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CHAPTER 1

Mrs Ariadne Oliver had gone with the friend with whom she was staying, Judith Butler, to help with the preparations for a children’s party which was to take place that same evening.

At the moment it was a scene of chaotic activity. Energetic women came in and out of doors moving chairs, small tables, flower vases, and carrying large quantities of yellow pumpkins which they disposed strategically in selected spots.

It was to be a Hallowe’en[1] party for invited guests of an age group between ten and seventeen years old.

Mrs Oliver, removing herself from the main group, leant against a vacant background of wall and held up a large yellow pumpkin, looking at it critically—’The last time I saw one of these,’ she said, sweeping back her grey hair from her prominent forehead, ‘was in the United States last year—hundreds of them. All over the house. I’ve never seen so many pumpkins. As a matter of fact,’ she added thoughtfully, ‘I’ve never really known the difference between a pumpkin and a vegetable marrow[2]. What’s this one?’

‘Sorry, dear,’ said Mrs Butler, as she fell over her friend’s feet.

Mrs Oliver pressed herself closer against the wall.

‘My fault,’ she said. ‘I’m standing about and getting in the way. But it was rather remarkable, seeing so many pumpkins or vegetable marrows, whatever they are. They were everywhere, in the shops, and in people’s houses, with candles or nightlights inside them or strung up. Very interesting really. But it wasn’t for a Hallowe’en party, it was Thanksgiving. Now I’ve always associated pumpkins with Hallowe’en and that’s the end of October. Thanksgiving comes much later, doesn’t it? Isn’t it November, about the third week in November? Anyway, here, Hallowe’en is definitely the 31st of October, isn’t it? First Hallowe’en and then, what comes next? All Souls’ Day[3]? That’s when in Paris you go to cemeteries and put flowers on graves. Not a sad sort of feast. I mean, all the children go too, and enjoy themselves. You go to flower markets first and buy lots and lots of lovely flowers. Flowers never look so lovely as they do in Paris in the market there.’

A lot of busy women were falling over Mrs Oliver occasionally, but they were not listening to her. They were all too busy with what they were doing.

They consisted for the most part of mothers, one or two competent spinsters; there were useful teenagers, boys of sixteen and seventeen climbing up ladders or standing on chairs to put decorations, pumpkins or vegetable marrows or brightly coloured witchballs[4] at a suitable elevation; girls from eleven to fifteen hung about in groups and giggled.

‘And after All Souls’ Day and cemeteries,’ went on Mrs Oliver, lowering her bulk on to the arm of a settee, ‘you have All Saints’ Day. I think I’m right?’

Nobody responded to this question. Mrs Drake, a handsome middle-aged woman who was giving the party, made a pronouncement.

‘I’m not calling this a Hallowe’en party, although of course it is one really. I’m calling it the Eleven Plus party[5]. It’s that sort of age group. Mostly people who are leaving the Elms and going on to other schools.’

‘But that’s not very accurate, Rowena, is it?’ said Miss Whittaker, resetting her pince-nez on her nose disapprovingly.

Miss Whittaker as a local school-teacher was always firm on accuracy.

‘Because we’ve abolished the eleven-plus some time ago.’

Mrs Oliver rose from the settee apologetically. ‘I haven’t been making myself useful. I’ve just been sitting here saying silly things about pumpkins and vegetable marrows’—And resting my feet, she thought, with a slight pang of conscience[6], but without sufficient feeling of guilt to say it aloud.

‘Now what can I do next?’ she asked, and added, ‘What lovely apples!’

Someone had just brought a large bowl of apples into the room. Mrs Oliver was partial to apples.

‘Lovely red ones,’ she added.

‘They’re not really very good,’ said Rowena Drake. ‘But they look nice and partified[7]. That’s for bobbing for apples[8]. They’re rather soft apples, so people will be able to get their teeth into them better. Take them into the library, will you, Beatrice? Bobbing for apples always makes a mess with the water slopping over, but that doesn’t matter with the library carpet, it’s so old. Oh! Thank you, Joyce.’

Joyce, a sturdy thirteen-year-old, seized the bowl of apples. Two rolled off it and stopped, as though arrested by a witch’s wand, at Mrs Oliver’s feet.

‘You like apples, don’t you,’ said Joyce. ‘I read you did, or perhaps I heard it on the telly. You’re the one who writes murder stories, aren’t you?’

‘Yes,’ said Mrs Oliver.

‘We ought to have made you do something connected with murders. Have a murder at the party tonight and make people solve it.’

‘No, thank you,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘Never again.’

‘What do you mean, never again?’

‘Well, I did once, and it didn’t turn out much of a success,’ said Mrs Oliver.

‘But you’ve written lots of books,’ said Joyce, ‘you make a lot of money out of them, don’t you?’

‘In a way,’ said Mrs Oliver, her thoughts flying to the Inland Revenue[9].

‘And you’ve got a detective who’s a Finn.’

Mrs Oliver admitted the fact. A small stolid boy not yet, Mrs Oliver would have thought, arrived at the seniority of the eleven-plus, said sternly, ‘Why a Finn?’

‘I’ve often wondered,’ said Mrs Oliver truthfully.

Mrs Hargreaves, the organist’s wife, came into the room breathing heavily, and bearing a large green plastic pail.

‘What about this,’ she said, ‘for the apple bobbing? Kind of gay, I thought.’

Miss Lee, the doctor’s dispenser[10], said, ‘Galvanized bucket’s better. Won’t tip over so easily. Where are you going to have it, Mrs Drake?’

‘I thought the bobbing for apples had better be in the library. The carpet’s old there and a lot of water always gets spilt, anyway.’

‘All right. We’ll take them along. Rowena, here’s another basket of apples.’

‘Let me help,’ said Mrs Oliver.

She picked up the two apples at her feet. Almost without noticing what she was doing, she sank her teeth into one of them and began to crunch it. Mrs Drake abstracted the second apple from her firmly and restored it to the basket. A buzz of conversation broke out.

‘Yes, but where are we going to have the Snap dragon[11]?’

‘You ought to have the Snapdragon in the library, it’s much the darkest room.’

‘No, we’re going to have that in the dining-room.’

‘We’ll have to put something on the table first.’

‘There’s a green baize to put on that and then the rubber sheet over it.’

‘What about the looking-glasses? Shall we really see our husbands in them[12]?’

Surreptitiously removing her shoes and still quietly champing at her apple, Mrs oliver lowered herself once more on to the settee and surveyed the room full of people critically. She was thinking in her authoress’s mind: ‘Now, if I was going to make a book about all these people, how should I do it? They’re nice people, I should think, on the whole, but who knows?’

In a way, she felt, it was rather fascinating not to know anything about them. They all lived in Woodleigh Common, some of them had faint tags attached to them in her memory because of what Judith had told her. Miss Johnson— something to do with the church, not the vicar’s sister. Oh no, it was the organist’s sister, of course. Rowena Drake, who seemed to run things in Woodleigh Common. The puffing woman who had brought in the pail, a particularly hideous plastic pail. But then Mrs Oliver had never been fond of plastic things. And then the children, the teenage girls and boys.

So far they were really only names to Mrs Oliver. There was a Nan and a Beatrice and a Cathie, a Diana and a Joyce, who was boastful and asked questions. I don’t like Joyce much, thought Mrs Oliver. A girl called Ann, who looked tall and superior. There were two adolescent boys who appeared to have just got used to trying out different hair styles, with rather unfortunate results.

A smallish boy entered in some condition of shyness.

‘Mummy sent these mirrors to see if they’d do,’ he said in a slightly breathless voice.

Mrs Drake took them from him.

‘Thank you so much, Eddy,’ she said.

‘They’re just ordinary looking hand-mirrors,’ said the girl called Ann. ‘Shall we really see our future husbands’ faces in them?’

‘Some of you may and some may not,’ said Judith Butler.

‘Did you ever see your husband’s face when you went to a party—I mean this kind of a party?’

‘Of course she didn’t,’ said Joyce.

‘She might have,’ said the superior Beatrice. ‘E.S.P. they call it. Extra sensory perception[13],’ she added in the tone of one pleased with being thoroughly conversant with the terms of the times.

