"Goodness, how you startled me," she said. "I'd no idea you were there. I hope you're not annoyed."
"So you were following me?"
"Yes, I'm afraid I was. I expect it must have been rather annoying to you. You see I thought it would be such an excellent opportunity. I'm sure you're frightfully angry but you needn't be, you know. Not really. You see-" Mrs. Oliver settled herself more firmly on the dustbin, "you see I write books. I write detective stories and I've really been very worried this morning. In fact I went into a cafe to have a cup of coffee just to try and think things out. I'd just got to the point in my book where I was following somebody. I mean my hero was following someone and I thought to myself, 'really I know very little about following people.' I mean, I'm always using the phrase in a book and I've read a lot of books where people do follow other people, and I wondered if it was as easy as it seems to be in some people's books or if it was as almost entirely impossible as it seemed in other people's books. So I thought 'Well, really, the only thing was to try it out myself - because until you try things out yourself you can't really tell what it's like. I mean you don't know what you feel like, or whether you get worried at losing a person. As it happened, I just looked up and you were sitting at the next table to me in the cafe and I thought you'd be - I hope you won't be annoyed again - but I thought you'd be an especially good person to follow." He was still staring at her with those strange, cold blue eyes, yet she felt somehow that the tension had left them.
"Why was I an especially good person to follow?"
"Well, you were so decorative," explained Mrs. Oliver. "They are really very attractive clothes - almost Regency, you know, and I thought, well, I might take advantage of your being fairly easy to distinguish from other people. So you see, when you went out of the cafe I went out too. And it's not really easy at all." She looked up at him. "Do you mind telling me if you knew I was there all the time?"
"Not at once, no."
"I see," said Mrs. Oliver thoughtfully.
"But of course I'm not as distinctive as you are. I mean you wouldn't be able to tell me very easily from a lot of other elderly women. I don't stand out very much, do I?"
"Do you write books that are published?
Have I ever come across them?"
"Well, I don't know. You may have.
I've written forty-three by now. My name's Oliver."
"Ariadne Oliver?"
"So you do know my name," said Mrs. Oliver. "Well, that's rather gratifying, of course, though I daresay you wouldn't like my books very much. You probably would find them rather old-fashioned- not violent enough."
"You didn't know me personally beforehand?" Mrs. Oliver shook her head. "No, I'm sure I don't - didn't, I mean."
"What about the girl I was with?"
"You mean the one you were having - baked beans was it - with in the cafe?
No, I don't think so. Of course I only saw the back of her head. She looked to me - well, I mean girls do look rather alike, don't they?"
"She knew you," said the boy suddenly.
His tone in a moment had a sudden acid sharpness. "She mentioned once that she'd met you not long ago. About a week ago, I believe."
"Where? Was it at a party? I suppose I might have met her. What's her name?
Perhaps I'd know that." She thought he was in two moods whether to mention the name or not, but he decided to and he watched her face very keenly as he did so.
"Her name's Norma Restarick."
"Norma Restarick. Oh, of course, yes, it was at a party in the country. A place called - wait a minute - Long Norton was it? - I don't remember the name of the house. I went there with some friends.
I don't think I would have recognised her anyway, though I believe she did say something about my books. I even promised I'd give her one. It's very odd, isn't it, that I should make up my mind and actually choose to follow a person who was sitting with somebody I more or less knew.
Very odd. I don't think I could put anything like that in my book. It would look rather too much of a coincidence, don't you think?" Mrs. Oliver rose from her seat. "Good gracious, what have I been sitting on? A dustbin! Really! Not a very nice dustbin either." She sniffed. "What is this place I've got to?" David was looking at her. She felt suddenly that she was completely mistaken in everything she had previously thought.
"Absurd of me," thought Mrs. Oliver, "absurd of me. Thinking that he was dangerous, that he might do something to me." He was smiling at her with an extraordinary charm. He moved his head slightly and his chestnut ringlets moved on his shoulders. What fantastic creatures there were in the way of young men nowadays!
"The least I can do," he said, "is to show you, I think, where you've been brought to, just by following me. Come on, up these stairs." He indicated a ramshackle outside staircase running up to what seemed to be a loft.
"Up those stairs?" Mrs. Oliver was not so certain about this. Perhaps he was trying to lure her up there with his charm, and he would then knock her on the head.
"It's no good, Ariadne," said Mrs. Oliver to herself, "you've got yourself into this spot, and now you've got to go on with it and find out what you can find out."
"Do you think they'll stand my weight?" she said, "they look frightfully rickety."
"They're quite all right. I'll go up first," he said, "and show you the way." Mrs. Oliver mounted the ladder-like stairs behind him. It was no good. She was, deep down, still frightened. Frightened, not so much of the Peacock, as frightened of where the Peacock might be taking her. Well, she'd know very soon.
He pushed open the door at the top and went into a room. It was a large, bare room and it was an artist's studio, an improvised kind of one. A few matresses lay here and there on the floor, there were canvases stacked against the wall, a couple of easels. There was a pervading smell of paint. There were two people in the room, a bearded young man was standing at an easel, painting. He turned his head as they entered.
