"I won't go to a doctor. I won't go near a doctor! They wanted to send me to a doctor, and then I'll be shut up in one of those loony places and they won't let me out again. I'm not going to do anything like that." She was struggling now to rise to her feet.

"It is not I who can send you to one!

You need not be alarmed. You could go to a doctor entirely on your own behalf if you liked. You can go and say to him the things you have been saying to me, and you may ask him why, and he will perhaps tell you the cause." "That's what David says. That's what David says I should do but I don't think - I don't think he understands. I'd have to tell a doctor that I - I might have tried to do things…" "What makes you think you have?" "Because I don't always remember what I've done - or where I've been. I lose an hour of time - two hours - and I can't remember. I was in a corridor once - a corridor outside a door, her door. I'd something in my hand - I don't know how I got it. She came walking along towards me - But when she got near me, her face changed. It wasn't her at all.

She'd changed into somebody else." "You are remembering, perhaps, a nightmare. There people do change into somebody else." "It wasn't a nightmare. I picked up the revolver - It was lying there at my feet -" "In a corridor?" "No, in the courtyard. She came and took it away from me." "Who did?" "Claudia. She took me upstairs and gave me some bitter stuff to drink." "Where was your stepmother then?" "She was there, too- No, she wasn't.

She was at Crosshedges. Or in hospital.

That's where they found out she was being poisoned - and that it was me." "It need not have been you - It could have been someone else." "Who else could it have been?" "Perhaps - her husband." "Father? Why on earth should Father want to poison Mary. He's devoted to her.

He's silly about her!" "There are others in the house, are there not?" "Old Uncle Roderick? Nonsense!" "One does not know," said Poirot, "he might be mentally afflicted. He might think it was his duty to poison a woman who might be a beautiful spy. Something like that." "That would be very interesting," said Norma, momentarily diverted, and speaking in a perfectly natural manner. "Uncle Roderick was mixed up a good deal with spies and things in the last war. Who else is there? Sonia? I suppose she might be a beautiful spy, but she's not quite my idea of one." "No, and there does not seem very much reason why she should wish to poison your stepmother. I suppose there might be servants, gardeners?" "No, they just come in for the day.

I don't think - well, they wouldn't be the kind of people to have any reason." "She might have done it herself." "Committed suicide, do you mean? Like the other one?" "It is a possibility." "I can't imagine Mary committing suicide. She's far too sensible. And why should she want to?" "Yes, you feel that if she did, she would put her head in the gas oven, or she would lie on a bed nicely arranged and take an overdose of sleeping draught. Is that right?" "Well, it would have been more natural.

So you see," said Norma earnestly, "it must have been me." "Aha," said Poirot, "that interests me.

You would almost, it would seem, prefer that it should be you. You are attracted to the idea that it was your hand who slipped the fatal dose of this, that or the other.

Yes, you like the idea." "How dare you say such a thing! How can you?" ^Because I think it is true," said Poirot.

"Why does the thought that you may have committed murder excite you, please you?" "It's not true." "I wonder," said Poirot.

She scooped up her bag and began feeling in it with shaking fingers.

"I'm not going to stop here and have you say these things to me." She signalled to the waitress who came, scribbled on a pad of paper, detached it and laid it down by Norma's plate.

"Permit me," said Hercule Poirot.

He removed the slip of paper deftly, and prepared to draw his notecase from his pocket. The girl snatched it back again.

"No, I won't let you pay for me." "As you please," said Poirot.

He had seen what he wanted to see.

The bill was for two. It would seem therefore that David of the fine feathers had no objection to having his bills paid by an infatuated girl.

"So it is you who entertain a friend to elevenses, I see." "How did you know that I was with anyone?" "I tell you, I know a good deal." She placed coins on the table and rose.

"I'm going now," she said, "and I forbid you to follow me." "I doubt if I could," said Poirot. "You must remember my advanced age. If you were to run down the street I should certainly not be able to follow you." She got up and went towards the door.

"Do you hear? You are not to follow me." "You permit me at least to open the door for you." He did so with something of a flourish. "Au revoir, Mademoiselle." She threw a suspicious glance at him and walked away down the street with a rapid step, turning her head back over her shoulder from time to time. Poirot remained by the door watching her, but made no attempt to gain the pavement or to catch her up. When she was out of sight, he turned back into the cafe.

"And what the devil does all that mean?" said Poirot to himself.

The waitress was advancing upon him, displeasure on her face. Poirot regained his seat at the table and placated her by ordering a cup of coffee. "There is something here very curious," he murmured to himself. "Yes, something very curious indeed." A cup of pale beige fluid was placed in front of him. He took a sip of it and made a grimace.

He wondered where Mrs. Oliver was at this moment.

Chapter Nine

MRS. OLIVER was seated in a bus.

She was slightly out of breath though full of the zest of the chase.

What she called in her own mind the Peacock, had led a somewhat brisk pace.

Mrs. Oliver was not a rapid walker.

Going along the Embankment she followed him at a distance of some twenty yards or so. At Charing Cross he got into the underground. Mrs. Oliver also got into the underground. At Sloane Square he got out, so did Mrs. Oliver. She waited in a bus queue some three or four people behind him. He got on a bus and so did she.

He got out at World's End, so did Mrs.

Oliver. He plunged into a bewildering maze of streets between King's Road and the river. He turned into what seemed a builder's yard. Mrs. Oliver stood in the shadow of a doorway and watched. He turned into an alleyway, Mrs. Oliver gave him a moment or two and then followed - he was nowhere to be seen. Mrs. Oliver reconnoitred her general surroundings.

The whole place appeared somewhat decrepit. She wandered farther down the alleyway. Other alleyways led off from it - some of them culs-de-sac. She had completely lost her sense of direction when she once more came to the builder's yard and a voice spoke behind her, startling her considerably.

It said, politely, "I hope I didn't walk too fast for you." She turned sharply. Suddenly what had recently been almost fun, a chase undertaken light-heartedly and in the best of spirits, now was that no longer. What she felt now was a sudden unexpected throb of fear. Yes, she was afraid. The atmosphere had suddenly become tinged with menace.

Yet the voice was pleasant, polite, but behind it she knew there was anger. The sudden kind of anger that recalled to her in a confused fashion all the things one read in newspapers. Elderly women attacked by gangs of young men. Young men who were ruthless, cruel, who were driven by hate and the desire to do harm.

This was the young man whom she had been following. He had known she was there, had given her the slip and had then followed her into this alleyway, and he stood there now barring her way out.

As is the precarious fashion of London, one moment you are amongst people all round you and the next moment there is nobody in sight. There must be people in the next street, someone in the houses near, but nearer than that is a masterful figure, a figure with strong cruel hands.