CHAPTER 12 Anne Meredith

Mrs. Oliver extricated¹ herself from the driving-seat of her little two-seater with some difficulty. To begin with, the makers² of modem³ motor-cars assume that only a pair of sylph-like knees will ever be under the steering-wheel. It is also the fashion to sit low. That being so, for a middle-aged⁴ woman of generous proportions it requires a good deal of superhuman wriggling⁵ to get out from under the steering-wheel. In the second place, the seat next to the driving-seat was encumbered⁶ by several maps, a hangbag, three novels and a large bag of apples. Mrs. Oliver was partial to apples and had indeed been known to eat as many as five pounds straight offwhilst composing the complicated plot of The Death in the Drain Pipe--coming to herself with a start and an incipient⁷ stomach-ache an hour and ten minutes after she was due at an important luncheon⁸ party given in her honour.
With a final determined⁹ heave and a sharp shove with the knee against a recalcitrant¹⁰ door, Mrs. Oliver arrived a little too suddenly on the sidewalk outside the gate of Wendon Cottage, showering apple cores freely round her as she did so.
She gave a deep sigh, pushed back her country hat to an unfashionable angle, looked down with approval at the tweeds she had remembered to put on, frowned a little when she saw that she had absent-mindedly retained her London high-heeled patent leather shoes, and pushing open the gate of Wendon Cottage walked up the flagged path to the front door. She raag the bell and executed-a cheerfullittle rat-a-tat-tat on the knocker--a

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