Third Girl

"I never remembered the things I'd done, none of them. But I got more and more frightened. Because there used to be quite long times that were blank-quite blank - hours I couldn't account for, or remember where I'd been and what I'd been doing. But I found things - things I must have hidden away myself. Mary was being poisoned by me, they found out she was being poisoned at the hospital.

And I found the weed killer Pd hidden away in the drawer. In the flat here there was a flick-knife. And I had a revolver that I didn't even know I'd bought! I did kill people, but I didn't remember killing them, so I'm not really a murderer - I'm just - mad\ I realised that at last. I'm mad, and I can't help it. People can't blame you if you do things when you are mad. If I could come here and even kill David, it shows I am mad, doesn't it?" "You'd like to be mad, very much?" "yes, I suppose so." "If so, why did you confess to someone that you had killed a woman by pushing her out of the window? Who was it you told?" Norma turned her head, hesitated. Then raised her hand and pointed.

"I told Claudia." "That is absolutely untrue." Claudia looked at her scornfully. "You never said anything of the kind to me!" "I did. I did." "When? Where?" "I - don't know." "She told me that she had confessed it all to you," said Frances indistinctly.

"Frankly, I thought she was hysterical and making the whole thing up." Stillingfleet looked across at Poirot.

"She could be making it all up," he said judicially. "There is quite a case for that solution.

But if so, we would have to find the motive, a strong motive, for her desiring the death of those two people. Louise Carpenter and David Baker. A childish hate? Forgotten and done with years ago? Nonsense.

David - just to be 'free of him?' It is not for that that girls kill! We want better motives than that. A whacking great lot of money - say! - Greed!" He looked round him and his voice changed to a conventional tone.

"We want a little more help. There's still one person missing. Your wife is a long time joining us here, Mr. Restarick?" "I can't think where Mary can be. I've rung up. Claudia has left messages in every place we can think of. By now she ought to have rung up at least from somewhere." "Perhaps we have the wrong idea," said Hercule Poirot. "Perhaps Madame is at least partly here already - in a manner of speaking." "What on earth do you mean?" shouted Restarick angrily.

"Might I trouble you, chere Madame?" Poirot leaned towards Mrs. Oliver. Mrs.

Oliver stared.

"The parcel I entrusted to you - " "Oh." Mrs. Oliver dived into her shopping bag. She handed the black folder to him.

He heard a sharp indrawn breath near him, but did not turn his head.

He shook off the wrappings delicately and held up - a wig of boffant golden hair.

"Mrs. Restarick is not here," he said, "but her wig is. Interesting." "Where the devil did you get that, Poirot?" asked Neele.

"From the overnight bag of Miss Frances Cary from which she had as yet no opportunity of removing it. Shall we see how it becomes her?" With a deft movement, he swept aside the black hair that masked Frances's face so effectively. Crowned with a golden aureole before she could defend herself, she glared at them.

Mrs. Oliver exclaimed: "Good gracious - it is Mary Restarick." Frances was twisting like an angry snake. Restarick jumped from his seat to come to her - but Neele's strong grip retrained him.

"No. We don't want any violence from you. The game's up, you know, Mr.

Restarick - or shall I call you Robert Orwell - " A stream of profanity came from the man's lips. Frances's voice was raised sharply: "Shut up, you damned fool!" she said.

Poirot had abandoned his trophy, the wig.

He had gone to Norma, and taken her hand gently in his.

"Your ordeal is over, my child. The victim will not be sacrificed. You are neither mad, nor have you killed anyone.

There are two cruel and heartless creatures who plotted against you, with cunningly administered drugs, with lies, doing their best to drive you either to suicide or to belief in your own guilt and madness." Norma was staring with horror at the other plotter.

"My father. My father? He could think of doing that to me. His daughter. My father who loved me - " "Not your father, mon enfant - a man who came here after your father's death, to impersonate him and lay hands on an enormous fortune. Only one person was likely to recognise him - or rather to recognise that this man was not Andrew Restarick, the woman who had been Andrew Restarick's mistress fifteen years ago."

Chapter Twenty-Five

FOUR people sat in Poirot's room.

Poirot in his square chair was drinking a glass of sirop de cassis. Norma and Mrs. Oliver sat on the sofa. Mrs. Oliver was looking particularly festive in unbecoming apple green brocade, surmounted by one of her more painstaking coiffures. Dr. Stillingfleet was sprawled out in a chair with his long legs stretched out, so that they seemed to reach half across the room.