Twenty-one

Poirot sat in his big square armchair. His hands rested on the arms, hiseyes looked at the chimneypiece in front of him without seeing it. By hiselbow was a small table and on it, neatly clipped together, were variousdocuments. Reports from Mr. Goby, information obtained from his friend,Chief Inspector Neele, a series of separate pages under the heading of“Hearsay, gossip, rumour” and the sources from which it had been ob-tained.

At the moment he had no need to consult these documents. He had, infact, read them through carefully and laid them there in case there wasany particular point he wished to refer to once more. He wanted now toassemble together in his mind all that he knew and had learned becausehe was convinced that these things must form a pattern. There must be apattern there. He was considering now, from what exact angle to ap-proach it. He was not one to trust in enthusiasm for some particular intu-ition. He was not an intuitive person—but he did have feelings. The im-portant thing was not the feelings themselves — but what might havecaused them. It was the cause that was interesting, the cause was so oftennot what you thought it was. You had very often to work it out by logic, bysense and by knowledge.

What did he feel about this case—what kind of a case was it? Let himstart from the general, then proceed to the particular. What were the sali-ent facts of this case?

Money was one of them, he thought, though he did not know how. Some-how or other, money…He also thought, increasingly so, that there was evilsomewhere. He knew evil. He had met it before. He knew the tang of it,the taste of it, the way it went. The trouble was that here he did not yetknow exactly where it was. He had taken certain steps to combat evil. Hehoped they would be sufficient. Something was happening, something wasin progress, that was not yet accomplished. Someone, somewhere, was indanger.

The trouble was that the facts pointed both ways. If the person hethought was in danger was really in danger, there seemed so far as hecould see no reason why. Why should that particular person be in danger?

There was no motive. If the person he thought was in danger was not indanger, then the whole approach might have to be completely reversed…Everything that pointed one way he must turn round and look at from thecomplete opposite point of view.

He left that for the moment in the balance, and he came from there tothe personalities—to the people. What pattern did they make? What partwere they playing?

First—Andrew Restarick. He had accumulated by now a fair amount ofinformation about Andrew Restarick. A general picture of his life beforeand after going abroad. A restless man, never sticking to one place or pur-pose long, but generally liked. Nothing of the wastrel about him, nothingshoddy or tricky. Not, perhaps, a strong personality? Weak in many ways?

Poirot frowned, dissatisfied. That picture did not somehow fit the An-drew Restarick that he himself had met. Not weak surely, with that thrust-out chin, the steady eyes, the air of resolution. He had been a successfulbusinessman, too, apparently. Good at his job in the earlier years, and hehad put through good deals in South Africa and in South America. He hadincreased his holdings. It was a success story that he had brought homewith him, not one of failure. How then could he be a weak personality?

Weak, perhaps, only where women were concerned. He had made a mis-take in his marriage—married the wrong woman…Pushed into it perhapsby his family? And then he had met the other woman. Just that one wo-man? Or had there been several women? It was hard to find a record ofthat kind after so many years. Certainly he had not been a notoriously un-faithful husband. He had had a normal home, he had been fond, by all ac-counts, of his small daughter. But then he had come across a womanwhom he had cared for enough to leave his home and to leave his country.

It had been a real love affair.

But had it, perhaps, matched up with any additional motive? Dislike ofoffice work, the City, the daily routine of London? He thought it might. Itmatched the pattern. He seemed, too, to have been a solitary type. Every-one had liked him both here and abroad, but there seemed no intimatefriends. Indeed, it would have been difficult for him to have intimatefriends abroad because he had never stopped in any one spot longenough. He had plunged into some gamble, attempted a coup, had madegood, then tired of the thing and gone on somewhere else. Nomadic! Awanderer.

It still did not quite accord with his own picture of the man…A picture?

The word stirred in his mind the memory of the picture that hung in Re-starick’s office, on the wall behind his desk. It had been a portrait of thesame man fifteen years ago. How much difference had those fifteen yearsmade in the man sitting there? Surprisingly little, on the whole! More greyin the hair, a heavier set to the shoulders, but the lines of character on theface were much the same. A determined face. A man who knew what hewanted, who meant to get it. A man who would take risks. A man with acertain ruthlessness.

Why, he wondered, had Restarick brought that picture up to London?

