And Norma came in just after.” “Yes, Yes, I remember.” “One of the boys got stabbed, so a reporter told me, and he ran away. Well, the knife in Normals drawer was a flickknife.
It had got a stain on it — looked like dried blood.” “Frances! You’re being absurdly dramatic.” “Perhaps. But I’m sure that’s what it was. And what on earth was that doing hidden away in Norma’s drawer, I should like to know?” “I suppose — she might have picked it up.” “What — a souvenir? And hidden it away and never told us?” “What did you do with it?” “I put it back,” said Frances slowly.
“I — I didn’t know what else to do.
I couldn’t decide whether to tell you or not. Then yesterday I looked again and it was gone, Claudia. Not a trace of it.” “You think she sent David here to get it?” “Well, she might have done… I tell you, Claudia, in future I’m going to keep my door locked at night.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
MRS. OLIVER woke up dissatisfied.
She saw stretching before her a day with nothing to do. Having packed off her completed manuscript with a highly virtuous feeling, work was over. She had now only, as many times before, to relax, to enjoy herself; to lie fallow until the creative urge became active once more. She walked about her flat in a rather aimless fashion, touching things, picking them up, putting them down, looking in the drawers of her desk, realising that there were plenty of letters there to be dealt with but feeling also that in her present state of virtuous accomplishment, she was certainly not going to deal with anything so tiresome as that now. She wanted something interesting to do. She wanted–what did she want?
She thought about the conversation she had had with Hercule Poirot, the warning he had given her. Ridiculous! After all, why shouldn’t she participate in this problem which she was sharing with Poirot?
Poirot might choose to sit in a chair, put the tips of his fingers together, and set his grey cells whirring to work while his body reclined comfortably within four walls.
That was not the procedure that appealed to Ariadne Oliver. She had said, very forcibly, that she at least was going to do something. She was going to find out more about this mysterious girl. Where was Norma Restarick? What was she doing?
What more could she, Ariadne Oliver, find out about her?
Mrs. Oliver prowled about, more and more disconsolate. What could one do? It wasn^t very easy to decide. Go somewhere and ask questions? Should she go down to Long Basing? But Poirot had already been there—and found out presumably what there was to be found out. What excuse could she offer for barging into Sir Roderick Horsefield’s house?
She considered another visit to Borodene Mansions. Something still to be found out there, perhaps? She would have to think of another excuse for going there. She wasn’t quite sure what excuse she would use but anyway, that seemed the only possible place where more information could be obtained. What was the time?
Ten a.m. There were certain possibilities.
On the way there she concocted an excuse. Not a very original excuse. In fact, Mrs. Oliver would have liked to have found something more intriguing, but perhaps, she reflected prudently, it was just as well to keep to something completely everyday and plausible. She arrived at the stately if grim elevation ofBorodene Mansions and walked slowly round the courtyard considering it.
A porter was conversing with a furniture van — A milkman, pushing his milk-float, joined Mrs. Oliver near the service lift.
He rattled bottles, cheerfully whistling, whilst Mrs. Oliver continued to stare abstractedly at the furniture van.
“Number 76 moving out,” explained the milkman to Mrs. Oliver, mistaking her interest. He transferred a clutch of bottles from his float to the lift.
“Not that she hasn’t moved already in a manner of speaking,” he added, emerging again. He seemed a cheery kind of milkman.
He pointed a thumb upwards.
“Pitched herself out of a window — seventh floor — only a week ago, it was.