Free Third Girl by Agatha Christie Page B

woman spoke impressively, “I'm thankful I've never had any daughters.”
    “Have you got sons?”
    “Two boys, we've got. One's doing very well at school, and the other one, he's in a printers, doing well there too. Yes, very nice boys they are. Mind you, boys can cause you trouble, too. But girls is more worrying, I think. You feel you ought to be able to do something about them.”
    “Yes,” said Mrs Oliver, thoughtfully, “one does feel that.”
    She saw signs of the cleaning woman wishing to return to her cleaning.
    “It's too bad about my diary,” she said. “Well, thank you very much and I hope I haven't wasted your time.”
    “Well, I hope you'll find it, I'm sure,” said the other woman obligingly.
    Mrs Oliver went out of the flat and considered what she should do next. She couldn't think of anything she could do further that day, but a plan for tomorrow began to form in her mind.
    When she got home, Mrs Oliver, in an important way, got out a notebook and jotted down in it various things under the heading “Facts I have learned”. On the whole the facts did not amount to very much but Mrs Oliver, true to her calling, managed to make the most of them that could be made. Possibly the fact that Claudia Reece-Holland was employed by Norma's father was the most salient fact of any. She had not known that before, she rather doubted if Hercule Poirot had known it either. She thought of ringing him up on the telephone and acquainting him with it but decided to keep it to herself for the moment because of her plan for the morrow.
    In fact, Mrs Oliver felt at this moment less like a detective novelist than like an ardent bloodhound. She was on the trail, nose down on the scent, and tomorrow morning - well, tomorrow morning she would see.
    True to her plan, Mrs Oliver rose early, partook of two cups of tea and a boiled egg and started out on her quest. Once more she arrived in the vicinity of Borodene Mansions. She wondered whether she might be getting a bit well known there, so this time she did not enter the courtyard, but skulked around either one entrance to it or the other, scanning the various people who were turning out into the morning drizzle to trot off on their way to work.
    They were mostly girls, and looked deceptively alike. How extraordinary human beings were when you considered them like this, emerging purposefully from these large tall buildings - just like anthills, thought Mrs Oliver. One had never considered an anthill properly, she decided.
    It always looked so aimless, as one disturbed it with the toe of a shoe. All those little things rushing about with bits of grass in their mouths, streaming along industriously, worried, anxious, looking as though they were running to and fro and going nowhere, but presumably they were just as well organised as these human beings here. That man, for instance, who had just passed her. Scurrying along, muttering to himself.
    “I wonder what's upsetting you,” thought Mrs Oliver. She walked up and down a little more, then she drew back suddenly.
    Claudia Reece-Holland came out of the entrance way walking at a brisk businesslike pace. As before, she looked very well turned out. Mrs Oliver turned away so that she should not be recognised. Once she had allowed Claudia to get a sufficient distance ahead of her, she wheeled round again and followed in her tracks. Claudia Reece-Holland came to the end of the street and turned right into a main thoroughfare.
    She came to a bus stop and joined the queue. Mrs Oliver, still following her, felt a momentary uneasiness. Supposing Claudia should turn round, look at her, recognise her? All Mrs Oliver could think of was to do several protracted but noiseless blows of the nose. But Claudia Reece-Holland seemed totally absorbed in her own thoughts. She looked at none of her fellow waiters for buses. Mrs Oliver was about third in the queue behind her. Finally the right bus came and there was a surge forward. Claudia got on the