Third Girl

"Goodness, how you startled me," she said. "I'd no idea you were there. I hope you're not annoyed." "So you were following me?" "Yes, I'm afraid I was. I expect it must have been rather annoying to you. You see I thought it would be such an excellent opportunity. I'm sure you're frightfully angry but you needn't be, you know. Not really. You see-" Mrs. Oliver settled herself more firmly on the dustbin, "you see I write books. I write detective stories and I've really been very worried this morning. In fact I went into a cafe to have a cup of coffee just to try and think things out. I'd just got to the point in my book where I was following somebody. I mean my hero was following someone and I thought to myself, 'really I know very little about following people.' I mean, I'm always using the phrase in a book and I've read a lot of books where people do follow other people, and I wondered if it was as easy as it seems to be in some people's books or if it was as almost entirely impossible as it seemed in other people's books. So I thought 'Well, really, the only thing was to try it out myself - because until you try things out yourself you can't really tell what it's like. I mean you don't know what you feel like, or whether you get worried at losing a person. As it happened, I just looked up and you were sitting at the next table to me in the cafe and I thought you'd be - I hope you won't be annoyed again - but I thought you'd be an especially good person to follow." He was still staring at her with those strange, cold blue eyes, yet she felt somehow that the tension had left them.

"Why was I an especially good person to follow?" "Well, you were so decorative," explained Mrs. Oliver. "They are really very attractive clothes - almost Regency, you know, and I thought, well, I might take advantage of your being fairly easy to distinguish from other people. So you see, when you went out of the cafe I went out too. And it's not really easy at all." She looked up at him. "Do you mind telling me if you knew I was there all the time?" "Not at once, no." "I see," said Mrs. Oliver thoughtfully.

"But of course I'm not as distinctive as you are. I mean you wouldn't be able to tell me very easily from a lot of other elderly women. I don't stand out very much, do I?" "Do you write books that are published?

Have I ever come across them?" "Well, I don't know. You may have.

I've written forty-three by now. My name's Oliver." "Ariadne Oliver?" "So you do know my name," said Mrs.

Oliver. "Well, that's rather gratifying, of course, though I daresay you wouldn't like my books very much. You probably would find them rather old-fashioned- not violent enough." "You didn't know me personally beforehand?" Mrs. Oliver shook her head. "No, I'm sure I don't - didn't, I mean." "What about the girl I was with?" "You mean the one you were having - baked beans was it - with in the cafe?

No, I don't think so. Of course I only saw the back of her head. She looked to me - well, I mean girls do look rather alike, don't they?" "She knew you," said the boy suddenly.

His tone in a moment had a sudden acid sharpness. "She mentioned once that she'd met you not long ago. About a week ago, I believe." "Where? Was it at a party? I suppose I might have met her. What's her name?

Perhaps I'd know that." She thought he was in two moods whether to mention the name or not, but he decided to and he watched her face very keenly as he did so.

"Her name's Norma Restarick." "Norma Restarick. Oh, of course, yes, it was at a party in the country. A place called - wait a minute - Long Norton was it? - I don't remember the name of the house. I went there with some friends.

I don't think I would have recognised her anyway, though I believe she did say something about my books. I even promised I'd give her one. It's very odd, isn't it, that I should make up my mind and actually choose to follow a person who was sitting with somebody I more or less knew.

Very odd. I don't think I could put anything like that in my book. It would look rather too much of a coincidence, don't you think?" Mrs. Oliver rose from her seat. "Good gracious, what have I been sitting on? A dustbin! Really! Not a very nice dustbin either." She sniffed. "What is this place I've got to?" David was looking at her. She felt suddenly that she was completely mistaken in everything she had previously thought.

"Absurd of me," thought Mrs. Oliver, "absurd of me. Thinking that he was dangerous, that he might do something to me." He was smiling at her with an extraordinary charm. He moved his head slightly and his chestnut ringlets moved on his shoulders. What fantastic creatures there were in the way of young men nowadays!

"The least I can do," he said, "is to show you, I think, where you've been brought to, just by following me. Come on, up these stairs." He indicated a ramshackle outside staircase running up to what seemed to be a loft.