‘The girl who came to see me I am sure would have been highly delighted with him.’
‘Did he look very awful?’
‘He looked very beautiful,’ said Hercule Poirot.
‘Beautiful?’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘I don’t know that I like beautiful young men.’
‘Girls do,’ said Poirot.
‘Yes, you’re quite right. They like beautiful young men. I don’t mean good-looking young men or smart-looking young men or well-dressed or well-washed looking young men. I mean they either like young men looking as though they were just going on in a Restoration comedy, or else very dirty young men looking as though they were just going to take some awful tramp’s job.’
‘It seemed that he also did not know where the girl is now—’
‘Or else he wasn’t admitting it.’
‘Perhaps. He had gone down there. Why? He was actually in the house. He had taken the trouble to walk in without anyone seeing him. Again why? For what reason? Was he looking for the girl? Or was he looking for something else?’
‘You think he was looking for something?’
‘He was looking for something in the girl’s room,’ said Poirot.
‘How do you know? Did you see him there?’
‘No, I only saw him coming down the stairs, but I found a very nice little piece of damp mud in Norma’s room that could have come from his shoe. It is possible that she herself may have asked him to bring her something from that room—there are a lot of possibilities. There is another girl in that house—and a pretty one—He may have come down there to meet her. Yes—many possibilities.’
‘What are you going to do next?’ demanded Mrs Oliver.
‘Nothing,’ said Poirot.
‘That’s very dull,’ said Mrs Oliver disapprovingly.
‘I am going to receive, perhaps, a little information from those I have employed to find it; though it is quite possible that I shall receive nothing at all.’
‘But aren’t you going to do something?’
‘Not till the right moment,’ said Poirot.
‘Well, I shall,’ said Mrs Oliver.
‘Pray, pray be very careful,’ he implored her.
‘What nonsense! What could happen to me?’
‘Where there is murder, anything can happen. I tell that to you. I, Poirot.’
Mr Goby sat in a chair. He was a small shrunken little man, so nondescript as to be practically nonexistent.
He looked attentively at the claw foot of an antique table and addressed his remarks to it. He never addressed anybody direct.
‘Glad you got the names for me, Mr Poirot,’ he said. ‘Otherwise, you know, it might have taken a lot of time. As it is, I’ve got the main facts—and a bit of gossip on the side… Always useful, that. I’ll begin at Borodene Mansions, shall I?’
Poirot inclined his head graciously.
‘Plenty of porters,’ Mr Goby informed the clock on the chimney piece. ‘I started there, used one or two different young men. Expensive, but worth it. Didn’t want it thought that there was anyone making any particular inquiries! Shall I use initials, or names?’
‘Within these walls you can use the names,’ said Poirot.
‘Miss Claudia Reece-Holland spoken of as a very nice young lady. Father an MP. Ambitious man. Gets himself in the news a lot. She’s his only daughter. She does secretarial work. Serious girl. No wild parties, no drink, no beatniks. Shares flat with two others. Number two works for the Wedderburn Gallery in Bond Street. Arty type. Whoops it up a bit with the Chelsea set. Goes around to places arranging exhibitions and art shows.
‘The third one is your one. Not been there long. General opinion is that she’s a bit “wanting”. Not all there in the top storey. But it’s all a bit vague. One of the porters is a gossipy type. Buy him a drink or two and you’ll be surprised at the things he’ll tell you! Who drinks, and who drugs, and who’s having trouble with his income tax, and who keeps his cash behind the cistern. Of course you can’t believe it all. Anyway, there was some story about a revolver being fired one night.’
‘A revolver fired? Was anyone injured?’
‘There seems a bit of doubt as to that. His story is he heard a shot fired one night, and he comes out and there was this girl, your girl, standing there with a revolver in her hand. She looked sort of dazed. And then one of the other young ladies—or both of them, in fact—they come running along. And Miss Cary (that’s the arty one) says, “Norma, what on earth have you done?” and Miss Reece-Holland, she says sharp-like, “Shut up, can’t you, Frances. Don’t be a fool!” and she took the revolver away from your girl and says, “Give me that.” She slams it into her handbag and then she notices this chap Micky, and goes over to him and says, laughing-like, “That must have startled you, didn’t it?” and Micky he says it gave him quite a turn, and she says, “You needn’t worry. Matter of fact, we’d no idea this thing was loaded. We were just fooling about.” And then she says: “Anyway, if anybody asks you questions, tell them it is quite all right,” and then she says: “Come on, Norma” and took her arm and led her along to the elevator, and they all went up again.
‘But Micky said he was a bit doubtful still. He went and had a good look round the courtyard.’
Mr Goby lowered his eyes and quoted from his notebook:
‘“I’ll tell you, I found something, I did! I found some wet patches. Sure as anything I did. Drops of blood they were. I touched them with my finger. I tell you what I think. Somebody had been shot—some man as he was running away… I went upstairs and I asked if I could speak to Miss Holland. I says to her: ‘I think there may have been someone shot, Miss,’ I says. ‘There are some drops of blood in the courtyard.’ ‘Good gracious,’ she says, ‘How ridiculous. I expect, you know,’ she says, ‘it must have been one of the pigeons.’ And then she says: ‘I’m sorry if it gave you a turn. Forget about it,’ and she slipped me a five pound note. Five pound note, no less! Well, naturally, I didn’t open my mouth after that.”
‘And then, after another whisky, he comes out with some more. “If you ask me, she took a pot shot at that low class young chap that comes to see her. I think she and he had a row and she did her best to shoot him. That’s what I think. But least said soonest mended, so I’m not repeating it. If anyone asks me anything I’ll say I don’t know what they’re talking about.”’ Mr Goby paused.
‘Interesting,’ said Poirot.
‘Yes, but it’s as likely as not that it’s a pack of lies. Nobody else seems to know