They had been companion portraits of a husband and wife. Strictly speak-ing artistically, they should have remained together. Would a psychologisthave said that subconsciously Restarick wanted to dissociate himself fromhis former wife once more, to separate himself from her? Was he thenmentally still retreating from her personality although she was dead? Aninteresting point….

The pictures had presumably come out of storage with various otherfamily articles of furnishing. Mary Restarick had no doubt selected certainpersonal objects to supplement the furniture of Crosshedges for which SirRoderick had made room. He wondered whether Mary Restarick, the newwife, had liked hanging up that particular pair of portraits. More natural,perhaps, if she had put the first wife’s portrait in an attic! But then he re-flected that she would probably not have had an attic to stow away un-wanted objects at Crosshedges. Presumably Sir Roderick had made roomfor a few family things whilst the returned couple were looking about fora suitable house in London. So it had not mattered much, and it wouldhave been easier to hang both portraits. Besides, Mary Restarick seemed asensible type of woman—not a jealous or emotional type.

“Tout de même,” thought Hercule Poirot to himself, “les femmes, they areall capable of jealousy, and sometimes the one you would consider theleast likely!”

His thoughts passed to Mary Restarick, and he considered her in turn. Itstruck him that what was really odd was that he had so few thoughtsabout her! He had seen her only the once, and she had, somehow or other,not made much impression on him. A certain efficiency, he thought, andalso a certain—how could he put it?—artificiality? (“But there, my friend,”

said Hercule Poirot, again in parenthesis, “there you are considering herwig!”)

It was absurd really that one should know so little about a woman. Awoman who was efficient and who wore a wig, and who was good-look-ing, and who was sensible, and who could feel anger. Yes, she had beenangry when she had found the Peacock Boy wandering uninvited in herhouse. She had displayed it sharply and unmistakably. And the boy—hehad seemed what? Amused, no more. But she had been angry, very angryat finding him there. Well, that was natural enough. He would not be anymother’s choice for her daughter—

Poirot stopped short in his thoughts, shaking his head vexedly. Mary Re-starick was not Norma’s mother. Not for her the agony, the apprehensionabout a daughter making an unsuitable unhappy marriage, or announcingan illegitimate baby with an unsuitable father! What did Mary feel aboutNorma? Presumably, to begin with, that she was a thoroughly tiresomegirl—who had picked up with a young man who was going to be obviouslya source of worry and annoyance to Andrew Restarick. But after that?

What had she thought and felt about a stepdaughter who was apparentlydeliberately trying to poison her?

Her attitude seemed to have been the sensible one. She had wanted toget Norma out of the house, herself out of danger; and to cooperate withher husband in suppressing any scandal about what had happened.

Norma came down for an occasional weekend to keep up appearances,but her life henceforward was bound to centre in London. Even when theRestaricks moved into the house they were looking for, they would notsuggest Norma living with them. Most girls, nowadays, lived away fromtheir families. So that problem had been settled.

Except that, for Poirot, the question of who had administered poison toMary Restarick was very far from settled. Restarick himself believed itwas his daughter—

But Poirot wondered….

His mind played with the possibilities of the girl Sonia. What was shedoing in that house? Why had she come there? She had Sir Roderick eat-ing out of her hand all right—perhaps she had no wish to go back to herown country? Possibly her designs were purely matrimonial—old men ofSir Roderick’s age married pretty young girls every day of the week. In theworldly sense, Sonia could do very well for herself. A secure social posi-tion, and widowhood to look forward to with a settled and sufficient in-come—or were her aims quite different? Had she gone to Kew Gardenswith Sir Roderick’s missing papers tucked between the pages of a book?

Had Mary Restarick become suspicious of her—of her activities, of herloyalties, of where she went on her days off, and of whom she met? Andhad Sonia, then, administered the substances which, in cumulative smalldoses, would arouse no suspicion of anything but ordinary gastroenter-itis?

For the time being, he put the household at Crosshedges out of his mind.

He came, as Norma had come, to London, and proceeded to the consid-eration of three girls who shared a flat.

Claudia Reece-Holland, Frances Cary, Norma Restarick. Claudia Reece-Holland, daughter of a well-known Member of Parliament, well-off, cap-able, well-trained, good-looking, a first-class secretary. Frances Cary, acountry solicitor’s daughter, artistic, had been to drama school for a shorttime, then to the Slade, chucked that also, occasionally worked for the ArtsCouncil, now employed by an art gallery. Earned a good salary, wasartistic and had bohemian associations. She knew the young man, DavidBaker, though not apparently more than casually. Perhaps she was in lovewith him? He was the kind of young man, Poirot thought, disliked gener-ally by parents, members of the Establishment and also the police. Wherethe attraction lay for wellborn girls Poirot failed to see. But one had to ac-knowledge it as a fact. What did he himself think of David?

