Eighteen
Poirot sat down, stretched out his legs and said: “Ah! that is better.”
“Take your shoes off,” said Mrs. Oliver, “and rest your feet.”
“No, no, I could not do that.” Poirot sounded shocked at the possibility.
“Well, we’re old friends together,” said Mrs. Oliver, “and Judith wouldn’t mind if she came outof the house. You know, if you’ll excuse me saying so, you oughtn’t to wear patent leather shoesin the country. Why don’t you get yourself a nice pair of suède shoes? Or the things all the hippy-looking boys wear nowadays? You know, the sort of shoes that slip on, and you never have toclean them—apparently¹ they clean themselves by some extraordinary process or other. One ofthese laboursaving gimmicks².”
“I would not care for that at all,” said Poirot severely³. “No, indeed!”
“The trouble with you is,” said Mrs. Oliver, beginning to unwrap a package on the table whichshe had obviously recently purchased, “the trouble with you is that you insist on being smart. Youmind more about your clothes and your moustaches and how you look and what you wear thancomfort. Now comfort is really the great thing. Once you’ve passed, say, fifty, comfort is the onlything that matters.”
“Madame, chère Madame, I do not know that I agree with you.”
“Well, you’d better,” said Mrs. Oliver. “If not, you will suffer a great deal, and it will be worseyear after year.”
Mrs. Oliver fished a gaily⁴ covered box from its paper bag. Removing the lid of this, she pickedup a small portion of its contents and transferred it to her mouth. She then licked her fingers,wiped them on a handkerchief, and murmured, rather indistinctly:
“Sticky.”
“Do you no longer eat apples? I have always seen you with a bag of apples in your hand, oreating them, or on occasions the bag breaks and they tumble out on the road.”
“I told you,” said Mrs. Oliver, “I told you that I never want to see an apple again. No. I hateapples. I suppose I shall get over it some day and eat them again, but—well, I don’t like theassociations of apples.”
“And what is it that you eat now?” Poirot picked up the gaily coloured lid decorated with apicture of a palm tree. “Tunis dates,” he read. “Ah, dates now.”

分享到：