‘I read one of your books,’ said Ann to Mrs Oliver. ‘The Dying Goldfish. It was quite good,’ she said kindly.

‘I didn’t like that one,’ said Joyce. ‘There wasn’t enough blood in it. I like murders to have lots of blood.’

‘A bit messy,’ said Mrs Oliver, ‘don’t you think?’

‘But exciting,’ said Joyce.

‘Not necessarily,’ said Mrs Oliver.

‘I saw a murder once,’ said Joyce.

‘Don’t be silly, Joyce,’ said Miss Whittaker, the school-teacher.

‘I did,’ said Joyce.

‘Did you really?’ asked Cathie, gazing at Joyce with wide eyes, ‘really and truly see a murder?’

‘Of course she didn’t,’ said Mrs Drake. ‘Don’t say silly things, Joyce.’

‘I did see a murder,’ said Joyce. ‘I did. I did. I did.’

A seventeen-year-old boy poised on a ladder looked down interestedly.

‘What kind of a murder?’ he asked.

‘I don’t believe it,’ said Beatrice.

‘Of course not,’ said Cathie’s mother. ‘She’s just making it up.’

‘I’m not. I saw it.’

‘Why didn’t you go to the police about it?’ asked Cathie.

‘Because I didn’t know it was a murder when I saw it. It wasn’t really till a long time afterwards, I mean, that I began to know that it was a murder. Something that somebody said only about a month or two ago suddenly made me think: Of course, that was a murder I saw.’

‘You see,’ said Ann, ‘she’s making it all up. It’s nonsense.’

‘When did it happen?’ asked Beatrice.

‘Years ago,’ said Joyce. ‘I was quite young at the time,’ she added.

‘Who murdered who?’ said Beatrice.

‘I shan’t tell any of you,’ said Joyce. ‘You’re all so horrid about it.’

Miss Lee came in with another kind of bucket. Conversation shifted to a comparison of buckets or plastic pails as most suitable for the sport of bobbing for apples. The majority of the helpers repaired to the library for an appraisal on the spot[14]. Some of the younger members, it may be said, were anxious to demonstrate, by a rehearsal of the difficulties and their own accomplishment in the sport. Hair got wet, water got spilt, towels were sent for to mop it up. In the end it was decided that a galvanized bucket was preferable to the more meretricious charms of a plastic pail which overturned rather too easily.

Mrs Oliver, setting down a bowl of apples which she had carried in to replenish the store required for tomorrow, once more helped herself to one.

‘I read in the paper that you were fond of eating apples,’ the accusing voice of Ann or Susan—she was not quite sure which—spoke to her.

‘It’s my besetting sin,’ said Mrs Oliver.

‘It would be more fun if it was melons,’ objected one of the boys. ‘They’re so juicy. Think of the mess it would make,’ he said, surveying the carpet with pleasurable anticipation.

Mrs Oliver, feeling a little guilty at the public arraignment of greediness, left the room in search of a particular apartment, the geography of which is usually fairly easily identified. She went up the staircase and, turning the corner on the half landing, cannoned into a pair, a girl and a boy, clasped in each other’s arms[15] and leaning against the door which Mrs Oliver felt fairly certain was the door to the room to which she herself was anxious to gain access. The couple paid no attention to her. Тhey sighed and they snuggled. Mrs Oliver wondered how old they were. The boy was fifteen, perhaps, the girl little more than twelve, although the development of her chest seemed certainly on the mature side.

Apple trees was a house of fair size. It had, she thought, several agreeable nooks and corners. How selfish people are, thought Mrs Oliver. No consideration for others. that well-known tag from the past came into her mind. It had been said to her in succession by a nursemaid, a nanny, a governess, her grandmother, two great-aunts, her mother and a few others. ‘

Excuse me,’ said Mrs Oliver in a loud, clear voice.

Тhe boy and the girl clung closer than ever, their lips fastened on each other’s.

‘Excuse me,’ said Mrs Oliver again, ‘do you mind letting me pass? I want to get in at this door.’

Unwillingly the couple fell apart. They looked at her in an aggrieved fashion. Mrs Oliver went in, banged the door and shot the bolt.

It was not a very close fitting door. The faint sound of words came to her from outside.

‘Isn’t that like people?’ one voice said in a somewhat uncertain tenor. ‘They might see we didn’t want to be disturbed.’

‘People are so selfish,’ piped a girl’s voice. ‘They never think of anyone but themselves.’

‘No consideration for others,’ said the boy’s voice.

CHAPTER 2

Preparations for a children’s party usually give far more trouble to the organizers than an entertainment devised for those of adult years. Food of good quality and suitable alcoholic refreshment—with lemonade on the side, that, to the right people, is quite enough to make a party go. It may cost more but the trouble is infinitely less. So Ariadne Oliver and her friend Judith Butler agreed together.

‘What about teenage parties?’ said Judith.

‘I don’t know much about them,’ said Mrs Oliver.

‘In one way,’ said Judith, ‘I think they’re probably least trouble of all. I mean, they just throw all of us adults out. And say they’ll do it all themselves.’

‘And do they?’

‘Well, not in our sense of the word,’ said Judith. ‘They forget to order some of the things, and order a lot of other things that nobody likes. Having turfed us out, then they say there were things we ought to have provided for them to find. They break a lot of glasses, and other things, and there’s always somebody undesirable or who brings an undesirable friend. You know the sort of thing. Peculiar drugs and—what do they call it?—Flower Pot or Purple Hemp or L.S.D.[16], which I always have thought just meant money; but apparently it doesn’t.’

‘I suppose it costs it,’ suggested Ariadne Oliver.

‘It’s very unpleasant, and Hemp has a nasty smell.’

‘It all sounds very depressing,’ said Mrs Oliver.

‘Anyway, this party will go all right. Trust Rowena Drake for that. She’s a wonderful organizer. You’ll see.’

‘I don’t feel I even want to go to a party,’ sighed Mrs Oliver. ‘You go up and lie down for an hour or so. You’ll see. You’ll enjoy it when you get there. I wish Miranda hadn’t got a temperature—she’s so disappointed at not being able to go, poor child.’

The party came into being at half past seven. Ariadne Oliver had to admit that her friend was right. Arrivals were punctual. Everything went splendidly. It was well imagined, well run and ran like clockwork. There were red and blue lights on the stairs and yellow pumpkins in profusion[17]. The girls and boys arrived holding decorated broomsticks for a competition. After greetings, Rowena Drake announced the programme for the evening. ‘First, judging of the broomstick competition,’ she said, ‘three prizes, first, second and third. Then comes cutting the flour cake. That’ll be in the small conservatory. Then bobbing for apples—there’s a list pinned upon the wall over there of the partners for that event—then there’ll be dancing. Every time the lights go out you change partners. Then girls to the small study where they’ll be given their mirrors. After that, supper, Snapdragon and then prize-giving.’

Like all parties, it went slightly slightly at first. The brooms were admired, they were very small miniature brooms, and on the whole the decorating of them had not reached a very high standard of merit, ‘which makes it easier,’ said Mrs Drake in an aside[18] to one of her friends. ‘And it’s a very useful thing because I mean there are always one or two children one knows only too well won’t win a prize at anything else, so one can cheat a little over this.’

‘So unscrupulous, Rowena.’

‘I’m not really. I just arrange so that things should be fair and evenly divided. The whole point is that everyone wants to win something.’’

‘What’s the Flour Game[19]?’ asked Ariadne Oliver.

‘Oh yes, of course, you weren’t here when we were doing it. Well, you just fill a tumbler with flour, press it in well, then you turn it out in a tray and place a sixpence on top of it. Then everyone slices a slice off it very carefully so as not to tumble the sixpence off. As soon as someone tumbles the sixpence off, that person goes out. It’s a sort of elimination. The last one left in gets the sixpence of course. Now then, away we go.’

And away they went. Squeals of excitement were heard coming from the library where bobbing for apples went on, and competitors returned from there with wet locks and having disposed a good deal of water about their persons.