A good-looking boy with the impudent and slightly amused air whom hehad first seen in the upper storeys of Crosshedges, doing an errand forNorma (or reconnoitring on his own, who should say?). He had seen himagain when he gave him a lift in his car. A young man of personality, giv-ing indeed an impression of ability in what he chose to do. And yet therewas clearly an unsatisfactory side to him. Poirot picked up one of the pa-pers on the table by his side and studied it. A bad record though not posit-ively criminal. Small frauds on garages, hooliganism, smashing up things,on probation twice. All those things were the fashion of the day. They didnot come under Poirot’s category of evil. He had been a promising painter,but had chucked it. He was the kind that did no steady work. He was vain,proud, a peacock in love with his own appearance. Was he anything morethan that? Poirot wondered.

He stretched out an arm and picked up a sheet of paper on which wasscribbled down the rough heads of the conversation held between Normaand David in the café—that is, as well as Mrs. Oliver could rememberthem. And how well was that, Poirot thought? He shook his head doubt-fully. One never knew quite at what point Mrs. Oliver’s imagination wouldtake over! Did the boy care for Norma, really want to marry her? Therewas no doubt about her feelings for him. He had suggested marrying her.

Had Norma got money of her own? She was the daughter of a rich man,but that was not the same thing. Poirot made an exclamation of vexation.

He had forgotten to inquire the terms of the late Mrs. Restarick’s will. Heflipped through the sheets of notes. No, Mr. Goby had not neglected thisobvious need. Mrs. Restarick apparently had been well provided for byher husband during her lifetime. She had had, apparently, a small incomeof her own amounting perhaps to a thousand a year. She had lefteverything she possessed to her daughter. It would hardly amount, Poirotthought, to a motive for marriage. Probably, as his only child, she wouldinherit a lot of money at her father’s death but that was not at all the samething. Her father might leave her very little indeed if he disliked the manshe had married.

He would say then, that David did care for her, since he was willing tomarry her. And yet—Poirot shook his head. It was about the fifth time hehad shaken it. All these things did not tie up, they did not make a satisfact-ory pattern. He remembered Restarick’s desk, and the cheque he had beenwriting—apparently to buy off the young man—and the young man, ap-parently, was quite willing to be bought off! So that again did not tally.

The cheque had certainly been made out to David Baker and it was for avery large—really a preposterous—sum. It was a sum that might havetempted any impecunious young man of bad character. And yet he hadsuggested marriage to her only a day before. That, of course, might havebeen just a move in the game—a move to raise the price he was asking.

Poirot remembered Restarick sitting there, his lips hard. He must care agreat deal for his daughter to be willing to pay so high a sum; and he musthave been afraid too that the girl herself was quite determined to marryhim.

From thoughts of Restarick, he went on to Claudia. Claudia and AndrewRestarick. Was it chance, sheer chance, that she had come to be his secret-ary? There might be a link between them. Claudia. He considered her.

Three girls in a flat, Claudia Reece-Holland’s flat. She had been the onewho had taken the flat originally, and shared it first with a friend, a girlshe already knew, and then with another girl, the third girl. The third girl,thought Poirot. Yes, it always came back to that. The third girl. And that iswhere he had come in the end. Where he had had to come. Where all thisthinking out of patterns had led. To Norma Restarick.

A girl who had come to consult him as he sat at breakfast. A girl whomhe had joined at a table in a café where she had recently been eatingbaked beans with the young man she loved. (He always seemed to see herat mealtimes, he noted!) And what did he think about her? First, what didother people think about her? Restarick cared for her and was desperatelyanxious about her, desperately frightened for her. He not only suspected—he was quite sure, apparently, that she had tried to poison his recentlymarried wife. He had consulted a doctor about her. Poirot felt he wouldlike dearly to talk to that doctor himself, but he doubted if he would getanywhere. Doctors were very chary of parting with medical informationto anyone but a duly accredited person such as the parents. But Poirotcould imagine fairly well what the doctor had said. He had been cautious,Poirot thought, as doctors are apt to be. He’d hemmed and hawed andspoken perhaps of medical treatment. He had not stressed too positively amental angle, but had certainly suggested it or hinted at it. In fact, the doc-tor probably was privately sure that that was what had happened. But healso knew a good deal about hysterical girls, and that they sometimes didthings that were not really the result of mental causes, but merely of tem-per, jealousy, emotion, and hysteria. He would not be a psychiatrist him-self nor a neurologist. He would be a GP who took no risks of making ac-cusations about which he could not be sure, but suggested certain thingsout of caution. A job somewhere or other—a job in London, later perhapstreatment from a specialist?

