“First time I’ve ever heard you say that, Poirot! Wonders will never cease!” “I don’t really see why she wanted two personalities,” said Mrs. Oliver. “It seems unnecessarily confusing.” “No. It was very valuable to her. It gave her, you see, a perpetual alibi whenever she wanted it. To think that it was there, all the time, before my eyes, and I did not see it!
There was the wig — I kept being subconsciously worried by it, but not seeing why I was worried. Two women — never, at any time, seen together. Their lives so arranged that no one noticed the large gaps in their time schedules when they were unaccounted for. Mary goes often to London, to shop, to visit house agents, to depart with a sheaf of orders to view, supposedly to spend her time that way.
Frances goes to Birmingham, to Manchester, even flies abroad, frequents Chelsea with her special coterie of arty young men whom she employs in various capacities which would not be looked on with approval by the law. Special picture frames were designed for the Wedderburn Gallery.
Rising young artists had ‘shows’ there– their pictures sold quite well, and were shipped abroad or sent on exhibition with there frames stuffed with secret packets of heroin — Art rackets — skilful forgeries of the more obscure Old Masters — She arranged and organised all these things.
David Baker was one of the artists she employed. He had the gift of being a marvellous copyist.” Norma murmured: “Poor David. When I first met him I thought he was wonderful.”
“That picture,” said Poirot dreamily. “Always, always, I came back to that in my mind. Why had Restarick brought it up to his office? What special significance did it have for him? Enfin, I do not admire myself for being so dense.” “I don’t understand about the picture?” “It was a very clever idea. It served as a kind of certificate of identity. A pair of portraits, husband and wife, by a celebrated and fashionable portrait painter of his day.
David Baker, when they come out of store, replaces Restarick’s portrait with one of Orwell, making him about twenty years younger in appearance. Nobody would have dreamed that the portrait was a fake, the style, the brush strokes, the canvas, it was a splendidly convincing bit of work. Restarick hung it over his desk. Anyone who knew Restarick years ago, might say: ‘I’d ^ hardly have known you!’ Or “You’ve changed quite a lot’, would look up at the portrait, but would only think that he himself had really forgotten what the other man had looked like!” “It was a great risk for Restarick — or rather Orwell — to take,” said Mrs. Oliver thoughtfully.
“Less than you might think. He was never a claimant, you see, in the Tichborne sense. He was only a member of a wellknown City firm, returning home after his brother’s death to settle up his brother’s affairs after having spent some years abroad.
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.