One of the most popular contests, at any rate among the girls, was the arrival of the Hallowe’en witch played by Mrs Goodbody, a local cleaning woman who, not only having the necessary hooked nose and chin which almost met, was admirably proficient in producing a semi-cooing voice which had definitely sinister undertones and also produced magical doggerel rhymes[20].

‘Now then, come along, Beatrice, is it? Ah, Beatrice. A very interesting name. Now you want to know what your husband is going to look like. Now, my dear, sit here. Yes, yes, under this light here. Sit here and hold this little mirror in your hand, and presently when the lights go out you’ll see him appear. You’ll see him looking over your shoulder. Now hold the mirror steady. Abracadabra, who shall see? The face of the man who will marry me. Beatrice, Beatrice, you shall find, the face of the man who shall please your mind.’

A sudden shaft of light shot across the room from a step-ladder, placed behind a screen. It hit the right spot in the room, which was reflected in the mirror grasped in Beatrice’s excited hand.

‘Oh!’ cried Beatrice. ‘I’ve seen him. I’ve seen him! I can see him in my mirror!’

The beam was shut off, the lights came on and a coloured photograph pasted on a card floated down from the ceiling. Beatrice danced about excitedly.

‘That was him! That was him! I saw him,’ she cried. ‘Oh, he’s got a lovely ginger beard.’

She rushed to Mrs Oliver, who was the nearest person.

‘Do look, do look. Don’t you think he’s rather wonderful? He’s like Eddie Presweight, the pop singer. Don’t you think so?’

Mrs Oliver did think he looked like one of the faces she daily deplored having to see in her morning paper. The beard, she thought, had been an after-thought of genius.

‘Where do all these things come from?’ she asked.

‘Oh, Rowena gets Nicky to make them. And his friend Desmond helps. He experiments a good deal with photography. He and a couple of pals of his made themselves up, with a great deal of hair or side-burns or beards and things. And then with the light on him and everything, of course it sends the girls wild with delight.’

‘I can’t help thinking,’ said Ariadne Oliver, ‘that girls are really very silly nowadays.’

‘Don’t you think they always were?’ asked Rowena Drake.

Mrs Oliver considered.

‘I suppose you’re right,’ she admitted.

‘Now then,’ cried Mrs Drake—‘supper.’

Supper went off well. Rich iced cakes, savouries[21], prawns, cheese and nut confections. The eleven-pluses stuffed themselves.

‘And now,’ said Rowena, ‘the last one for the evening. Snapdragon. Across there, through the pantry. That’s right. Now then. Prizes first.’

The prizes were presented, and then there was a wailing, banshee call[22]. The children rushed across the hall back to the dining-room.

The food had been cleared away. A green baize cloth was laid across the table and here was borne a great dish of flaming raisins. Everybody shrieked, rushing forward, snatching the blazing raisins, with cries of ‘Ow, I’m burned! Isn’t it lovely?’ Little by little the Snapdragon flickered and died down. The lights went up. The party was over.

‘It’s been a great success,’ said Rowena.

‘So it should be with all the trouble you’ve taken.’

‘It was lovely,’ said Judith quietly. ‘Lovely.’

‘And now,’ she added ruefully, ‘we’ll have to clear up a bit. We can’t leave everything for those poor women tomorrow morning.’

CHAPTER 3

In a flat in London the telephone bell rang. The owner of the flat, Hercule Poirot, stirred in his chair. Disap point ment attacked him. He knew before he answered it what it meant. His friend Solly, with whom he had been going to spend the evening, reviving their never-ending contro versy about the real culprit in the Canning Road Municipal Baths murder, was about to say that he could not come. Poirot, who had collected certain bits of evidence in favour of his own somewhat far-fetched theory, was deeply disappointed. He did not think his friend Solly would accept his suggestions, but he had no doubt that when Solly in his turn produced his own fantastic beliefs, he himself, Hercule Poirot, would just as easily be able to demolish them in the name of sanity, logic, order and method. It was annoying, to say the least of it, if Solly did not come this evening. But it is true that when they had met earlier in the day, Solly had been racked with a chesty cough and was in a state of highly infectious catarrh[23].

‘He had a nasty cold,’ said Hercule Poirot, ‘and no doubt, in spite of the remedies that I have handy here, he would probably have given it to me. It is better that he should not come. Tout de même[24],’ he added, with a sigh, ‘it will mean that now I shall pass a dull evening.’

Many of the evenings were dull now, Hercule Poirot thought. His mind, magnificent as it was (for he had never doubted that fact) required stimulation from outside sources. He had never been of a philosophic cast of mind[25]. There were times when he almost regretted that he had not taken to the study of theology instead of going into the police force in his early days. The number of angels who could dance on the point of a needle[26]; it would be interesting to feel that that mattered and to argue passionately on the point with one’s colleagues.

His manservant, George, entered the room.

‘It was Mr Solomon Levy, sir.’

‘Ah yes,’ said Hercule Poirot.

‘He very much regrets that he will not be able to join you this evening. He is in bed with a serious bout of ’flu.’

‘He has not got ’flu,’ said Hercule Poirot. ‘He has only a nasty cold. Everyone always thinks they have ’flu. It sounds more important. One gets more sympathy. The trouble with a catarrhal cold is that it is hard to glean the proper amount of sympathetic consideration from one’s friends.’

‘Just as well he isn’t coming here, sir, really,’ said George. ‘Those colds in the head are very infectious. Wouldn’t be good for you to go down with one of those.’

‘It would be extremely tedious,’ Poirot agreed.

The telephone bell rang again.

‘And now who has a cold?’ he demanded. ‘I have not asked anyone else.’

George crossed towards the telephone.

‘I will take the call here,’ said Poirot. ‘I have no doubt that it is nothing of interest. But at any rate—’ he shrugged his shoulders ‘—it will perhaps pass the time. Who knows?’

George said, ‘Very good, sir,’ and left the room.

Poirot stretched out a hand, raised the receiver, thus stilling the clamour of the bell.

‘Hercule Poirot speaks,’ he said, with a certain grandeur of manner designed to impress whoever was at the other end of the line[27].

‘That’s wonderful,’ said an eager voice. A female voice, slightly impaired with breathlessness. ‘I thought you’d be sure to be out, that you wouldn’t be there.’

‘Why should you think that?’ inquired Poirot.

‘Because I can’t help feeling that nowadays things always happen to frustrate one. You want someone in a terrible hurry, you feel you can’t wait, and you have to wait. I wanted to get hold of you urgently—absolutely urgently.’

‘And who are you?’ asked Hercule Poirot.

The voice, a female one, seemed surprised.

‘Don’t you know?’ it said incredulously.

‘Yes, I know,’ said Hercule Poirot. ‘You are my friend, Ariadne.’

‘And I’m in a terrible state,’ said Ariadne.

‘Yes, yes, I can hear that. Have you also been running? You are very breathless, are you not?’

‘I haven’t exactly been running. It’s emotion. Can I come and see you at once?

Poirot let a few moments elapse before he answered. His friend, Mrs Oliver, sounded in a highly excitable condition. whatever was the matter with her, she would no doubt spend a very long time pouring out her grievances, her woes, her frustrations or whatever was ailing her. Once having established herself within Poirot’s sanctum, it might be hard to induce her to go home without a certain amount of impoliteness. The things that excited Mrs Oliver were so numerous and frequently so unexpected that one had to be careful how one embarked upon a discussion of them.

‘Something has upset you?’

‘Yes. Of course I’m upset. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know—oh, I don’t know anything. What I feel is that I’ve got to come and tell you—tell you just what’s happened, for you’re the only person who might know what to do. Who might tell me what I ought to do. So can I come?’

‘But certainly, but certainly. I shall be delighted to receive you.’

The receiver was thrown down heavily at the other end and Poirot summoned George, reflected a few minutes, then ordered lemon barley water[28], bitter lemon and a glass of brandy for himself.

‘Mrs Oliver will be here in about ten minutes,’ he said.

George withdrew. He returned with the brandy for Poirot, who accepted it with a nod of satisfaction, and George then proceeded to provide the teetotal refreshment that was the only thing likely to appeal to Mrs Oliver. Poirot took a sip of brandy delicately, fortifying himself for the ordeal which was about to descend upon him.