What did anyone else think of Norma Restarick? Claudia Reece-Holland?

He didn’t know. Certainly not from the little that he knew about her. Shewas capable of hiding any secret, she would certainly let nothing escapeher which she did not mean to let escape. She had shown no signs of want-ing to turn the girl out—which she might have done if she had been afraidof her mental condition. There could not have been much discussionbetween her and Frances on the subject since the other girl had so inno-cently let escape the fact that Norma had not returned to them after herweekend at home. Claudia had been annoyed about that. It was possiblethat Claudia was more in the pattern than she appeared. She had brains,Poirot thought, and efficiency…He came back to Norma, came back onceagain to the third girl. What was her place in the pattern? The place thatwould pull the whole thing together. Ophelia, he thought? But there weretwo opinions to that, just as there were two opinions about Norma. WasOphelia mad or was she pretending madness? Actresses had been vari-ously divided as to how the part should be played—or perhaps, he shouldsay, producers. They were the ones who had the ideas. Was Hamlet mador sane? Take your choice. Was Ophelia mad or sane?

Restarick would not have used the word “mad” even in his thoughtsabout his daughter. Mentally disturbed was the term that everyone pre-ferred to use. The other word that had been used of Norma had been“batty.” “She’s a bit batty.” “Not quite all there.” “A bit wanting, if youknow what I mean.” Were “daily women” good judges? Poirot thoughtthey might be. There was something odd about Norma, certainly, but shemight be odd in a different way to what she seemed. He remembered thepicture she had made slouching into his room, a girl of today, the moderntype looking just as so many other girls looked. Limp hair hanging on hershoulders, the characterless dress, a skimpy look about the knees—all tohis old-fashioned eyes looking like an adult girl pretending to be a child.

“I’m sorry, you are too old.”

Perhaps it was true. He’d looked at her through the eyes of someone old,without admiration, to him just a girl without apparently will to please,without coquetry. A girl without any sense of her own femininity—nocharm or mystery or enticement, who had nothing to offer, perhaps, butplain biological sex. So it may be that she was right in her condemnationof him. He could not help her because he did not understand her, becauseit was not even possible for him to appreciate her. He had done his bestfor her, but what had that meant up to date? What had he done for hersince that one moment of appeal? And in his thoughts the answer camequickly. He had kept her safe. That at least. If, indeed, she needed keepingsafe. That was where the whole point lay. Did she need keeping safe? Thatpreposterous confession! Really, not so much a confession as an an-nouncement: “I think I may have committed a murder.”

Hold on to that, because that was the crux of the whole thing. That washis métier. To deal with murder, to clear up murder, to prevent murder!

To be the good dog who hunts down murder. Murder announced. Murdersomewhere. He had looked for it and had not found it. The pattern of ar-senic in the soup? A pattern of young hooligans stabbing each other withknifes? The ridiculous and sinister phrase, bloodstains in the courtyard. Ashot fired from a revolver. At whom, and why?

It was not as it ought to be, a form of crime that would fit with the wordsshe had said: “I may have committed a murder.” He had stumbled on inthe dark, trying to see a pattern of crime, trying to see where the third girlfitted into that pattern, and coming back always to the same urgent needto know what this girl was really like.

And then with a casual phrase, Ariadne Oliver had, as he thought,shown him the light. The supposed suicide of a woman at Borodene Man-sions. That would fit. It was where the third girl had her living quarters. Itmust be the murder that she had meant. Another murder committedabout the same time would have been too much of a coincidence! Besidesthere was no sign or trace of any other murder that had been committedabout then. No other death that could have sent her hotfoot to consulthim, after listening at a party to the lavish admiration of his own achieve-ments which his friend, Mrs. Oliver, had given to the world. And so, whenMrs. Oliver had informed him in a casual manner of the woman who hadthrown herself out of the window, it had seemed to him that at last he hadgot what he had been looking for.

