzogovinian Embassy — in Kew Gardens. She meets him there, but she does not speak to him. She leaves behind her a book and he takes it away —’
‘What is all this?’ said Mrs Oliver.
‘Has this anything to do with the other pattern? We do not as yet know. It seems unlikely but it may not be unlikely. Had Mary Restarick unwittingly stumbled upon something which might be dangerous to the girl?’
‘Don’t tell me all this has something to do with espionage or something.’
‘I am not telling you. I am wondering.’
‘You said yourself that old Sir Roderick was gaga.’
‘It is not a question of whether he is gaga or not. He was a person of some importance during the war. Important papers passed through his hands. Important letters can have been written to him. Letters which he was at perfect liberty to have kept once they had lost their importance.’
‘You’re talking of the war and that was ages ago.’
‘Quite so. But the past is not always done with, because it is ages ago. New alliances are made. Public speeches are made repudiating this, denying that, telling various lies about something else. And suppose there exist still certain letters or documents that will change the picture of a certain personality. I am not telling you anything, you understand. I am only making assumptions. Assumptions such as I have known to be true in the past. It might be of the utmost importance that some letters or papers should be destroyed, or else passed to some foreign government. Who better to undertake that task than a charming young lady who assists and aids an elderly notability to collect material for his memoirs. Everyone is writing their memoirs nowadays. One cannot stop them from doing so! Suppose that the stepmother gets a little something in her food on the day that the helpful secretary plus au pair girl is doing the cooking? And suppose it is she who arranges that suspicion should fall on Norma?’
‘What a mind you have,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘Tortuous, that’s what I call it. I mean, all these things can’t have happened.’
‘That is just it. There are too many patterns. Which is the right one? The girl Norma leaves home, goes to London. She is, as you have instructed me,