Chapter 24 Chapter Twenty-Four

Mrs. Oliver was sitting quietly at a table near the window in the Black Boy restaurant. It was still early and there were not many people in the restaurant.Judith Butler came back from the bathroom, sat down across from her, picked up the menu and looked at it. "What would Miranda like to eat?" Mrs. Oliver asked. "Let's order it for her too. She should be back too." "She likes chicken nuggets." "Oh, that's easy, what do you want?" "Same as her." "Three nuggets," Mrs. Oliver said to the waiter. She leaned back in her seat and studied her friend carefully.

"Why are you staring at me like that?" "I'm thinking," said Mrs. Oliver. "what is the problem?" "I'm thinking how little I actually know about you." "Well, everyone is like that, right?" "You mean that one can never fully understand another." "I shouldn't think so." "Perhaps you are right," Mrs. Oliver replied. The two sat opposite each other in silence for a while. "It's really slow to serve food here." "I think it's time," said Mrs. Oliver. A waitress came over with a plate full.

"Miranda's been gone for so long. Does she know where the restaurant is?" "She knows, we saw it on the way here." Judith was a little impatient, "I'll call her." "I don't know if she is motion sick." "She always fainted when she was a child." After four or five minutes she came back. "She's not in the toilet," she said. "There's a door outside the toilet that leads into the garden. Maybe she went that way into the garden to watch the birds. She always does." "I don't have time to go bird-watching today," said Mrs. Oliver. "Let's go and look for her. We've got to go."

In Elspeth, McKay forked some sausages onto a plate, put the plate in the freezer, and began peeling potatoes. The phone rang. "Mrs. MacKay? This is Dr. Goodwin. Is your brother home?" "No, he went to London today." "I called over there - he's gone. When he comes back tell him we're getting the results we expected." "Do you mean that a body was found in the well?" "It's useless to keep it secret, it has already been spread." "Whose is it? That foreign girl?" "seems like it." "Poor child," said Elspeth, "did she throw herself into the well, or—"

"It wasn't suicide—she was knifed to death, it was murder." After her mother came out of the bathroom, Miranda waited for a minute or two, then she opened the door, slipped out softly, opened the nearby side door leading to the garden, and ran along the path in the garden, which led to the backyard. What used to be used for parking horses and carriages is now a garage.She got out through a small door for pedestrians and entered a small alley outside. A car was parked outside the alley. A man with gray beard and hair and prominent eyebrows was sitting in the car reading a newspaper. Miranda opened the door and climbed in. Sitting next to the driver's seat, she couldn't help laughing.

"You look so funny." "Have a good laugh." The car started, drove down the alley, turned right for a while, turned left for a while, turned right again, and finally came to a road with fewer vehicles. "We've timed it just right," said the white-bearded man, "and you'll be just in time to see the double-bladed axe, and the Kiltbury Heights, which is a beautiful sight." A car skids past them, narrowly missing their car against a curb fence. "Daredevil," said the man with the white beard. A young man in the car has shoulder-length hair and big round glasses.The other had a beard and looked like a Spaniard.

"You said Mommy won't worry about me?" Miranda asked. "She doesn't have time to worry about you. By the time she starts worrying, you'll be where you want to be." London.Hercule Poirot picked up the receiver, and Madame Oliver's voice was heard. "We lost Miranda." "What, lost?" "We ate at the Black Child restaurant. She went to the bathroom and didn't come back. Some people said they saw her get in an old man's car and leave, but it wasn't necessarily her. It might be someone else, this—" "Someone should be with her. You can't let her out of your sight. I told you that there is danger. Is Mrs. Butler in a hurry?"

"How can she not be in a hurry? What do you say? She is going crazy and insists on calling the police." "Yes, of course the police should be called, and I will call them too." "But why is Miranda in danger?" "You don't know, do you? You should know by now," he went on. "The body's been found. I just heard—" "What corpse?" "There's a body in the well."