Cards on the Table (Hercule Poirot 15)

“No, thank you. I see my friend turning the corner. Thank you so much, Mrs. Lorrimer. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye. Good luck,” said the older woman.

She drove away and Anne hurried forward.

Rhoda’s face lit up when she saw her friend, then changed to a slightly guilty expression.

“Rhoda, have you been to see Mrs. Oliver?” demanded Anne.

“Well, as a matter of fact, I have.”

“And I just caught you.”

“I don’t know what you mean by caught. Let’s go down here and take a bus. You’d gone off on your own ploys with the boyfriend. I thought at least he’d give you tea.”

Anne was silent for a minute—a voice ringing in her ears.

“Can’t we pick up your friend somewhere and all have tea together?”

And her own answer—hurried, without taking time to think:

“Thanks awfully, but we’ve got to go out to tea together with some people.”

A lie—and such a silly lie. The stupid way one said the first thing that came into one’s head instead of just taking a minute or two to think. Perfectly easy to have said “Thanks, but my friend has got to go out to tea.” That is, if you didn’t, as she hadn’t, wanted to have Rhoda too.

Rather odd, that, the way she hadn’t wanted Rhoda. She had wanted, definitely, to keep Despard to herself. She had felt jealous. Jealous of Rhoda. Rhoda was so bright, so ready to talk, so full of enthusiasm and life. The other evening Major Despard had looked as though he thought Rhoda nice. But it was her, Anne Meredith, he had come down to see. Rhoda was like that. She didn’t mean it, but she reduced you to the background. No, definitely she hadn’t wanted Rhoda there.

But she had managed it very stupidly, getting flurried like that. If she’d managed better, she might be sitting now having tea with Major Despard at his club or somewhere.

She felt definitely annoyed with Rhoda. Rhoda was a nuisance. And what had she been doing going to see Mrs. Oliver?

Out loud she said:

“Why did you go and see Mrs. Oliver?”

“Well, she asked us to.”

“Yes, but I didn’t suppose she really meant it. I expect she always has to say that.”

“She did mean it. She was awfully nice—couldn’t have been nicer. She gave me one of her books. Look.”

Rhoda flourished her prize.

Anne said suspiciously:

“What did you talk about? Not me?”

“Listen to the conceit of the girl!”

“No, but did you? Did you talk about the—the murder?”

“We talked about her murders. She’s writing one where there’s poison in the sage and onions. She was frightfully human—and said writing was awfully hard work and how she got into tangles with plots, and we had black coffee and hot buttered toast,” finished Rhoda in a triumphant burst.

Then she added:

“Oh, Anne, you want your tea.”

“No, I don’t. I’ve had it. With Mrs. Lorrimer.”