‘It’s a pity,’ he murmured to himself, ‘that she is so scatty. And yet, she has originality of mind. It could be that I am going to enjoy what she is coming to tell me. It could be—’ he reflected a minute ‘—that it may take a great deal of the evening and that it will all be excessively foolish. Eh bien[29], one must take one’s risks in life.’

A bell sounded. A bell on the outside door of the flat this time. It was not a single pressure of the button. It lasted for a long time with a kind of steady action that was very effective, the sheer making of noise.

‘Assuredly, she has excited herself,’ said Poirot.

He heard George go to the door, open it, and before any decorous announcement could be made the door of his sitting-room opened and Ariadne Oliver charged through it, with George in tow[30] behind her, hanging on to something that looked like a fisherman’s sou’wester and oilskins[31].

‘What on earth are you wearing?’ said Hercule Poirot.

‘Let George take it from you. It’s very wet.’

‘Of course it’s wet,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘It’s very wet out. I never thought about water before. It’s a terrible thing to think of.’

Poirot looked at her with interest.

‘Will you have some lemon barley water,’ he said, ‘or could I persuade you to a small glass of eau de vie[32]?’

‘I hate water,’ said Mrs Oliver.

Poirot looked surprised.

‘I hate it. I’ve never thought about it before. What it can do, and everything.’

‘My dear friend,’ said Hercule Poirot, as George extricated her from the flapping folds of watery oilskin. ‘Come and sit down here. Let George finally relieve you of—what is it you are wearing?’

‘I got it in Cornwall,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘Oilskins. A real, proper fisherman’s oilskin.’

‘Very useful to him, no doubt,’ said Poirot, ‘but not, I think, so suitable for you. Heavy to wear. But come—sit down and tell me.’

‘I don’t know how,’ said Mrs oliver, sinking into a chair. ‘Sometimes, you know, I can’t feel it’s really true. But it happened. It really happened.’

‘Tell me,’ said Poirot.

‘That’s what I’ve come for. But now I’ve got here, it’s so difficult because I don’t know where to begin.’

‘At the beginning?’ suggested Poirot, ‘or is that too conventional a way of acting?’

‘I don’t know when the beginning was. Not really. It could have been a long time ago, you know.’

‘Calm yourself,’ said Poirot. ‘Gather together the various threads of this matter in your mind and tell me. What is it that has so upset you?’

‘It would have upset you, too,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘At least, I suppose it would.’ She looked rather doubtful. ‘One doesn’t know, really, what does upset you. You take so many things with a lot of calm.’

‘It is often the best way,’ said Poirot.

‘All right,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘It began with a party.’

‘Ah yes,’ said Poirot, relieved to have something as ordinary and sane as a party presented to him. ‘A party. You went to a party and something happened.’

‘Do you know what a Hallowe’en party is?’ said Mrs Oliver.

‘I know what Hallowe’en is,’ said Poirot. ‘The 31st of October.’ He twinkled slightly as he said, ‘When witches ride on broomsticks.’

‘There were broomsticks,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘They gave prizes for them.’

‘Prizes?’

‘Yes, for who brought the best decorated ones.’

Poirot looked at her rather doubtfully. Originally relieved at the mention of a party, he now again felt slightly doubtful. Since he knew that Mrs Oliver did not partake of spirituous liquor[33], he could not make one of the assumptions that he might have made in any other case.

‘A children’s party,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘Or rather, an eleven-plus party.’

‘Eleven-plus?’

‘Well, that’s what they used to call it, you know, in schools. I mean they see how bright you are, and if you’re bright enough to pass your eleven-plus, you go on to a grammar school or something. But if you’re not bright enough, you go to something called a Secondary Modern[34]. A silly name. It doesn’t seem to mean anything.’

‘I do not, I confess, really understand what you are talking about,’ said Poirot. They seemed to have got away from parties and entered into the realms of education.

Mrs Oliver took a deep breath and began again.

‘It started really,’ she said, ‘with the apples.’

‘Ah yes,’ said Poirot, ‘it would. It always might with you, mightn’t it?’

He was thinking to himself of a small car on a hill and a large woman getting out of it, and a bag of apples breaking, and the apples running and cascading down the hill.

‘Yes,’ he said encouragingly, ‘apples.’

‘Bobbing for apples,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘That’s one of the things you do at a Hallowe’en party.’

‘Ah yes, I think I have heard of that, yes.’

‘You see, all sorts of things were being done. There was bobbing for apples, and cutting sixpence off a tumblerful of flour, and looking in a looking-glass—’

‘To see your true love’s face?’ suggested Poirot knowledgeably.

‘Ah,’ said Mrs Oliver, ‘you’re beginning to under stand at last.’

‘A lot of old folklore, in fact,’ said Poirot, ‘and this all took place at your party.’

‘Yes, it was all a great success. It finished up with Snapdragon. You know, burning raisins in a great dish. I suppose—’ her voice faltered, ‘—I suppose that must be the actual time when it was done.’

‘When what was done?’

‘A murder. After the Snapdragon everyone went home,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘That, you see, was when they couldn’t find her.’

‘Find whom?’

‘A girl. A girl called Joyce. Everyone called her name and looked around and asked if she’d gone home with anyone else, and her mother got rather annoyed and said that Joyce must have felt tired or ill or something and gone off by herself, and that it was very thoughtless of her not to leave word. All the sort of things that mothers say when things like that happen. But anyway, we couldn’t find Joyce.’

‘And had she gone home by herself?’

‘No,’ said Mrs Oliver, ‘she hadn’t gone home…’ Her voice faltered. ‘We found her in the end—in the library. That’s where—where someone did it, you know. Bobbing for apples. the bucket was there. A big, galvanized bucket. they wouldn’t have the plastic one. Perhaps if they’d had the plastic one it wouldn’t have happened. It wouldn’t have been heavy enough. It might have tipped over—’

‘What happened?’ said Poirot. His voice was sharp.

‘That’s where she was found,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘Someone, you know, someone had shoved her head down into the water with the apples. Shoved her down and held her there so that she was dead, of course. Drowned. Drowned. Just in a galvanized iron bucket nearly full of water. Kneeling there, sticking her head down to bob at an apple. I hate apples,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘I never want to see an apple again.’

Poirot looked at her. He stretched out a hand and filled a small glass with cognac.

‘Drink this,’ he said. ‘It will do you good.’

CHAPTER 4

Mrs Oliver put down the glass and wiped her lips.

‘You were right,’ she said. ‘That—that helped. I was getting hysterical.’

‘You have had a great shock, I see now. When did this happen?’

‘Last night. Was it only last night? Yes, yes, of course.’

‘And you came to me.’

It was not a quite a question, but it displayed a desire for more information than Poirot had yet had.

‘You came to me—why?’

‘I thought you could help,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘You see, it’s—it’s not simple.’

‘It could be and it could not,’ said Poirot. ‘A lot depends. You must tell me more, you know. The police, I presume, are in charge. A doctor was, no doubt, called. What did he say?’

‘There’s to be an inquest,’ said Mrs Oliver.

‘Naturally.’

‘Tomorrow or the next day.’

‘This girl, Joyce, how old was she?’

‘I don’t know exactly. I should think perhaps twelve or thirteen.’

‘Small for her age?’

‘No, no, I should think rather mature, perhaps. Lumpy,’ said Mrs Oliver.

‘Well developed? You mean sexy-looking?’

‘Yes, that is what I mean. But I don’t think that was the kind of crime it was—I mean that would have been more simple, wouldn’t it?’

‘It is the kind of crime,’ said Poirot, ‘of which one reads every day in the paper. A girl who is attacked, a school child who is assaulted—yes, every day. This happened in a private house which makes it different, but perhaps not so different as all that. But all the same, I’m not sure yet that you’ve told me everything.’

‘No, I don’t suppose I have,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘I haven’t told you the reason, I mean, why I came to you.’

‘You knew this Joyce, you knew her well?’

