Third Girl

He brought with him a young wife recently acquired abroad, and took up residence with an elderly, half blind but extremely distinguished uncle by marriage who had never known him well after his schoolboy days, and who accepted him without question. He had no other near relations, except for the daughter whom he had last seen when she was a child of five. When he originally left for South Africa, the office staff had had two very elderly clerks, since deceased. Junior staff never remains anywhere long nowadays. The family lawyer is also dead. You may be sure that the whole position was studied very carefully on the spot by Frances after they had decided on their coup.

"She had met him, it seems, in Kenya about two years ago. They were both crooks, though with entirely different interests.

He went in for various shoddy deals as a prospector-Restarick and Orwell went together to prospect for mineral deposits in somewhat wild country. There was a rumour of Restarick's death (probably true) which was later contradicted." "A lot of money in the gamble, I suspect?" said Stillingfleet.

"An enormous amount of money was involved. A terrific gamble - for a terrific stake. It came off. Andrew Restarick was a very rich man himself and he was his brother's heir. Nobody questioned his identity. And then - things went wrong.

Out of the blue, he got a letter from a woman who, if she ever came face to face with him, would know at once that he wasn't Andrew Restarick. And a second piece of bad fortune occurred - David Baker started to blackmail him." "That might have been expected, I suppose," said Stillingfleet thoughtfully.

"They didn't expect it," said Poirot.

"David had never blackmailed before. It was the enormous wealth of this man that went to his head, I expect. The sum he had been paid for faking the portrait seemed to him grossly inadequate. He wanted more.

So Restarick wrote him large cheques, and pretended that it was on account of his daughter - to prevent her from making an undesirable marriage. Whether he really wanted to marry her, I do not know - he may have done. But to blackmail two people like Orwell and Frances Cary was a dangerous thing to do." "You mean those two just cold-bloodedly planned to kill two people - quite calmly - just like that?" demanded Mrs. Oliver.

She looked rather sick.

"They might have added you to their list, Madame," said Poirot.

"Me? Do you mean that it was one of them who hit me on the head? Frances, I suppose? Not the poor Peacock?" "I do not think it was the Peacock. But you had been already to Borodene Mansions. Now you perhaps follow Frances to Chelsea, or so she thinks, with a rather dubious story to account for yourself.

So she slips out and gives you a nice little tap on the head to put paid to your curiosity for a while. You would not listen when I warned you there was danger about." "I can hardly believe it of her! Lying about in attitudes of a Burne-Jones heroine in that dirty studio that day. But why - " She looked at Norma-then back at Poirot. "They used her - deliberately - worked upon her, drugged her, made her believe that she had murdered two people.

Why?" "They wanted a victim…" said Poirot.

He rose from his chair and went to Norma.

"Mon enfant, you have been through a terrible ordeal. It is a thing that need never happen to you again. Remember that now, you can have confidence in yourself always.

To have known, at close quarters, what absolute evil means, is to be armoured against what life can do to you." "I suppose you are right," said Norma.

"To think you are mad - really to believe it, is a frightening thing…" She shivered.

"I don't see, even now, why I escaped - why anyone managed to believe that I hadn't killed David-not when even / believed I had killed him?" "Blood was wrong," said Dr. Stillingfleet in a matter-of-fact tone. "Starting to coagulate. Shirt was 'stiff with it", as Miss Jacobs said, not wet. You were supposed to have killed him not more than about five minutes before Frances's screaming act." "How did she - " Mrs. Oliver began to work things out. "She had been to Manchester - " "She came home by an earlier train, changed into her Mary wig and made-up on the train. Walked into Borodene Mansions and went up in the lift as an unknown blonde. Went into the flat where David was waiting for her, as she had told him to do. He was quite unsuspecting, and she stabbed him. Then she went out again, and kept watch until she saw Norma coming. She slipped into a public cloakroom, changed her appearance, and joined a friend at the end of the road and walked with her, said good-bye to her at Borodene Mansions and went up herself and did her stuff - quite enjoying doing it, I expect.

By the time the police had been called and got there, she didn't think anyone would suspect the time lag. I must say, Norma, you gave us all a hell of a time that day.