Twelve

“Let’s buy a peacock,” said Mrs. Oliver suddenly and unexpectedly. Shedid not open her eyes as she made this remark, and her voice was weakthough full of indignation.

Three people brought startled eyes to bear upon her. She made a furtherstatement.

“Hit on the head.”

She opened badly focused eyes and endeavoured to make out where shewas.

The first thing she saw was a face entirely strange to her. A young manwho was writing in a notebook. He held the pencil poised in his hand.

“Policeman,” said Mrs. Oliver decisively.

“I beg your pardon, Madam?”

“I said you were a policeman,” said Mrs. Oliver. “Am I right?”

“Yes, Madam.”

“Criminal assault,” said Mrs. Oliver and closed her eyes in a satisfiedmanner. When she opened them again, she took in her surroundingsmore fully. She was in a bed, one of those rather high hygienic-lookinghospital beds, she decided. The kind that you shoot up and down andround and about. She was not in her own house. She looked round and de-cided on her environment.

“Hospital, or could be nursing home,” she said.

A sister was standing with an air of authority at the door, and a nursewas standing by her bed. She identified a fourth figure. “Nobody,” saidMrs. Oliver, “could mistake those moustaches. What are you doing here,M. Poirot?”

Hercule Poirot advanced towards the bed. “I told you to be careful, Ma-dame,” he said.

“Anyone might lose their way,” said Mrs. Oliver, somewhat obscurely,and added, “My head aches.”

“With good cause. As you surmise, you were hit on the head.”

“Yes. By the Peacock.”

The policeman stirred uneasily then said, “Excuse me, Madam, you sayyou were assaulted by a peacock?”

“Of course. I’d had an uneasy feeling for some time—you know, atmo-sphere.” Mrs. Oliver tried to wave her hand in an appropriate gesture todescribe atmosphere, and winced. “Ouch,” she said, “I’d better not try thatagain.”

“My patient must not get overexcited,” said the sister with disapproval.

“Can you tell me where this assault occurred?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea. I’d lost my way. I was coming from a kind ofstudio. Very badly kept. Dirty. The other young man hadn’t shaved fordays. A greasy leather jacket.”

“Is this the man who assaulted you?”

“No, it’s another one.”

“If you could just tell me—”

“I am telling you, aren’t I? I’d followed him, you see, all the way fromthe café — only I’m not very good at following people. No practice. It’smuch more difficult than you’d think.”

Her eyes focused on the policeman. “But I suppose you know all aboutthat. You have courses—in following people, I mean? Oh, never mind, itdoesn’t matter. You see,” she said, speaking with sudden rapidity, “it’squite simple. I had got off at The World’s End, I think it was, and naturallyI thought he had stayed with the others—or gone the other way. But in-stead, he came up behind me.”

“Who was this?”

“The Peacock,” said Mrs. Oliver, “and he startled me, you see. It doesstartle you when you find things are the wrong way round. I mean he fol-lowing you instead of you following him—only it was earlier—and I had asort of uneasy feeling. In fact, you know, I was afraid. I don’t know why.

He spoke quite politely but I was afraid. Anyway there it was and he said‘Come up and see the studio’ and so I came up rather a rickety staircase. Akind of ladder staircase and there was this other young man—the dirtyyoung man—and he was painting a picture, and the girl was acting asmodel. She was quite clean. Rather pretty really. And so there we wereand they were quite nice and polite, and then I said I must be gettinghome, and they told me the right way to get back to the King’s Road. Butthey can’t really have told me the right way. Of course I might have madea mistake. You know, when people tell you second left and third right,well, you sometimes do it the wrong way round. At least I do. Anyway, Igot into a rather peculiar slummy part quite close to the river. The afraidfeeling had gone away by then. I must have been quite off my guard whenthe Peacock hit me.”

“I think she’s delirous,” said the nurse in an explanatory voice.

“No, I’m not,” said Mrs. Oliver. “I know what I’m talking about.”

The nurse opened her mouth, caught the sister’s admonitory eye andshut it again quickly.

“Velvets and satins and long curly hair,” said Mrs. Oliver.

“A peacock in satin? A real peacock, Madam. You thought you saw apeacock near the river in Chelsea?”

“A real peacock?” said Mrs. Oliver. “Of course not. How silly. Whatwould a real peacock be doing down on Chelsea Embankment?”

Nobody appeared to have an answer to this question.

“He struts,” said Mrs. Oliver, “that’s why I nicknamed him a peacock.

Shows off, you know. Vain, I should think. Proud of his looks. Perhaps a lotof other things as well.” She looked at Poirot. “David something. You knowwho I mean.”

“You say this young man of the name of David assaulted you by strikingyou on the head?”

“Yes I do.”

Hercule Poirot spoke. “You saw him?”

“I didn’t see him,” said Mrs. Oliver, “I didn’t know anything about it. Ijust thought I heard something behind me, and before I could turn myhead to look—it all happened! Just as if a ton of bricks or something fell onme. I think I’ll go to sleep now,” she added.

She moved her head slightly, made a grimace of pain, and relapsed intowhat appeared to be a perfectly satisfactory unconsciousness.