Here was the clue. The answer to his perplexity. Here he would findwhat he needed. The why, the when, the where.

“Quelle déception,” said Hercule Poirot, out loud.

He stretched out his hand, and sorted out the neatly typed résumé of awoman’s life. The bald facts of Mrs. Charpentier’s existence. A woman offorty-three of good social position, reported to have been a wild girl—twomarriages—two divorces—a woman who liked men. A woman who of lateyears had drunk more than was good for her. A woman who liked parties.

A woman who was now reported to go about with men a good many yearsyounger than herself. Living in a flat alone in Borodene Mansions, Poirotcould understand and feel the sort of woman she was, and had been, andhe could see why such a woman might wish to throw herself out of a highwindow one early morning when she awoke to despair.

Because she had cancer or thought she had cancer? But at the inquest,the medical evidence had said very definitely that that was not so.

What he wanted was some kind of a link with Norma Restarick. Hecould not find it. He read through the dry facts again.

Identification had been supplied at the inquest by a solicitor. Louise Car-penter, though she had used a Frenchified form of her surname—Char-pentier. Because it went better with her Christian name? Louise? Why wasthe name Louise familiar? Some casual mention?—a phrase?—his fingersriffled neatly through typewritten pages. Ah! there it was! Just that onereference. The girl for whom Andrew Restarick had left his wife had beena girl named Louise Birell. Someone who had proved to be of little signific-ance in Restarick’s later life. They had quarrelled and parted after about ayear. The same pattern, Poirot thought. The same thing obtaining that hadprobably obtained all through this particular woman’s life. To love a manviolently, to break up his home, perhaps, to live with him, and then quar-rel with him and leave him. He felt sure, absolutely sure, that this LouiseCharpentier was the same Louise.

Even so, how did it tie up with the girl Norma? Had Restarick and LouiseCharpentier come together again when he returned to England? Poirotdoubted it. Their lives had parted years ago. That they had by any chancecome together again seemed unlikely to the point of impossibility! It hadbeen a brief and in reality unimportant infatuation. His present wifewould hardly be jealous enough of her husband’s past to wish to push hisformer mistress out of a window. Ridiculous! The only person so far as hecould see who might have been the type to harbour a grudge over manylong years, and wish to execute revenge upon the woman who had brokenup her home, might have been the first Mrs. Restarick. And that soundedwildly impossible also, and anyway, the first Mrs. Restarick was dead!

The telephone rang. Poirot did not move. At this particular moment hedid not want to be disturbed. He had a feeling of being on a trail of somekind…He wanted to pursue it…The telephone stopped. Good. Miss Lemonwould be coping with it.

The door opened and Miss Lemon entered.

“Mrs. Oliver wants to speak to you,” she said.

Poirot waved a hand. “Not now, not now, I pray you! I cannot speak toher now.”

“She says there is something that she has just thought of—something sheforgot to tell you. About a piece of paper—an unfinished letter, whichseems to have fallen out of a blotter in a desk in a furniture van. A ratherincoherent story,” added Miss Lemon, allowing a note of disapproval toenter her voice.

Poirot waved more frantically.

“Not now,” he urged. “I beg of you, not now.”

“I will tell her you are busy.”

Miss Lemon retreated.

Peace descended once more upon the room. Poirot felt waves of fatiguecreeping over him. Too much thinking. One must relax. Yes, one must re-lax. One must let tension go—in relaxation the pattern would come. Heclosed his eyes. There were all the components there. He was sure of thatnow, there was nothing more he could learn from outside. It must comefrom inside.

And quite suddenly—just as his eyelids were relaxing in sleep—it came.

…

It was all there—waiting for him! He would have to work it all out. Buthe knew now. All the bits were there, disconnected bits and pieces, all fit-ting in. A wig, a picture, 5 a.m., women and their hairdos, the Peacock Boy—all leading to the phrase with which it had begun:

Third Girl…

“I may have committed a murder…” Of course!

A ridiculous nursery rhyme came into his mind. He repeated it aloud.

Rub a dub dub, three men in a tub

And who do you think they be?

A butcher, a baker, a candlestick maker….

Too bad, he couldn’t remember the last line. A baker, yes, and in a far-fetched way, a butcher—He tried out a feminine parody:

Pat a cake, pat, three girls in a flat

And who do you think they be?