"Hallo, David," he said, "bringing us company?" He was, Mrs. Oliver thought, quite the dirtiest-looking young man she'd ever seen.
Oily black hair hung in a kind of circular bob down the back of his neck and over his eyes in front. His face apart from the beard was unshaven, and his clothes seemed mainly composed of greasy black leather and high boots. Mrs. Oliver's glance went beyond him to a girl who was acting as a model. She was on a wooden chair on a dais, half flung across it, her head back and her dark hair drooping down from it.
Mrs. Oliver recognised her at once. It was the second one of the three girls in Borodene Mansions. Mrs. Oliver couldn't remember her last name but she remembered her first one. It was the highly decorative and languid-looking girl called Frances.
"Meet Peter," said David, indicating the somewhat revolting looking artist. "One of our budding geniuses. And Frances who is posing as a desperate girl demanding abortion."
"Shut up, you ape," said Peter.
"I believe I know you, don't I?" said Mrs. Oliver, cheerfully, without any air of conscious certainty. "I'm sure I've met you somewhere! Somewhere quite lately, too."
"You're Mrs. Oliver, aren't you?" said Frances.
"That's what she said she was," said David. "True, too, is it?"
"Now, where did I meet you," continued Mrs. Oliver. "Some party, was it?
No. Let me think. I know. It was Borodene Mansions." Frances was sitting up now in her chair and speaking in weary but elegant tones.
Peter uttered a loud and miserable groan.
"Now you've ruined the pose! Do you have to have all this wriggling about?
Can't you keep still?"
"No, I couldn't any longer. It was an awful pose. I've got the most frightful crick in my shoulder."
"I've been making experiments in following people," said Mrs. Oliver. "It's much more difficult than I thought. Is this an artist's studio?" she added, looking round her brightly.
"That's what they're like nowadays, a kind of loft - and lucky if you don't fall through the flo
or," said Peter.
"It's got all you need," said David.
"It's got a north light and plenty of room and a pad to sleep on, and a fourth share in the loo downstairs - and what they call cooking facilities. And it's got a bottle or two," he added. Turning to Mrs. Oliver, but in an entirely different tone, one of utter politeness, he said, "And can we offer you a drink?"
"I don't drink" said Mrs. Oliver. "The lady doesn't drink," said David. "Who would have thought it!"
"That's rather rude but you're quite right," said Mrs. Oliver. "Most people come up to me and say 'I always thought you drank like a fish'." She opened her handbag - and immediately three coils of grey hair fell on the floor. David picked them up and handed them to her.
"Oh! thank you." Mrs. Oliver took them. "I hadn't time this morning. I wonder if I've got any more hairpins." She delved in her bag and started attaching the coils to her head.
Peter roared with laughter - "Bully for you," he said.
"How extraordinary," Mrs. Oliver thought to herself, "that I should ever have had this silly idea that I was in danger. Danger - from these people? No matter what they look like, they're really very nice and friendly. It's quite true what people always say to me. I've far too much imagination." Presently she said she must be going, and David, with Regency gallantry, helped her down the rickety steps, and gave her definite directions as to how to rejoin the King's Road in the quickest way.
"And then," he said, "you can get a bus - or a taxi if you want it."
"A taxi," said Mrs. Oliver. "My feet are absolutely dead. The sooner I fall into a taxi the better. Thank you," she added, "for being so very nice about my following you in what must have seemed a very peculiar way. Though after all I don't suppose private detectives, or private eyes or whatever they call them, would look anything at all like me."
"Perhaps not," said David gravely.
"Left here - and then right, and then left again until you see the river and go towards it, and then sharp right and straight on." Curiously enough, as she walked across the shabby yard the same feeling of unease and suspense came over her. "I mustn't let my imagination go again." She looked back at the steps and the window of the studio. The figure of David still stood looking after her. "Three perfectly nice young people," said Mrs, Oliver to herself.
"Perfectly nice and very kind. Left here, and then right. Just because they look rather peculiar, one goes and has silly ideas about their being dangerous. Was it right again? or left? Left, I think - Oh goodness, my feet. It's going to rain, too." The walk seemed endless and the King's Road incredibly far away. She could hardly hear the traffic now - and where on earth was the river? She began to suspect that she had followed the directions wrong.
"Oh! well," thought Mrs. Oliver, "I'm bound to get somewhere soon - the river, or Putney or Wandsworth or somewhere." She asked her way to the King's Road from a passing man who said he was a foreigner and didn't speak English.
Mrs. Oliver turned another corner wearily and there ahead of her was the gleam of the water. She hurried towards it down a narrow passageway, heard a footstep behind her, half turned, when she was struck from behind and the world went up in sparks.
Chapter Ten
"Drink this." Norma was shivering. Her eyes had a dazed look. She shrank back a little in the chair. The command was repeated. "Drink this." This time she drank obediently, then choked a little.
"It's - it's very strong," she gasped.
"It'll put you right. You'll feel better in a minute. Just sit still and wait." The sickness and the giddiness which had been confusing her passed off. A little colour came into her cheeks, and the shivering diminished. For the first time she looked round her, noting her surroundings.
