Norma stood quite still. She looked at John Stillingfleet very carefully, as though she was considering something that she knew from an entirely different point of view.
And then she smiled. It was a very nice smile - like a happy young nannie.
"All right," she said.
She crossed the room to Hercule Poirot.
"I was rude, too," she said. "The day I came here when you were having breakfast. I said to you that you were too old to help me. That was a rude thing to say. And it wasn't true..."
She put her hands on his shoulders and kissed him.
"You'd better get us a taxi," she said to Stillingfleet.
Dr Stillingfleet nodded and left the room. Mrs Oliver collected a handbag and a fur stole and Norma slipped on a coat and followed her to the door.
"Madame, un petit moment -"
Mrs Oliver turned. Poirot had collected from the recesses of the sofa a handsome coil of grey hair.
Mrs Oliver exclaimed vexedly: "It's just like everything that they make nowadays, no good at all! Hairpins, I mean. They just slip out, and everything falls."
She went out frowning.
A moment or two later she poked her head round the door again. She spoke in a conspiratorial whisper:
"Just tell me - it's all right, I've sent her on down - did you send that girl to this particular doctor on purpose?"
"Of course I did. His qualifications are -"
"Never mind his qualifications. You know what I mean. He and she - Did you?"
"If you must know, yes."
"I thought so," said Mrs Oliver. "You do think of things, don't you."