‘I didn’t know her at all. I’d better explain to you, I think, just how I came to be there.’

‘There is where?’

‘Oh, a place called Woodleigh Common.’

‘Woodleigh Common,’ said Poirot thoughtfully. ‘Now where lately—’ he broke off.

‘It’s not very far from London. About—oh, thirty to forty miles, I think. It’s near Medchester. It’s one of those places where there are a few nice houses, but where a certain amount of new building has been done. Residential. A good school nearby, and people can commute from there to London or into Medchester. It’s quite an ordinary sort of place where people with what you might call everyday reasonable incomes[35] live.’

‘Woodleigh Common,’ said Poirot again, thought fully.

‘I was staying with a friend there. Judith Butler. She’s a widow. I went on a Hellenic cruise[36] this year and Judith was on the cruise and we became friends. She’s got a daughter. A girl called Miranda who is twelve or thirteen. Anyway, she asked me to come and stay and she said friends of hers were giving this party for children, and it was to be a Hallowe’en party. She said perhaps I had some interesting ideas.’

‘Ah,’ said Poirot, ‘she did not suggest this time that you should arrange a murder hunt or anything of that kind?’

‘Good gracious, no,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘Do you think I should ever consider such a thing again?’

‘I should think it unlikely.’

‘But it happened, that’s what’s so awful,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘I mean, it couldn’t have happened just because I was there, could it?’

‘I do not think so. At least—Did any of the people at the party know who you were?’

‘Yes,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘One of the children said something about my writing books and that they liked murders. That’s how it—well—that’s what led to the thing—I mean to the thing that made me come to you.’

‘Which you still haven’t told me.’

‘Well, you see, at first I didn’t think of it. Not straight away. I mean, children do queer things sometimes. I mean there are queer children about, children who—well, once I suppose they would have been in mental homes and things, but they send them home now and tell them to lead ordinary lives or something, and then they go and do something like this.’

‘There were some young adolescents there?’

‘There were two boys, or youths as they always seem to call them in police reports. About sixteen to eighteen.’

‘I suppose one of them might have done it. Is that what the police think?’

‘They don’t say what they think,’ said Mrs Oliver, ‘but they looked as though they might think so.’

‘Was this Joyce an attractive girl?’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘You mean attractive to boys, do you?’

‘No,’ said Poirot, ‘I think I meant—well, just the plain simple meaning of the word.’

‘I don’t think she was a very nice girl,’ said Mrs Oliver, ‘not one you’d want to talk to much. She was the sort of girl who shows off and boasts. It’s a rather tiresome age, I think. It sounds unkind what I’m saying, but—’

‘It is not unkind in murder to say what the victim was like,’ said Poirot. ‘It is very, very necessary. The personality of the victim is the cause of many a murder. How many people were there in the house at the time?’

‘You mean for the party and so on? Well, I suppose there were five or six women, some mothers, a school-teacher, a doctor’s wife, or sister, I think, a couple of middle-aged married people, the two boys of sixteen to eighteen, a girl of fifteen, two or three of eleven or twelve—well that sort of thing. About twenty-five or thirty in all, perhaps.’

‘Any strangers?’

‘They all knew each other, I think. Some better than others. I think the girls were mostly in the same school. There were a couple of women who had come in to help with the food and the supper and things like that. when the party ended, most of the mothers went home with their children. I stayed behind with Judith and a couple of others to help Rowena Drake, the woman who gave the party, to clear up a bit, so the cleaning women who came in the morning wouldn’t have so much mess to deal with. You know, there was a lot of flour about, and paper caps out of crackers[37] and different things. So we swept up a bit, and we got to the library last of all. And that’s when—when we found her. And then I remembered what she’d said.’

‘What who had said?’

‘Joyce.’

‘What did she say? We are coming to it now, are we not? We are coming to the reason why you are here?’

‘Yes. I thought it wouldn’t mean anything to—oh, to a doctor or the police or anyone, but I thought it might mean something to you.’

‘Eh bien,’ said Poirot, ‘tell me. Was this something Joyce said at the party?’

‘No—earlier in the day. That afternoon when we were fixing things up. It was after they’d talked about my writing murder stories and Joyce said “I saw a murder once” and her mother or somebody said “Don’t be silly, Joyce, saying things like that” and one of the older girls said “You’re just making it up” and Joyce said “I did. I saw it I tell you. I did. I saw someone do a murder,” but no one believed her. They just laughed and she got very angry.’

‘Did you believe her?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘I see,’ said Poirot, ‘yes, I see.’ He was silent for some moments, tapping a finger on the table. Then he said:

‘I wonder—she gave no details—no names?’

‘No. She went on boasting and shouting a bit and being angry because most of the other girls were laughing at her. The mothers, I think, and the older people, were rather cross with her. But the girls and the younger boys just laughed at her! They said things like “Go on, Joyce, when was this? Why did you never tell us about it?” And Joyce said, “I’d forgotten all about it, it was so long ago”.’

‘Aha! Did she say how long ago?’

‘Years ago,’ she said. ‘You know, in rather a would-be grown-up way[38].’

‘“Why didn’t you go and tell the police then?” one of the girls said. Ann, I think, or Beatrice. Rather a smug, superior girl.’

‘Aha, and what did she say to that ?’

‘She said: “Because I didn’t know at the time it was a murder”.’

‘A very interesting remark,’ said Poirot, sitting up rather straighter in his chair.

‘She’d got a bit mixed up by then, I think,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘You know, trying to explain herself and getting angry because they were all teasing her.

‘They kept asking her why she hadn’t gone to the police, and she kept on saying “Because I didn’t know then that it was a murder. It wasn’t until afterwards that it came to me quite suddenly that that was what I had seen”.’

‘But nobody showed any signs of believing her—and you yourself did not believe her—but when you came across her dead you suddenly felt that she might have been speaking the truth?’

‘Yes, just that. I didn’t know what I ought to do, or what I could do. But then, later, I thought of you.’

Poirot bowed his head gravely in acknowledgement. He was silent for a moment or two, then he said:

‘I must pose to you a serious question, and reflect before you answer it. Do you think that this girl had really seen a murder? Or do you think that she merely believed that she had seen a murder?’

‘The first, I think,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘I didn’t at the time. I just thought that she was vaguely remembering something she had once seen and was working it up to make it sound important and exciting. She became very vehement, saying, “I did see it, I tell you. I did see it happen”.’

‘And so.’

‘And so I’ve come along to you,’ said Mrs Oliver, ‘because the only way her death makes sense is that there really was a murder and that she was a witness to it.’

‘That would involve certain things. It would involve that one of the people who were at the party committed the murder, and that that same person must also have been there earlier that day and have heard what Joyce said.’

‘You don’t think I’m just imagining things, do you?’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘Do you think that it is all just my very far-fetched imagination?’

‘A girl was murdered,’ said Poirot. ‘Murdered by someone who had strength enough to hold her head down in a bucket of water. Аn ugly murder and a murder that was committed with what we might call, no time to lose[39]. Somebody was threatened, and whoever it was struck as soon as it was humanly possible[40].’

‘Joyce could not have known who it was who did the murder she saw,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘I mean she wouldn’t have said what she did if there was someone actually in the room who was concerned.’

‘No,’ said Poirot, ‘I think you are right there. She saw a murder, but she did not see the murderer’s face. We have to go beyond that.’

‘I don’t understand exactly what you mean.’

‘It could be that someone who was there earlier in the day and heard Joyce’s accusation knew about the murder, knew who committed the murder, perhaps was closely involved with that person. It may have been that someone thought he was the only person who knew what his wife had done, or his mother or his daughter or his son. Or it might have been a woman who knew what her husband or mother or daughter or son had done. Someone who thought that no one else knew. And then Joyce began talking…’

‘And so—’

‘Joyce had to die?’

‘Yes. What are you going to do?’

‘I have just remembered,’ said Hercule Poirot, ‘why the name of Woodleigh Common was familiar to me.’

