Third Girl

"And then," he said, "you can get a bus - or a taxi if you want it." "A taxi," said Mrs. Oliver. "My feet are absolutely dead. The sooner I fall into a taxi the better. Thank you," she added, "for being so very nice about my following you in what must have seemed a very peculiar way. Though after all I don't suppose private detectives, or private eyes or whatever they call them, would look anything at all like me." "Perhaps not," said David gravely.

"Left here - and then right, and then left again until you see the river and go towards it, and then sharp right and straight on." Curiously enough, as she walked across the shabby yard the same feeling of unease and suspense came over her. "I mustn't let my imagination go again." She looked back at the steps and the window of the studio. The figure of David still stood looking after her. "Three perfectly nice young people," said Mrs, Oliver to herself.

"Perfectly nice and very kind. Left here, and then right. Just because they look rather peculiar, one goes and has silly ideas about their being dangerous. Was it right again? or left? Left, I think - Oh goodness, my feet. It's going to rain, too." The walk seemed endless and the King's Road incredibly far away. She could hardly hear the traffic now - and where on earth was the river? She began to suspect that she had followed the directions wrong.

"Oh! well," thought Mrs. Oliver, "I'm bound to get somewhere soon - the river, or Putney or Wandsworth or somewhere." She asked her way to the King's Road from a passing man who said he was a foreigner and didn't speak English.

Mrs. Oliver turned another corner wearily and there ahead of her was the gleam of the water. She hurried towards it down a narrow passageway, heard a footstep behind her, half turned, when she was struck from behind and the world went up in sparks.

Chapter Ten

"Drink this." Norma was shivering. Her eyes had a dazed look. She shrank back a little in the chair. The command was repeated. "Drink this." This time she drank obediently, then choked a little.

"It's - it's very strong," she gasped.

"It'll put you right. You'll feel better in a minute. Just sit still and wait." The sickness and the giddiness which had been confusing her passed off. A little colour came into her cheeks, and the shivering diminished. For the first time she looked round her, noting her surroundings.

She had been obsessed by a feeling of fear and horror but now things seemed to be returning to normal. It was a medium-sized room and it was furnished in a way that seemed faintly familiar. A desk, a couch, an armchair and an ordinary chair, a stethoscope on a side table and some machine that she thought had to do with eyes. Then her attention went from the general to the particular. The man who had told her to drink.

She saw a man of perhaps thirty-odd with red hair and a rather attractively ugly face, the kind of face that is craggy but interesting. He nodded at her in a reassuring fashion.

"Beginning to get your bearings?" "I - I think so. I - did you - what happened?" "Don't you remember?" "The traffic. I - it came at me - it - " She looked at him."I was run over." "Oh no, you weren't run over." He shook his head. "I saw to that." "You?" "Well, there you were in the middle of the road, a car bearing down on you and I just managed to snatch you out of its way. What were you thinking of to go running into the traffic like that?" "I can't remember. I - yes, I suppose I must have been thinking of something else." "A Jaguar was coming pretty fast, and there was a bus bearing down on the other side of the road. The car wasn't trying to run you down or anything like that, was it?" "I - no, no, I'm sure it wasn't. I mean I-" "Well, I wondered-It just might have been something else, mightn't it?" "What do you mean?" "Well, it could have been deliberate, you know." "What do you mean by deliberate?" "Actually I just wondered whether you were trying to get yourself killed?" He added casually, "Were you?" "I - no - well - no, of course not." "Damn' silly way to do it, if so." His tone changed slightly. "Come now, you must remember something about it." She began shivering again. "I thought - I thought it would be all over. I thought - " "So you were trying to kill yourself, weren't you? What's the matter? You can tell me. Boy friend? That can make one feel pretty bad. Besides, there's always the hopeful thought that if you kill yourself you make him sorry - but one should never trust to that. People don't like feeling sorry or feeling anything is their fault. All the boy friend will probably say 'I always thought she was unbalanced.