Third Girl by Agatha Christie #ReadChristie2024

Very little can dent Hercule Poirot’s self-confidence but he is surprisingly distressed when a young woman comes to him for help, worried that she “might have committed a murder,” then says sadly that he is too old to help, and leaves.

Poirot cannot stop worrying about her and, coincidentally, his friend, writer Ariadne Oliver, met the girl in the country the previous weekend and recognizes her from Poirot’s description as Norma Restarick. This makes it fairly easy to investigate her and learn that she shares an apartment with two other young women in London, that her father is recently returned from years in South America with a young wife. Norma is afraid she tried to kill the stepmother she resents, but Poirot suspects an actual murder took place and tries to find out what it was and how it relates to Norma and those around her – none of whom seem overly concerned when she disappears.

This is not one of my favorite Christies: it starts out slow and seems dated in a way her other books do not because the author is so critical of Norma and her 1960s peers. Everyone assumes Norma has been taking drugs (although it turns out someone has been drugging her) and Mrs. Oliver’s one-sided conversation with a friend shows what they think of modern youth:

“What was it you told me about some boy friend . . . . Yes, but one’s so helpless, isn’t one? I mean girls just do exactly as they like . . . does he look very awful? Is he the unshaven dirty kind?”

Even the doctor Norma encounters seems to have a low opinion of young people, although he is just in his 30s:

“You seem to have some very curious ideas about doctors. Why should I want to shut you up? Would you like a cup of tea?” he added, “or would you prefer a purple heart or a tranquilizer. That’s the kind of thing people of your age go in for. Done a bit yourself in that line, haven’t you?”

The parts where Norma wanders about in a daze feeling sorry for herself are tedious but it is more fun when Poirot and Mrs. Oliver team up because they understand each other’s foibles. Christie amuses herself by having Mrs. Oliver express weariness of her own sleuth, despite his popularity:

“And then people say things to me – you know – how much they like my books, and how they’ve been longing to meet me – and it makes me feel hot and bothered and rather silly. But I manage to cope more or less. And they say how much they love my awful detective Sven Hjerson. If they know how I hated him! But my publisher always says I’m not to say so. Anyway, I suppose the talk about detectives in real life grew out of all that, and I talked about you, and this girl was standing around listening.”

In fact, Christie was tired of Poirot by this time (this is their 40th adventure!), although probably also amused by the expectation that a writer must love her creation. And while Mrs. Oliver is ostensibly helping Poirot with his investigation and does report a murder to him that took place in Norma’s apartment building, she is not as skilled as her own detective or Poirot. The suspect she is following catches on and scares her; she winds up in the hospital.

Third Girl starts slowly but improves as it goes along. Yet there is one revelation which depends on Norma being completely unobservant: possible given her general spaciness but not really plausible if you think about it.  One of my favorite parts is when Poirot’s investigator describes observing a young woman conducting a secret meeting in Kew Gardens with someone from an embassy:

“No, sir, you wouldn’t have said they knew each other. The young lady had a book with her. She sat down on a seat. She read the book for a little then she laid it down beside her. Then my bloke came and sat there on the seat also. They didn’t speak – only the young lady got up and wandered away. He takes with him the book that the young lady left behind.”

Whenever I am in London I make a point of sitting on benches in various parks with a book and it is very disappointing that I am never approached for secret missions or espionage of any kind!  Am I alone in this complaint?

This is my 31st book for Carol’s Cloak and Dagger Challenge and I also read it for ReadChristie2024.

Title: Third Girl
Author: Agatha Christie
Publication: Collins, hardcover, 1966
Genre: Mystery
Source: Library