CHAPTER 5

Hercule Poirot looked over the small gate which gave admission to Pine Crest. It was a modern, perky little house, nicely built. Hercule Poirot was slightly out of breath. the small, neat house in front of him was very suitably named. It was on a hill top, and the hill top was planted with a few sparse pines. It had a small neat garden and a large elderly man was trundling along a path a big tin galvanized waterer[41].

Superintendent[42] Spence’s hair was now grey all over instead of having a neat touch of grey hair at the temples. He had not shrunk much in girth. He stopped trundling his can and looked at the visitor at the gate. Hercule Poirot stood there without moving.

‘God bless my soul,’ said Superintendent Spence. ‘It must be. It can’t be but it is. Yes, it must be. Hercule Poirot, as I live.’

‘Aha,’ said Hercule Poirot, ‘you know me. That is gratifying.’

‘May your moustaches never grow less,’ said Spence.

He abandoned the watering can and came down to the gate.

‘Diabolical weeds,’ he said. ‘And what brings you down here?’

‘What has brought me to many places in my time,’ said Hercule Poirot, ‘and what once a good many years ago brought you to see me. Murder.’

‘I’ve done with murder,’ said Spence, ‘except in the case of weeds. That’s what I’m doing now. Applying weed killer. Never so easy as you think, something’s always wrong, usually the weather. Mustn’t be too wet, mustn’t be too dry and all the rest of it. How did you know where to find me?’ he asked as he unlatched the gate and Poirot passed through.

‘You sent me a Christmas card. It had your new address notified on it.’

‘Ah yes, so I did. I’m old-fashioned, you know. I like to send round cards at Christmas time to a few old friends.’

‘I appreciate that,’ said Poirot.

Spence said, ‘I’m an old man now.’

‘We are both old men.’

‘Not much grey in your hair,’ said Spence.

‘I attend to that with a bottle,’ said Hercule Poirot. ‘There is no need to appear in public with grey hair unless you wish to do so.’

‘Well, I don’t think jet black[43] would suit me,’ said Spence.

‘I agree,’ said Poirot. ‘You look most distinguished with grey hair.’

‘I should never think of myself as a distinguished man.’

‘I think of you as such. Why have you come to live in Woodleigh Common?’

‘As a matter of fact, I came here to join forces with a sister of mine. She lost her husband, her children are married and living abroad, one in Australia and the other in South Africa. So I moved in here. Pensions don’t go far nowadays[44], but we do pretty comfortably living together. Come and sit down.’

He led the way on to the small glazed-in verandah where there were chairs and a table or two. The autumn sun fell pleasantly upon this retreat.

‘What shall I get you?’ said Spence. ‘No fancy stuff here, I’m afraid. No blackcurrant or rose hip syrup or any of your patent things. Beer? Or shall I get Elspeth to make you a cup of tea? or I can do you a shandy[45] or Coca-Cola or some cocoa if you like it. My sister, Elspeth, is a cocoa drinker.’

‘You are very kind. For me, I think a shandy. The ginger beer and the beer? That is right, is it not?’

‘Absolutely so.’

He went into the house and returned shortly afterwards carrying two large glass mugs. ‘I’m joining you,’ he said.

He drew a chair up to the table and sat down, placing the two glasses in front of himself and Poirot.

‘What was it you said just now?’ he said, raising his glass. ‘We won’t say “Here’s to crime.” I’ve done with crime, and if you mean the crime I think you do, in fact which I think you have to do, because I don’t recall any other crime just lately, I don’t like the particular form of murder we’ve just had.’

‘No. I do not think you would do so.’

‘We are talking about the child who had her head shoved into a bucket?’

‘Yes,’ said Poirot, ‘that is what I am talking about.’

‘I don’t know why you come to me,’ said Spence. ‘I’m nothing to do with the police nowadays. All that’s over many years ago.’

‘Once a policeman,’ said Hercule Poirot, ‘always a policeman. That is to say, there is always the point of view of the policeman behind the point of view of the ordinary man. I know, I who talk to you. I, too, started in the police force in my country.’

‘Yes, so you did. I remember now your telling me. Well, I suppose one’s outlook is a bit slanted, but it’s a long time since I’ve had any active connection.’

‘But you hear the gossip,’ said Poirot. ‘You have friends of your own trade. You will hear what they think or suspect or what they know.’

Spence sighed.

‘One knows too much,’ he said, ‘that is one of the troubles nowadays. There is a crime, a crime of which the pattern is familiar, and you know, that is to say the active police officers know, pretty well who’s probably done that crime. They don’t tell the newspapers but they make their inquiries, and they know. But whether they’re going to get any further than that—well, things have their difficulties.’

‘You mean the wives and the girl friends and the rest of it?’

‘Partly that, yes. In the end, perhaps, one gets one’s man. Sometimes a year or two passes. I’d say, you know, roughly, Poirot, that more girls nowadays marry wrong ’uns[46] than they ever used to in my time.’

Hercule Poirot considered, pulling his moustaches.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I can see that that might be so. I suspect that girls have always been partial to the bad lots[47], as you say, but in the past there were safeguards.’

‘That’s right. People were looking after them. Their mothers looked after them. Their aunts and their older sisters looked after them. Their younger sisters and brothers knew what was going on. Their fathers were not averse to kicking the wrong young men out of the house. Sometimes, of course, the girls used to run away with one of the bad lots. Nowadays there’s no need even to do that. Mother doesn’t know who the girl’s out with, father’s not told who the girl is out with, brothers know who the girl is out with but they think “more fool her”[48]. If the parents refuse consent, the couple go before a magistrate and manage to get permission to marry, and then when the young man who everyone knows is a bad lot proceeds to prove to everybody, including his wife, that he is a bad lot, the fat’s in the fire[49]! But love’s love; the girl doesn’t want to think that her Henry has these revolting habits, these criminal tendencies, and all the rest of it. She’ll lie for him, swear black’s white for him and everything else. Yes, it’s difficult. Difficult for us, I mean. Well, there’s no good going on saying things were better in the old days. Perhaps we only thought so. Anyway, Poirot, how did you get yourself mixed up in all this? This isn’t your part of the country, is it? Always thought you lived in London. You used to when I knew you.’

‘I still live in London. I involved myself here at the request of a friend, Mrs Oliver. You remember Mrs Oliver?’

Spence raised his head, closed his eyes and appeared to reflect.

‘Mrs Oliver? Can’t say that I do.’

‘She writes books. Detective stories. You met her, if you will throw your mind back, during the time that you persuaded me to investigate the murder of Mrs McGinty. You will not have forgotten Mrs McGinty?’

‘Good lord, no. But it was a long time ago. You did me a good turn[50] there, Poirot, a very good turn. I went to you for help and you didn’t let me down.’

‘I was honoured—flattered—that you should come to consult me,’ said Poirot. ‘I must say that I despaired once or twice. The man we had to save—to save his neck in those days I believe, it is long ago enough for that—was a man who was excessively difficult to do anything for. The kind of standard example of how not to do anything useful for himself.’

‘Married that girl, didn’t he? The wet one. Not the bright one with the peroxide hair[51]. Wonder how they got on together. Have you ever heard about it?’

‘No,’ said Poirot. ‘I presume all goes well with them.’

‘Can’t see what she saw in him.’

‘It is difficult,’ said Poirot, ‘but it is one of the great consolations in nature that a man, however unattractive, will find that he is attractive—to some woman. One can only say or hope that they married and lived happily ever afterwards.’

‘Shouldn’t think they lived happily ever afterwards if they had to have Mother to live with them.’

‘No, indeed,’ said Poirot. ‘Or Step-father,’ he added.

‘Well,’ said Spence, ‘here we are talking of old days again. All that’s over. I always thought that man, can’t remember his name now, ought to have run an undertaking parlour[52]. Had just the face and manner for it. Perhaps he did. The girl had some money, didn’t she? Yes, he’d have made a very good undertaker. I can see him, all in black, calling for orders for the funeral. Perhaps he can even have been enthusiastic over the right kind of elm or teak or whatever they use for coffins. But he’d never have made good selling insurance or real estate. Anyway, don’t let’s harp back[53].’ Then he said suddenly, ‘Mrs Oliver. Ariadne Oliver. Apples. Is that how she’s got herself mixed up in this? That poor child got her head shoved under water in a bucket of floating apples, didn’t she, at a party? Is that what interested Mrs Oliver?’