She had been obsessed by a feeling of fear and horror but now things seemed to be returning to normal. It was a medium-sized room and it was furnished in a way that seemed faintly familiar. A desk, a couch, an armchair and an ordinary chair, a stethoscope on a side table and some machine that she thought had to do with eyes. Then her attention went from the general to the particular. The man who had told her to drink.
She saw a man of perhaps thirty-odd with red hair and a rather attractively ugly face, the kind of face that is craggy but interesting. He nodded at her in a reassuring fashion.
"Beginning to get your bearings?"
"I - I think so. I - did you - what happened?"
"Don't you remember?"
"The traffic. I - it came at me - it - " She looked at him."I was run over."
"Oh no, you weren't run over." He shook his head. "I saw to that."
"You?"
"Well, there you were in the middle of the road, a car bearing down on you and I just managed to snatch you out of its way. What were you thinking of to go running into the traffic like that?"
"I can't remember. I - yes, I suppose I must have been thinking of something else."
"A Jaguar was coming pretty fast, and there was a bus bearing down on the other side of the road. The car wasn't trying to run you down or anything like that, was it?"
"I - no, no, I'm sure it wasn't. I mean I-"
"Well, I wondered-It just might have been something else, mightn't it?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, it could have been deliberate, you know."
"What do you mean by deliberate?"
"Actually I just wondered whether you were trying to get yourself killed?" He added casually, "Were you?"
"I - no - well - no, of course not."
"Damn' silly way to do it, if so." His tone changed slightly. "Come now, you must remember something about it." She began shivering again. "I thought - I thought it would be all over. I thought - "
"So you were trying to kill yourself, weren't you? What's the matter? You can tell me. Boy friend? That can make one feel pretty bad. Besides, there's always the hopeful thought that if you kill yourself you make him sorry - but one should never trust to that. People don't like feeling sorry or feeling anything is their fault. All the boy friend will probably say 'I always thought she was unbalanced.
It's really all for the best'. Just remember that next time you have an urge to charge Jaguars. Even Jaguars have feelings to be considered. Was that the trouble? Boy friend walk out on you?"
"No," said Norma. "Oh no. It was quite the opposite." She added suddenly, "He wanted to marry me."
"That's no reason for throwing yourself down in front of a Jaguar."
"Yes it is. I did it because-" She stopped.
"You'd better tell me about it, hadn't you?"
"How did I get here?" asked Norma.
"I brought you here in a taxi. You didn't seem injured - a few bruises, I expect. You merely looked shaken to death, and in a state of shock, I asked you your address, but you looked at me as though you didn't know what I was talking about.
A crowd was about to collect. So I hailed a taxi and brought you here."
"Is this a - a doctor's surgery?"
"This is a doctor's consulting room and I'm the doctor. Stillingfleet my name is."
"I don't want to see a doctor! I don't want to talk to a doctor! I don't - "
"Calm down, calm down. You've been talking to a doctor for the last ten minutes.
What's the matter with doctors, anyway?"
"Tin afraid. I'm afraid a doctor would" say - "Come now, my dear girl, you're not consulting me professionally. Regard me as a mere outsider who's been enough of a busybody to save you from being killed or what is far more likely, having a broken arm or a fractured leg or a head injury or something extremely unpleasant which might incapacitate you for life. There are other disadvantages. Formerly, if you deliberately tried to commit suicide you could be had up in Court. You still can if it's a suicide pact.
There now, you can't say I haven't been frank. You could oblige now by being frank with me, and telling me why on earth you're afraid of doctors. What's a doctor ever done to you?"
"Nothing. Nothing has been done to me.
But I'm
afraid that they might - "
"Might what?"
"Shut me up." Dr. Stillingfleet raised his sandy eyebrows and looked at her.
"Well, well," he said. "You seem to have some very curious ideas about doctors.
Why should I want to shut you up?
Would you like a cup of tea?" he added, "or would you prefer a purple heart or a tranquilliser. That's the kind of thing people of your age go in for. Done a bit yourself in that line, haven't you?" She shook her head. "Not - not really."
"I don't believe you. Anyway, why the alarm and despondency? You're not really mental, are you? I shouldn't have said so.
Doctors aren't at all anxious to have people shut up. Mental homes are far too full already. Difficult to squeeze in another body. In fact lately they've been letting a good many people out - in desperation - pushing them out, you might say - who jolly well ought to have been kept in.
Everything's so over-crowded in this country.
"Well," he went on, "what are your tastes? Something out of my drug cupboard or a good solid old-fashioned English cup of tea?"
"I - I'd like some tea," said Norma.
"Indian or China? That's the thing to ask, isn't it? Mind you, I'm not sure if I've got any China."
"I like Indian better."
"Good," he went to the door, opened it and shouted, "Annie. Pot of tea for two." He came back and sat down and said, "Now you get this quite clear, young lady.
What's your name, by the way?"
"Norma Res - " she stopped.
"Yes?"
"Norma West."
"Well, Miss West, let's get this clear.
I'm not treating you, you're not consulting me. You are the victim of a street accident - that is the way we'll put it and that is the way I suppose you meant it to appear, which would have been pretty hard on the fellow in the Jaguar."
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