Letters which he was at perfect liberty to have kept once they had lost their importance.” “You’re talking of the war and that was ages ago.” “Quite so. But the past is not always done with, because it is ages ago. New alliances are made. Public speeches are made repudiating this, denying that, telling various lies about something else. And suppose there exist still certain letters or documents that will change the picture of a certain personality. I am not telling you anything, you understand. I am only making assumptions. Assumptions such as I have known to be true in the past.
It might be of the utmost importance that some letters or papers should be destroyed, or else passed to some foreign government.
Who better to undertake that task than a charming young lady who assists and aids an elderly notability to collect material for his Memoirs. Everyone is writing their memoirs nowadays. One cannot stop them from doing so! Suppose that the stepmother gets a little something in her food on the day that the helpful secretary plus au pair girl is doing the cooking? And suppose it is she who arranges that suspicion should fall on Norma?” “What a mind you have,” said Mrs.
Oliver. “Tortuous, that’s what I call it.
I mean, all these things can’t have happened.” “That is just it. There are too many patterns. Which is the right one? The girl Norma leaves home, goes to London.
She is, as you have instructed me, a third girl sharing a flat with two other girls.
There again you may have a pattern.
The two girls are strangers to her. But then what do I learn? Claudia ReeceHolland is private secretary to Norma Restarick’s father. Here again we have a link. Is that mere chance? Or could there be a pattern of some kind behind it.
The other girl, you tell me, acts as a model, and is acquainted with the boy you call ‘the Peacock’ with whom Norma is in love. Again a link. More links. And what is David–the Peacock–doing in all this? Is he in love with Norma? It would seem so. Her parents dislike it as is only probable and natural.” “It’s odd about Claudia ReeceHolland being Restarick’s secretary,” said Mrs.
Oliver thoughtfully. “I should judge she was unusually efficient at anything she undertook. Perhaps it was she who pushed the woman out of the window on the seventh floor.” Poirot turned slowly towards her. “What are you saying?” he demanded. “What are you saying?” “Just someone in the flats — I don’t even know her name, but she fell out of a window or threw herself out of a window on the seventh floor and killed herself.” Poirot’s voice rose high and stern.
“And you never told me?” he said accusingly.
Mrs. Oliver stared at him in surprise.
“I don’t know what you mean.” “What I mean? I ask you to tell me of a death. That is what I mean. A death. And you say there are no deaths. You can think only of an attempted poisoning. And yet here is a death. A death at — what is the name of those mansions?” “Borodene Mansions.” “Yes, yes. And when did it happen?” “This suicide? Or whatever it was? I think — yes — I think it was about a week before I went there.” “Perfect! How did you hear about it?” “A milkman told me.” “A milkman, bon Dieu\” “He was just being chatty,” said Mrs.
Oliver. “It sounded rather sad. It was in the day time — very early in the morning, I think.” “What was her name?” “I’ve no idea. I don’t think he mentioned it.” “Young, middle-aged, old?” Mrs. Oliver considered. “Well, he didn’t say her exact age. Fifty-ish, I think, was what he said.” “I wonder now. Anyone the three girls knew?” “How can I tell? Nobody has said anything about it.” “And you never thought of telling me.” “Well, really. M. Poirot, I cannot see that it has anything to do with all this.
Well, I suppose it may have — but nobody seems to have said so, or thought of it.” “But yes, there is the link. There is this girl, Norma, and she lives in those flats, and one day somebody commits suicide (for that, I gather, was the general impression).