“These cherries — they are new?” he waved a teaspoon. It was, he felt, rather like being in a cherry orchard.
“Are there too many of them, do you think?” said Mrs. Oliver. “So hard to fell beforehand with wallpaper. Do you think my old was better?” Poirot cast his mind back dimly to what he seemed to remember as large quantities of bright coloured tropical birds in a forest. He felt inclined to remark “Plus pa change^ plus c^est la meme chose,^ but restrained himself.
“And now,” said Mrs. Oliver, as her guest finally replaced his cup on its saucer and sat back with a sigh of satisfaction, wiping remnants of foaming cream from his moustache, “what is all this about?” “That I can tell you very simply. This morning a girl came to see me. I suggested she might make an appointment. One has one’s routine, you comprehend. She sent back word that she wanted to see me at once because she thought she might have committed a murder.” “What an odd thing to say. Didn’t she know?” “Precisely! C’est mom! so I instructed George to show her in. She stood there!
She refused to sit down. She just stood there staring at me. She seemed quite half witted. I tried to encourage her. Then suddenly she said that she’d changed her mind. She said she didn’t want to be rude but that — (what do you think?) — but that I was too old…” Mrs. Oliver hastened to utter soothing words. “Oh well, girls are like that. Anyone over thirty-five they think is half dead.
They’ve no sense., girls, you must realise that.” “It wounded me,” said Hercule Poirot.
“Well, I shouldn’t worry about it, if I were you. Of course it was a very rude thing to say.” “That does not matter. And it is not only my feelings. I am worried. Yes, I am worried.” “Well, I should forget all about it if I were you,” advised Mrs. Oliver comfortably.
“You do not understand. I am worried about this girl. She came to me for help. Then she decided that I was too old. Too old to be of any use to her. She was wrong of course, that goes without saying and then she just ran away. But I tell you that girl needs help.” “I don’t suppose she does really,” said Mrs. Oliver soothingly. “Girls make a fuss about things.” “No. You are wrong. She needs help.” “You don’t think she really has committed a murder?” “Why not? She said she had.” “Yes, but –” Mrs. Oliver stopped.
“She said she might have,” she said slowly.
“But what can she possibly mean by that?” “Exactly. It does not make sense.” “Who did she murder or did she think she murdered?” Poirot shrugged his shoulders.
“And why did she murder someone?” Again Poirot shrugged his shoulders.
“Of course it could be all sorts of things.” Mrs. Oliver began to brighten as she set her ever prolific imagination to work. “She could have run over someone in her car and not stopped. She could have been assaulted by a man on a cliff and struggled with him and managed to push him over.
She could have given someone the wrong medicine by mistake. She could have gone to one of those purple pill parties and had a fight with someone. She could have come to and found she had stabbed someone.
She — ” “Assez, madame, assez \” But Mrs. Oliver was well away. “She might have been a nurse in the operating theatre and administered the wrong anaesthetic of– ” she broke off, suddenly anxious for clearer details. “What did she look like?” Poirot considered for a moment.
“An Ophelia devoid of physical attraction.”
“Oh dear,” said Mrs. Oliver. “I can almost see her when you say that. How queer.” “She is not competent,” said Poirot.
“That is how I see her. She is not one who can cope with difficulties. She is not one of those who can see beforehand the danger that must come. She is one of whom others will look round and say ‘We want a victim.
That one will do\” But Mrs. Oliver was no longer listening.