Rhoda Dawes came out of Debenham’s and stood meditatively upon the pavement. Indecision was written all over her face. It was an expressive face; each fleeting emotion showed itself in a quickly varying expression.
Quite plainly at this moment Rhoda’s face said: “Shall I or shan’t I? I’d like to … But perhaps I’d better not….”
The commissionaire said, “Taxi, Miss?” to her hopefully.
Rhoda shook her head.
A stout woman carrying parcels with an eager “shopping early for Christmas” expression on her face, cannoned into her severely, but still Rhoda stood stock-still, trying to make up her mind.
Chaotic odds and ends of thoughts flashed through her mind.
“After all, why shouldn’t I? She asked me to—but perhaps it’s just a thing she says to everyone … She doesn’t mean it to be taken seriously … Well, after all, Anne didn’t want me. She made it quite clear she’d rather go with Major Despard to the solicitor man alone … And why shouldn’t she? I mean, three is a crowd … And it isn’t really any business of mine … It isn’t as though I particularly wanted to see Major Despard … He is nice, though … I think he must have fallen for Anne. Men don’t take a lot of trouble unless they have … I mean, it’s never just kindness….”
A messenger boy bumped into Rhoda and said, “Beg pardon, Miss,” in a reproachful tone.
“Oh, dear,” thought Rhoda. “I can’t go on standing here all day. Just because I’m such an idiot that I can’t make up my mind … I think that coat and skirt’s going to be awfully nice. I wonder if brown would have been more useful than green? No, I don’t think so. Well, come on, shall I go or shan’t I? Half past three, it’s quite a good time—I mean, it doesn’t look as though I’m cadging a meal or anything. I might just go and look, anyway.”
She plunged across the road, turned to the right, and then to the left, up Harley Street, finally pausing by the block of flats always airily described by Mrs. Oliver as “all among the nursing homes.”
“Well, she can’t eat me,” thought Rhoda, and plunged boldly into the building.
Mrs. Oliver’s flat was on the top floor. A uniformed attendant whisked her up in a lift and decanted her on a smart new mat outside a bright green door.
“This is awful,” thought Rhoda. “Worse than dentists. I must go through with it now, though.”
Pink with embarrassment, she pushed the bell.
The door was opened by an elderly maid.
“Is—could I—is Mrs. Oliver at home?” asked Rhoda.
The maid drew back, Rhoda entered, she was shown into a very untidy drawing room. The maid said:
“What name shall I say, please?”
“Oh—eh—Miss Dawes—Miss Rhoda Dawes.”
The maid withdrew. After what seemed to Rhoda about a hundred years, but was really exactly a minute and forty-five seconds, the maid returned.
“Will you step this way, Miss?”
Pinker than ever, Rhoda followed her. Along a passage, round a corner, a door was opened. Nervously she entered into what seemed at first to her startled eyes to be an African forest!
Birds—masses of birds, parrots, macaws, birds unknown to ornithology, twined themselves in and out of what seemed to be a primeval forest. In the middle of this riot of bird and vegetable life, Rhoda perceived a battered kitchen table with a typewriter on it, masses of typescript littered all over the floor and Mrs. Oliver, her hair in wild confusion, rising from a somewhat rickety-looking chair.
“My dear, how nice to see you,” said Mrs. Oliver, holding out a carbon-stained hand and trying with her other hand to smooth her hair, a quite impossible proceeding.
A paper bag, touched by her elbow, fell from the desk, and apples rolled energetically all over the floor.
“Never mind, my dear, don’t bother, someone will pick them up sometime.”
Rather breathless, Rhoda rose from a stooping position with five apples in her grasp.
“Oh, thank you—no, I shouldn’t put them back in the bag. I think it’s got a hole in it. Put them on the mantelpiece. That’s right. Now, then, sit down and let’s talk.”
Rhoda accepted a second battered chair and focussed her eyes on her hostess.
“I say, I’m terribly sorry. Am I interrupting, or anything?” she asked breathlessly.
“Well, you are and you aren’t,” said Mrs. Oliver. “I am working, as you see. But that dreadful Finn of mine has got himself terribly tangled up. He did some awfully clever deduction with a dish of French beans, and now he’s just detected deadly poison in the sage and onion stuffing of the Michaelmas goose, and I’ve just remembered that French beans are over by Michaelmas.”
Thrilled by this peep into the inner world of creative detective fiction, Rhoda said breathlessly, “They might be tinned.”
“They might, of course,” said Mrs. Oliver doubtfully. “But it would rather spoil the point. I’m always getting tangled up in horticulture and things like that. People write to me and say I’ve got the wrong flowers all out together. As though it mattered—and anyway, they are all out together in a London shop.”
“Of course it doesn’t matter,” said Rhoda loyally. “Oh, Mrs. Oliver, it must be marvellous to write.”
Mrs. Oliver rubbed her forehead with a carbonny finger and said:
“Why?”
“Oh,” said Rhoda, a little taken aback. “Because it must. It must be wonderful just to sit down and write off a whole book.”
“It doesn’t happen exactly like that,” said Mrs. Oliver. “One actually has to think, you know. And thinking is always a bore. And you have to plan things. And then one gets stuck every now and then, and you feel you’ll never get out of the mess—but you do! Writing’s not particularly enjoyable. It’s hard work like everything else.”
“It doesn’t seem like work,” said Rhoda.
“Not to you,” said Mrs. Oliver, “because you don’t have to do it! It feels very like work to me. Some days I can only keep going by repeating over and over to myself the amount of money I might get for my next serial rights. That spurs you on, you know. So does your bankbook when you see how much overdrawn you are.”
“I never imagined you actually typed your books yourself,” said Rhoda. “I thought you’d have a secretary.”
