Third Girl

I shouldn't say there is, myself. Has had a flat in Borodene Mansions for the last three years. Quite a high rent there. She usually has two other girls sharing it, no special friends. They come and go. Young lady Frances Cary, the second girl, has been there some time. Was at R.A.D.A. for a time, then went to the Slade. Works for the Wedderburn Gallery - well-known place in Bond Street. Specialises in arranging art shows in Manchester, Birmingham, sometimes abroad. Goes to Switzerland and Portugal. Arty type and has a lot of friends amongst artists and actors." He paused, cleared his throat and gave a brief look at the little notebook.

"Haven't been able to get much from South Africa yet. Don't suppose I shall.

Restarick moved about a lot. Kenya, Uganda, Gold Coast, South America for a while. He just moved about. Restless chap.

Nobody seems to have known him particularly well. He'd got plenty of money of his own to go where he liked. He made money, too, quite a lot of it. Liked going to out of the way places. Everyone who came across him seems to have liked him. Just seems as though he was a born wanderer. He never kept in touch with anyone. Three times I believe he was reported dead - gone off into the bush and not turned up again - but he always did in the end. Five or six months and he'd pop up in some entirely different place or country.

"Then last year his brother in London died suddenly. They had a bit of trouble in tracing him. His brother's death seemed to give him a shock. Perhaps he'd had enough, and perhaps he'd met the right woman at last. Good bit younger than him, she was, and a teacher, they say. The steady kind.

Anyway he seems to have made up his mind then and there to chuck wandering about, and come home to England. Besides being a very rich man himself, he's his brother's heir." "A success story and an unhappy girl," said Poirot. "I wish I knew more about her.

You have ascertained for me all that you could, the facts I needed. The people who surrounded that girl, who might have influenced her, who perhaps did influence her. I wanted to know something about her father, her stepmother, the boy she is in love with, the people she lived with, and worked for in London. You are sure that in connection with this girl there have been no deaths? That is important - " "Not a smell of one," said Mr. Goby.

"She worked for a firm called Homebirds - on the verge of bankruptcy, and they didn't pay her much. Stepmother was in hospital for observation recently - in the country, that was. A lot of rumours flying about, but they didn't seem to come to anything." "She did not die," said Poirot. "What I need," he added in a blood-thirsty manner, "is a death." Mr. Goby said he was sorry about that and rose to his feet. "Will there be anything more you are wanting at present?" "Not in the nature of information." "Very good, sir." As he replaced his notebook in his pocket, Mr. Goby said: "You'll excuse me, sir. If I'm speaking out of turn, but that young lady you had here just now - " "Yes, what about her?" "Well, of course it's - I don't suppose it's anything to do with this, but I thought I might just mention it to you, sir - " "Please do. You have seen her before, I gather?" "Yes. Couple of months ago." "Where did you see her?" "Kew Gardens." "Kew Gardens?" Poirot looked slightly surprised.

"I wasn't following her. I was following someone else, the person who met her." "And who was that?" "I don't suppose as it matters mentioning it to you, sir. It was one of the junior attaches of the Hertzogovinian Embassy." Poirot raised his eyebrows. "That is interesting. Yes, very interesting. Kew Gardens," he mused. "A pleasant place for a rendezvous. Very pleasant." "I thought so at the time." "They talked together?" "No, sir, you wouldn't have said they knew each other. The young lady had a book with her. She sat down on a seat. She read the book for a little then she laid it down beside her. Then my bloke came and sat there on the seat also. They didn't speak - only the young lady got up and wandered away. He just sat there and presently he gets up and walks off. He takes with him the book that the young lady has left behind. That's all, sir." "Yes," said Poirot. "It is very interesting."

Mr. Goby looked at the bookcase and said Good-night to it. He went.

Poirot gave an exasperated sigh.

"Enfiny" he said, "it is too much! There is far too much. Now we have espionage and counter espionage. All I am seeking is one perfectly simple murder. I begin to suspect that that murder only occurred in a drug addict's brain!"

Chapter Fourteen

"Madame," Poirot bowed and presented Mrs. Oliver with a bouquet very stylised, a posy in the Victorian manner.

"M. Poirot! Well, really, that is very nice of you, and it's very like you somehow.