‘I don’t think she was particularly attracted because of the apples,’ said Poirot, ‘but she was at the party.’

‘Do you say she lived here?’

‘No, she does not live here. She was staying with a friend, a Mrs Butler.’

‘Butler?’ Yes, I know her. Lives down not far from the church. Widow. Husband was an airline pilot. Has a daughter. Rather nice-looking girl. Pretty manners. Mrs Butler’s rather an attractive woman, don’t you think so?’

‘I have as yet barely met her, but, yes, I thought she was very attractive.’

‘And how does this concern you, Poirot? You weren’t here when it happened?’

‘No. Mrs Oliver came to me in London. She was upset, very upset. She wanted me to do something.’

A faint smile showed on Superintendent Spence’s face.

‘I see. Same old story. I came up to you, too, because I wanted you to do something.’

‘And I have carried things one step further,’ said Poirot. ‘I have come to you.’

‘Because you want me to do something? I tell you, there’s nothing I can do.’

‘Oh yes there is. You can tell me all about the people. The people who live here. The people who went to that party. The fathers and mothers of the children who were at the party. The school, the teachers, the lawyers, the doctors. Somebody, during a party, induced a child to kneel down, and perhaps, laughing, saying: “I’ll show you the best way to get hold of an apple with your teeth. I know the trick of it.” And then he or she—whoever it was—put a hand on that girl’s head. There wouldn’t have been much struggle or noise or anything of that kind.’

‘A nasty business,’ said Spence. ‘I thought so when I heard about it. What do you want to know? I’ve been here a year. My sister’s been here longer—two or three years. It’s not a big community. It’s not a particularly settled one either. People come and go. The husband has a job in either Medchester or Great Canning, or one of the other places round about. Their children go to school here. Then perhaps the husband changes his job and they go somewhere else. It’s not a fixed community. Some of the people have been here a long time, Miss Emlyn, the schoolmistress, has, Dr Ferguson has. But on the whole, it fluctuates a bit.’

‘One supposes,’ said Hercule Poirot, ‘that having agreed with you that this was a nasty business, I might hope that you would know who are the nasty people here.’

‘Yes,’ said Spence. ‘It’s the first thing one looks for, isn’t it? And the next thing one looks for is a nasty adolescent in a thing of this kind. Who wants to strangle or drown or get rid of a lump of a girl of thirteen? There doesn’t seem to have been any evidence of a sexual assault or anything of that kind, which would be the first thing one looks for. Plenty of that sort of thing in every small town or village nowadays. There again, I think there’s more of it than there used to be in my young day. we had our mentally disturbed, or whatever they call them, but not so many as we have now. I expect there are more of them let out of the place they ought to be kept safe in. All our mental homes are too full; over-crowded, so doctors say “Let him or her lead a normal life. Go back and live with his relatives,” etc. And then the nasty bit of goods, or the poor afflicted fellow, whichever way you like to look at it, gets the urge again and another young woman goes out walking and is found in a gravel pit[54], or is silly enough to take lifts in a car. Children don’t come home from school because they’ve accepted a lift from a stranger, although they’ve been warned not to. Yes, there’s a lot of that nowadays.’

‘Does that quite fit the pattern we have here?’

‘Well, it’s the first thing one thinks of,’ said Spence. ‘Somebody was at the party who had the urge, shall we say. Perhaps he’d done it before, perhaps he’d only wanted to do it. I’d say roughly that there might be some past history of assaulting a child somewhere. As far as I know, nobody’s come up with anything of that kind. Not officially, I mean. There were two in the right age group at the party. Nicholas Ransom, nice-looking lad, seventeen or eighteen. He’d be the right age. Comes from the East Coast or somewhere like that, I think. Seems all right. Looks normal enough, but who knows? And there’s Desmond, remanded once for a psychiatric report, but I wouldn’t say there was much to it. It’s got to be someone at the party, though of course I suppose anyone could have come in from outside. A house isn’t usually locked up during a party. There’s a side door open, or a side window. One of our half-baked people[55], I suppose could have come along to see what was on and sneaked in. A pretty big risk to take. Would a child agree, a child who’d gone to a party, to go playing apple games with anyone she didn’t know? Anyway, you haven’t explained yet, Poirot, what brings you into it. You said it was Mrs Oliver. Some wild idea of hers?’

‘Not exactly a wild idea,’ said Poirot. ‘It is true that writers are prone to wild ideas. Ideas, perhaps, which are on the far side of probability. But this was simply something that she heard the girl say.’

‘What, the child Joyce?’

‘Yes.’

Spence leant forward and looked at Poirot inquiringly.

‘I will tell you,’ said Poirot.

Quietly and succinctly he recounted the story as Mrs Oliver had told it to him.

‘I see,’ said Spence. He rubbed his moustache. ‘The girl said that, did she? Said she’d seen a murder committed. Did she say when or how?’

‘No,’ said Poirot.

‘What led up to it?’

‘Some remark, I think, about the murders in Mrs Oli ver’s books. Somebody said something about it to Mrs Oliver. One of the children, I think, to the effect that there wasn’t enough blood in her books or enough bodies. And then Joyce spoke up and said she’d seen a murder once.’

‘Boasted of it? That’s the impression you’re giving me.’

‘That’s the impression Mrs Oliver got. Yes, she boasted of it.’

‘It mightn’t have been true.’

‘No, it might not have been true at all,’ said Poirot.

‘Children often make these extravagant statements when they wish to call attention to themselves or to make an effect. On the other hand, it might have been true. Is that what you think?’

‘I do not know,’ said Poirot. ‘A child boasts of having witnessed a murder. Only a few hours later, that child is dead. You must admit that there are grounds for believing that it might—it’s a far-fetched idea perhaps—but it might have been cause and effect. If so, somebody lost no time.’

‘Definitely,’ said Spence. ‘How many were present at the time the girl made her statement re[56] murder, do you know exactly?’

‘All that Mrs Oliver said was that she thought there were about fourteen or fifteen people, perhaps more. Five or six children, five or six grown-ups who were running the show. But for exact information I must rely on you.’

‘Well, that will be easy enough,’ said Spence. ‘I don’t say I know off-hand at the moment, but it’s easily obtained from the locals. As to the party itself, I know pretty well already. A preponderance of women, on the whole. Fathers don’t turn up much at children’s parties. But they look in, sometimes, or come to take their children home. Dr Ferguson was there, the vicar was there. Otherwise, mothers, aunts, social workers, two teachers from the school. Oh, I can give you a list—and roughly about fourteen children. The youngest not more than ten—running on into teenagers[57].’

‘And I suppose you would know the list of probables amongst them?’ said Poirot.

‘Well, it won’t be so easy now if what you think is true.’ ‘You mean you are no longer looking for a sexually disturbed personality. You are looking instead for somebody who has committed a murder and got away with it, someone who never expected it to be found out and who suddenly got a nasty shock.’

‘Blest if I can think who it could have been, all the same,’ said Spence. ‘I shouldn’t have said we had any likely murderers round here. And certainly nothing spectacular in the way of murders.’

‘One can have likely murderers anywhere,’ said Poirot, ‘or shall I say unlikely murderers, but nevertheless murderers. Because unlikely murderers are not so prone to be suspected. There is probably not very much evidence against them, and it would be a rude shock to such a murderer to find that there had actually been an eye-witness to his or her crime.’

‘Why didn’t Joyce say anything at the time? That’s what I’d like to know. Was she bribed to silence by someone, do you think? Too risky surely.’

‘No,’ said Poirot. ‘I gather from what Mrs Oliver mentioned that she didn’t recognize that it was a murder she was looking at the time.’

‘Oh, surely that’s most unlikely,’ said Spence.