A Personal Aide and a girl from the Slade

And the Third is a—

Miss Lemon came in.

“Ah—I remember now—‘And they all came out of a weenie POTATO.’”

Miss Lemon looked at him in anxiety.

“Dr. Stillingfleet insists on speaking to you at once. He says it is urgent.”

“Tell Dr. Stillingfleet he can—Dr. Stillingfleet, did you say?”

He pushed past her, caught up the receiver. “I am here. Poirot speaking!

Something has happened?”

“She’s walked out on me.”

“What?”

“You heard me. She’s walked out. Walked out through the front gate.”

“You let her go?”

“What else could I do?”

“You could have stopped her.”

“No.”

“To let her go was madness.”

“No.”

“You don’t understand.”

“That was the arrangement. Free to go at any time.”

“You don’t understand what may be involved.”

“All right then, I don’t. But I know what I’m doing. And if I don’t let hergo, all the work I’ve done on her would go for nothing. And I have workedon her. Your job and my job aren’t the same. We’re not out for the samething. I tell you I was getting somewhere. Getting somewhere, so that Iwas quite sure she wouldn’t walk out on me.”

“Ah yes. And then, mon ami, she did.”

“Frankly, I can’t understand it. I can’t see why the setback came.”

“Something happened.”

“Yes, but what?”

“Somebody she saw, somebody who spoke to her, somebody who foundout where she was.”

“I don’t see how that could have happened…But what you don’t seem tosee is that she’s a free agent. She had to be a free agent.”

“Somebody got at her. Somebody found out where she was. Did she get aletter, a telegram, a telephone call?”

“No, nothing of that kind. That I am quite sure of.”

“Then how—of course! Newspapers. You have newspapers, I suppose, inthat establishment of yours?”

“Certainly. Normal everyday life, that’s what I stand for in my place ofbusiness.”

“Then that is how they got at her. Normal, everyday life. What papers doyou take?”

“Five.” He named the five.

“When did she go?”

“This morning. Half past ten.”

“Exactly. After she read the papers. That is good enough to start on.

Which paper did she usually read?”

“I don’t think she had any special choice. Sometimes one, sometimes an-other, sometimes the whole lot of them — sometimes only glanced atthem.”

“Well, I must not waste time talking.”

“You think she saw an advertisement. Something of that kind?”

“What other explanation can there be? Good-bye, I can say no morenow. I have to search. Search for the possible advertisement and then geton quickly.”

He replaced the receiver.

“Miss Lemon, bring me our two papers. The Morning News and the DailyComet. Send Georges out for all the others.”

As he opened out the papers to the Personal advertisements and wentcarefully down them, he followed his line of thought.

He would be in time. He must be in time…There had been one murderalready. There would be another one to come. But he, Hercule Poirot,would prevent that… If he was in time… He was Hercule Poirot — theavenger of the innocent. Did he not say (and people laughed when he saidit), “I do not approve of murder.” They had thought it an understatement.

But it was not an understatement. It was a simple statement of factwithout melodrama. He did not approve of murder.

George came in with a sheaf of newspapers.

“There are all this morning’s, sir.”

Poirot looked at Miss Lemon, who was standing by waiting to be effi-cient.

“Look through the ones that I have searched in case I have missed any-thing.”

“The Personal column, you mean?”

“Yes. I thought there would be the name David perhaps. A girl’s name.

Some pet name or nickname. They would not use Norma. An appeal forhelp, perhaps, or to a meeting.”

Miss Lemon took the papers obediently with some distaste. This was nother kind of efficiency, but for the moment he had no other job to give her.

He himself spread out the Morning Chronicle. That was the biggest field tosearch. Three columns of it. He bent over the open sheet.

A lady who wanted to dispose of her fur coat…Passengers wanted for acar trip abroad…Lovely period house for sale…Paying guests…Backwardchildren…Homemade chocolates…“Julia. Shall never forget. Always yours.”

That was more the kind of thing. He considered it, but passed on. LouisXVth furniture… Middle- aged lady to help run a hotel…“In desperatetrouble. Must see you. Come to flat 4:30 without fail. Our code Goliath.”

He heard the doorbell ring just as he called out: “Georges, a taxi,”

slipped on his overcoat, and went into the hall just as George was openingthe front door and colliding with Mrs. Oliver. All three of them struggledto disentangle themselves in the narrow hall.