Third Girl Read Free

soothingly. “Girls make a fuss about things.”
    â€œNo. You are wrong. She needs help. ”
    â€œYou don’t think she really has committed a murder?”
    â€œWhy not? She said she had.”
    â€œYes, but—” Mrs. Oliver stopped. “She said she might have,” she said slowly. “But what can she possibly mean by that?”
    â€œExactly. It does not make sense.”
    â€œWho did she murder or did she think she murdered?”
    Poirot shrugged his shoulders.
    â€œAnd why did she murder someone?”
    Again Poirot shrugged his shoulders.
    â€œOf 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—”
    â€œ Assez, madame, assez! ”
    But Mrs. Oliver was well away.
    â€œShe might have been a nurse in the operating theatre and administered the wrong anaesthetic or—” she broke off, suddenly anxious for clearer details. “What did she look like?”
    Poirot considered for a moment.
    â€œAn Ophelia devoid of physical attraction.”
    â€œOh dear,” said Mrs. Oliver. “I can almost see her when you say that. How queer.”
    â€œShe 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 dangers 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. She was clutching her rich coils of hair with both hands in a gesture with which Poirot was familiar.
    â€œWait,” she cried in a kind of agony. “Wait!”
    Poirot waited, his eyebrows raised.
    â€œYou didn’t tell me her name,” said Mrs. Oliver.
    â€œShe did not give it. Unfortunate, I agree with you.”
    â€œWait!” implored Mrs. Oliver, again with the same agony. She relaxed her grip on her head and uttered a deep sigh. Hair detached itself from its bonds and tumbled over her shoulders, a super imperial coil of hair detached itself completely and fell on the floor. Poirot picked it up and put it discreetly on the table.
    â€œNow then,” said Mrs. Oliver, suddenly restored to calm. She pushed in a hairpin or two, and nodded her head while she thought. “Who told this girl about you, M. Poirot?”
    â€œNo one, so far as I know. Naturally, she had heard about me, no doubt.”
    Mrs. Oliver thought that “naturally” was not the word at all. What was natural was that Poirot himself was sure that everyone had always heard of him. Actually large numbers of people would only look at you blankly if the name of Hercule Poirot was mentioned, especially the younger generation. “But how am I going to put that to him,” thought Mrs. Oliver, “in such a way that it won’t hurt his feelings?”
    â€œI think you’re wrong,” she said. “Girls—well, girls and young men—they don’t know very much about detectives and things like that. They don’t hear about them.”
    â€œEveryone must have heard about Hercule Poirot,” said Poirot, superbly.
    It was an article of belief for Hercule Poirot.
    â€œBut they are all so badly educated nowadays,” said Mrs. Oliver. “Really, the only people whose names they know are pop singers, or groups, or disc jockeys—that sort of thing. If you need someone special, I mean a doctor or a detective or a dentist—well, then, I mean you would ask someone—ask who’s the right