Third Girl

"Of course it could be all sorts of things." Mrs. Oliver began to brighten as she set her ever prolific imagination to work. "She could have run over someone in her car and not stopped. She could have been assaulted by a man on a cliff and struggled with him and managed to push him over.

She could have given someone the wrong medicine by mistake. She could have gone to one of those purple pill parties and had a fight with someone. She could have come to and found she had stabbed someone.

She - " "Assez, madame, assez \" But Mrs. Oliver was well away. "She might have been a nurse in the operating theatre and administered the wrong anaesthetic of- " she broke off, suddenly anxious for clearer details. "What did she look like?" Poirot considered for a moment.

"An Ophelia devoid of physical attraction."

"Oh dear," said Mrs. Oliver. "I can almost see her when you say that. How queer." "She is not competent," said Poirot.

"That is how I see her. She is not one who can cope with difficulties. She is not one of those who can see beforehand the danger that must come. She is one of whom others will look round and say 'We want a victim.

That one will do\" But Mrs. Oliver was no longer listening.

She was clutching her rich coils of hair with both hands in a gesture with which Poirot was familiar.

"Wait," she cried in a kind of agony.

"Wait!" Poirot waited, his eyebrows raised.

"You didn't tell me her name," said Mrs. Oliver.

"She did not give it. Unfortunate, I agree with you." "Wait!" implored Mrs. Oliver, again with the same agony. She relaxed her grip on her head and uttered a deep sigh. Hair detached itself from its bonds and tumbled over her shoulders, a super imperial coil of hair detached itself completely and fell on the floor. Poirot picked it up and put it discreetly on the table.

"Now then," said Mrs. Oliver, suddenly restored to calm. She pushed in a hairpin or two, and nodded her head while she thought.

"Who told this girl about you, M.

Poirot?" "No one so far as I know. Naturally, she had heard about me no doubt." Mrs. Oliver thought that "naturally" was not the word at all. What was natural was that Poirot himself was sure that everyone had always heard of him. Actually large numbers of people would only look at you blankly if the name of Hercule Poirot was mentioned, especially the younger generation. "But how am I going to put that to him?" thought Mrs. Oliver, "in such a way that it won't hurt his feelings?" "I think you're wrong," she said. "Girls -well, girls and young men - they don't know very much about detectives and things like that. They don't hear about them." "Everyone must have heard about Hercule Poirot," said Poirot, superbly.

It was an article of belief for Hercule Poirot.

"But they are all so badly educated nowadays," said Mrs. Oliver. "Really, the only people whose names they know are pop singers, or Groups, or disc jockeys - that sort of thing. If you need someone special, I mean a doctor or a detective or a dentist-well, then, I mean you would ask someone - ask who's the right person to go to? And then the other person says - 'My dear, you must go to that absolutely wonderful man in Queen Anne's Street, twists your legs three times round your head and you're cured', or 'All my diamonds were stolen, and Henry would have been furious, so I couldn't go to the police, but there's a simply uncanny detective, most discreet, and he got them back for me and Henry never knew a thing.' - That's the way it happens all the time. Someone sent that girl to you." "I doubt it very much." "You wouldn't know until you were told. And you're going to be told now. It's only just come to me. / sent that girl to you." Poirot stared. "You? But why did you not say so at once?" "Because it's only just come to me - when you spoke about Ophelia - long wet-looking hair, and rather plain. It seemed a description of someone I'd actually seen. Quite lately. And then it came to me who it was." "Who is she?" "I don't actually know her name, but I can easily find out. We were talking - about private detectives and private eyes - and I spoke about you and some of the amazing things you had done." "And you gave her my address?" "No, of course I didn't. I'd no idea she wanted a detective or anything like that.