III
No flowers for poor Tommy Tucker; and no more “kicks” out of life inChelsea. I felt a sudden fleeting¹ compassion² for the Tommy Tuckers oftoday. Yet after all, I reminded myself, how did I know that my view wasthe right one? Who was I to pronounce it a wasted life? Perhaps it was mylife, my quiet scholarly life, immersed in books, shut off from the world,that was the wasted one. Life at secondhand. Be honest now, was I gettingkicks out of life? A very unfamiliar³ idea! The truth was, of course, that Ididn’t want kicks. But there again, perhaps I ought to? An unfamiliar andnot very welcome thought.
I dismissed Tommy Tucker from my thoughts, and turned to my corres-pondence.
The principal item was a letter from my cousin Rhoda Despard, askingme to do her a favour. I grasped at this, since I was not feeling in the moodfor work this morning, and it made a splendid excuse for postponing⁴ it.
I went out into King’s Road, hailed a taxi, and was driven to the resid-ence of a friend of mine, a Mrs. Ariadne Oliver.
Mrs. Oliver was a well- known writer of detective stories. Her maid,Milly, was an efficient dragon who guarded her mistress from the on-slaughts of the outside world.
I raised my eyebrows⁵ inquiringly, in an unspoken question. Milly nod-ded a vehement⁶ head.
“You’d better go right up, Mr. Mark,” she said. “She’s in a mood thismorning. You may be able to help her snap out of it.”
I mounted two flights of stairs, tapped lightly on a door, and walked inwithout waiting for encouragement. Mrs. Oliver’s workroom was a good-sized room, the walls papered with exotic birds nesting in tropical foliage⁷.
Mrs. Oliver herself, in a state apparently⁸ bordering on

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