Fifteen EUGENE AND ROSENTELLE, HAIR STYLISTS AND BEAUTICIANS
Mrs. Oliver looked at Cheltenham with approval. As it happened, she had never been toCheltenham before. How nice, said Mrs. Oliver to herself, to see some houses that are really likehouses, proper houses.
Casting her mind back to youthful days, she remembered that she had known people, or at leasther relations, her aunts, had known people who lived at Cheltenham. Retired¹ people usually. Armyor Navy. It was the sort of place, she thought, where one would like to come and live if one hadspent a good deal of time abroad. It had a feeling of English security, good taste and pleasant chatand conversation.
After looking in one or two agreeable antique shops, she found her way to where she wanted—or rather Hercule Poirot wanted her—to go. It was called The Rose Green Hairdressing Saloons.
She walked inside it and looked round. Four or five people were in process of having things doneto their hair. A plump young lady left her client and came forward with an enquiring² air.
“Mrs. Rosentelle?” said Mrs. Oliver, glancing down at a card. “I understand she said she couldsee me if I came here this morning. I don’t mean,” she added, “having anything done to my hair,but I wanted to consult her about something and I believe a telephone call was made and she saidif I came at half past eleven she could spare me a short time.”
“Oh yes,” said the girl. “I think Madam is expecting someone.”
She led the way through a passage down a short flight of steps and pushed a swing door at thebottom of it. From the hairdressing saloon they had passed into what was obviously Mrs.
Rosentelle’s house. The plump girl knocked at the door and said, “The lady to see you,” as she puther nose in, and then asked rather nervously³, “What name did you say?”
“Mrs. Oliver,” said Mrs. Oliver.
She walked in. It had a faint effect of what might have been yet another showroom. There werecurtains of rose gauze and roses on the wallpaper and Mrs. Rosentelle, a woman Mrs. Oliverthought of as roughly her own age or possibly a good many years older, was just finishing whatwas obviously a cup of morning coffee.
“Mrs. Rosentelle?” said Mrs. Oliver.
“Yes?”
“You did expect me?”
“Oh yes. I didn’t quite understand what it was all about. The lines are so bad on the telephone.

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