“I did have a secretary, and I used to try and dictate to her, but she was so competent that it used to depress me. I felt she knew so much more about English and grammar and full stops and semicolons than I did, that it gave me a kind of inferiority complex. Then I tried having a thoroughly incompetent secretary, but, of course, that didn’t answer very well, either.”
“It must be so wonderful to be able to think of things,” said Rhoda.
“I can always think of things,” said Mrs. Oliver happily. “What is so tiring is writing them down. I always think I’ve finished, and then when I count up I find I’ve only written thirty thousand words instead of sixty thousand, and so then I have to throw in another murder and get the heroine kidnapped again. It’s all very boring.”
Rhoda did not answer. She was staring at Mrs. Oliver with the reverence felt by youth for celebrity—slightly tinged by disappointment.
“Do you like the wallpaper?” asked Mrs. Oliver waving an airy hand. “I’m frightfully fond of birds. The foliage is supposed to be tropical. It makes me feel it’s a hot day, even when it’s freezing. I can’t do anything unless I feel very, very warm. But Sven Hjerson breaks the ice on his bath every morning!”
“I think it’s all marvellous,” said Rhoda. “And it’s awfully nice of you to say I’m not interrupting you.”
“We’ll have some coffee and toast,” said Mrs. Oliver. “Very black coffee and very hot toast. I can always eat that anytime.”
She went to the door, opened it and shouted. Then she returned and said:
“What brings you to town—shopping?”
“Yes, I’ve been doing some shopping.”
“Is Miss Meredith up, too?”
“Yes, she’s gone with Major Despard to a solicitor.”
“Solicitor, eh?”
Mrs. Oliver’s eyebrows rose inquiringly.
“Yes. You see, Major Despard told her she ought to have one. He’s been awfully kind—he really has.”
“I was kind, too,” said Mrs. Oliver, “but it didn’t seem to go down very well, did it? In fact, I think your friend rather resented my coming.”
“Oh, she didn’t—really she didn’t.” Rhoda wriggled on her chair in a paroxysm of embarrassment. “That’s really one reason why I wanted to come today—to explain. You see, I saw you had got it all wrong. She did seem very ungracious, but it wasn’t that, really. I mean, it wasn’t your coming. It was something you said.”
“Something I said?”
“Yes. You couldn’t tell, of course. It was just unfortunate.”
“What did I say?”
“I don’t expect you remember, even. It was just the way you put it. You said something about an accident and poison.”
“Did I?”
“I knew you’d probably not remember. Yes. You see, Anne had a ghastly experience once. She was in a house where a woman took some poison—hat paint, I think it was—by mistake for something else. And she died. And, of course, it was an awful shock to Anne. She can’t bear thinking of it or speaking of it. And your saying that reminded her, of course, and she dried up and got all stiff and queer like she does. And I saw you noticed it. And I couldn’t say anything in front of her. But I did want you to know that it wasn’t what you thought. She wasn’t ungrateful.”
Mrs. Oliver looked at Rhoda’s flushed eager face. She said slowly:
“I see.”
“Anne’s awfully sensitive,” said Rhoda. “And she’s bad about—well, facing things. If anything’s upset her, she’d just rather not talk about it, although that isn’t any good, really—at least, I don’t think so. Things are there just the same—whether you talk about them or not. It’s only running away from them to pretend they don’t exist. I’d rather have it all out, however painful it would be.”
“Ah,” said Mrs. Oliver quietly. “But you, my dear, are a soldier. Your Anne isn’t.”
Rhoda flushed.
“Anne’s a darling.”
Mrs. Oliver smiled.
She said, “I didn’t say she wasn’t. I only said she hadn’t got your particular brand of courage.”
She sighed, then said rather unexpectedly to the girl:
“Do you believe in the value of truth, my dear, or don’t you?”
“Of course I believe in the truth,” said Rhoda staring.
“Yes, you say that—but perhaps you haven’t thought about it. The truth hurts sometimes—and destroys one’s illusions.”
“I’d rather have it, all the same,” said Rhoda.
“So would I. But I don’t know that we’re wise.”
Rhoda said earnestly:
“Don’t tell Anne, will you, what I’ve told you? She wouldn’t like it.”
“I certainly shouldn’t dream of doing any such thing. Was this long ago?
“About four years ago. It’s odd, isn’t it, how the same things happen again and again to people. I had an aunt who was always in shipwrecks. And here’s Anne mixed up in two sudden deaths—only, of course, this one is much worse. Murder’s rather awful, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is.”
The black coffee and the hot buttered toast appeared at this minute.
Rhoda ate and drank with childish gusto. It was very exciting to her thus to be sharing an intimate meal with a celebrity.
When they had finished she rose and said:
“I do hope I haven’t interrupted you too terribly. Would you mind—I mean, would it bother you awfully—if I sent one of your books to you, would you sign it for me?”
Mrs. Oliver laughed.
“Oh, I can do better than that for you.” She opened a cupboard at the far end of the room. “Which would you like? I rather fancy The Affair of the Second Goldfish myself. It’s not quite such frightful tripe as the rest.”
A little shocked at hearing an authoress thus describe the children of her pen, Rhoda accepted eagerly. Mrs. Oliver took the book, opened it, inscribed her name with a superlative flourish and handed it to Rhoda.
“There you are.”
“Thank you very much. I have enjoyed myself. Sure you didn’t mind my coming?”
“I wanted you to,” said Mrs. Oliver.
She added after a moment’s pause:
“You’re a nice child. Good-bye. Take care of yourself, my dear.”
“Now, why did I say that?” she murmured to herself as the door closed behind her guest.
She shook her head, ruffled her hair, and returned to the masterly dealings of Sven Hjerson with the sage and onion stuffing.
[Cards on the Table -Agatha Christie] Seventeen. The Evidence Of Rhoda Dawes