‘Not necessarily,’ said Poirot. ‘A child of thirteen was speaking. She was remembering something she’d seen in the past. We don’t know exactly when. It might have been three or even four years previously. She saw something but she didn’t realize its true significance. That might apply to a lot of things you know, mon cher[58]. Some rather peculiar car accident. A car where it appeared that the driver drove straight at the person who was injured or perhaps killed. A child might not realize it was deliberate at the time. But something someone said, or something she saw or heard a year or two later might awaken her memory and she’d think perhaps: “A or B or X did it on purpose.” “Perhaps it was really a murder, not just an accident.” And there are plenty of other possibilities. Some of them I will admit suggested by my friend, Mrs Oliver, who can easily come up with about twelve different solutions to everything, most of them not very probable but all of them faintly possible. Tablets added to a cup of tea administered to someone. Roughly that sort of thing. A push perhaps on a dangerous spot. You have no cliffs here, which is rather a pity from the point of view of likely theories. Yes, I think there could be plenty of possibilities. Perhaps it is some murder story that the girl reads which recalls to her an incident. It may have been an incident that puzzled her at the time, and she might, when she reads the story, say: “well, that might have been so-and-so and so-and-so. I wonder if he or she did it on purpose?” yes, there are a lot of possibilities.’

‘And you have come here to inquire into them?’

‘It would be in the public interest, I think, don’t you?’ said Poirot.

‘Ah, we’re to be public spirited[59], are we, you and I?’

‘You can at least give me information,’ said Poirot. ‘You know the people here.’

‘I’ll do what I can,’ said Spence. ‘And I’ll rope in Elspeth. There’s not much about people she doesn’t know.’

CHAPTER 6

Satisfied with what he had achieved, Poirot took leave of his friend.

The information he wanted would be forthcoming—he had no doubt as to that. He had got Spence interested. And Spence, once set upon a trail, was not one to relinquish it. His reputation as a retired high-ranking officer of the C.I.D.[60] would have won him friends in the local police departments concerned.

And next—Poirot consulted his watch—he was to meet Mrs Oliver in exactly ten minutes’ time outside a house called apple Trees. Really, the name seemed uncannily appropriate.

Really, thought Poirot, one didn’t seem able to get away from apples. Nothing could be more agreeable than a juicy English apple—and yet here were apples mixed up with broomsticks, and witches, and old-fashioned folklore, and a murdered child.

Following the route indicated to him, Poirot arrived to the minute outside a red brick Georgian style house with a neat beech hedge enclosing it, and a pleasant garden showing beyond.

He put his hand out, raised the latch and entered through the wrought iron gate which bore a painted board labelled ‘Apple Trees’. A path led up to the front door. Looking rather like one of those Swiss clocks where figures come out automatically of a door above the clock face, the front door opened and Mrs Oliver emerged on the steps.

‘You’re absolutely punctual,’ she said breathlessly. ‘I was watching for you from the window.’

Poirot turned and closed the gate carefully behind him. Practically on every occasion that he had met Mrs Oliver, whether by appointment or by accident, a motif of apples seemed to be introduced almost immediately. She was either eating an apple or had been eating an apple—witness an apple core nestling on her broad chest—or was carrying a bag of apples. But today there was no apple in evidence at all. Very correct, Poirot thought approvingly. It would have been in very bad taste to be gnawing an apple here, on the scene of what had been not only a crime but a tragedy. For what else can it be but that? thought Poirot. The sudden death of a child of only thirteen years old. He did not like to think of it, and because he did not like to think of it he was all the more decided in his mind that that was exactly what he was going to think of until by some means or other, light should shine out of the darkness and he should see clearly what he had come here to see.

‘I can’t think why you wouldn’t come and stay with Judith Butler,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘Instead of going to a fifth-class guest house.’

‘Because it is better that I should survey things with a certain degree of aloofness,’ said Poirot. ‘One must not get involved, you comprehend.’

‘I don’t see how you can avoid getting involved,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘You’ve got to see everyone and talk to them, haven’t you?’

‘That most decidedly,’ said Poirot.

‘Who have you seen so far?’

‘My friend, Superintendent Spence.’

‘What’s he like nowadays?’ said Mrs Oliver.

‘A good deal older than he was,’ said Poirot. ‘Naturally,’ said Mrs Oliver, ‘what else would you expect? Is he deafer or blinder or fatter or thinner?’

Poirot considered.

‘He has lost a little weight. He wears spectacles for reading the paper. I do not think he is deaf, not to any noticeable extent.’

‘And what does he think about it all?’

‘You go too quickly,’ said Poirot.

‘And what exactly are you and he going to do?’

‘I have planned my programme,’ said Poirot. ‘First I have seen and consulted with my old friend. I asked him to get me, perhaps, some information that would not be easy to get otherwise.’

‘You mean the police here will be his buddies and he’ll get a lot of inside stuff[61] from them?’

‘Well, I should not put it exactly like that, but yes, those are the lines along which I have been thinking.’

‘And after that?’

‘I come to meet you here, Madame. I have to see just where this thing happened.’

Mrs Oliver turned her head and looked up at the house.

‘It doesn’t look the sort of house there’d be a murder in, does it?’ she said.

Poirot thought again: What an unerring instinct she has!

‘No,’ he said, ‘it does not look at all that sort of a house. After I have seen where, then I go with you to see the mother of the dead child. I hear what she can tell me. This afternoon my friend Spence is making an appointment for me to talk with the local inspector at a suitable hour. I should also like a talk with the doctor here. And possibly the head-mistress at the school. At six o’clock I drink tea and eat sausages with my friend Spence and his sister again in their house and we discuss.’

‘What more do you think he’ll be able to tell you?’

‘I want to meet his sister. She has lived here longer than he has. He came here to join her when her husband died. She will know, perhaps, the people here fairly well.’

‘Do you know what you sound like?’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘A computer. You know. You’re programming yourself. That’s what they call it, isn’t it? I mean you’re feeding all these things into yourself all day and then you’re going to see what comes out.’

‘It is certainly an idea you have there,’ said Poirot, with some interest. ‘Yes, yes, I play the part of the computer. One feeds in the information—’

‘And supposing you come up with all the wrong answers?’ said Mrs Oliver.

‘That would be impossible,’ said Hercule Poirot. ‘Computers do not do that sort of a thing.’

‘They’re not supposed to,’ said Mrs Oliver, ‘but you’d be surprised at the things that happen sometimes. My last electric light bill, for instance. I know there’s a proverb which says “To err is human,” but a human error is nothing to what a computer can do if it tries. Come on in and meet Mrs Drake.’

Mrs Drake was certainly something, Poirot thought. She was a tall, handsome woman of forty-odd[62], her golden hair was lightly tinged with grey, her eyes were brilliantly blue, she oozed competence from the fingertips downwards. Any party she had arranged would have been a successful one. In the drawing-room a tray of morning coffee with two sugared biscuits was awaiting them.

Apple Trees, he saw, was a most admirably kept house. It was well furnished, it had carpets of excellent quality, everything was scrupulously polished and cleaned, and the fact that it had hardly any outstanding object of interest in it was not readily noticeable. One would not have expected it. The colours of the curtains and the covers were pleasant but conventional. It could have been let furnished at any moment for a high rent to a desirable tenant, without having to put away any treasures or make any alterations to the arrangement of the furniture.

Mrs Drake greeted Mrs Oliver and Poirot and concealed almost entirely what Poirot could not help suspecting was a feeling of vigorously suppressed annoyance at the position in which she found herself as the hostess at a social occasion at which something as anti-social as murder had occurred. As a prominent member of the community of woodleigh Common, he suspected that she felt an unhappy sense of having herself in some way proved inadequate. What had occurred should not have occurred. To someone else in someone else’s house—yes. But at a party for children, arranged by her, given by her, organized by her, nothing like this ought to have happened. Somehow or other she ought to have seen to it that it did not happen. And Poirot also had a suspicion that she was seeking round irritably in the back of her mind for a reason. Not so much a reason for murder having taken place, but to find out and pin down some inadequacy on the part of someone who had been helping her and who had by some mismanagement or some lack of perception failed to realize that something like this could happen.

‘Monsieur Poirot,’ said Mrs Drake, in her fine speaking voice, which Poirot thought would come over excellently in a small lecture room or the village hall.

‘I am so pleased you could come down here. Mrs Oliver has been telling me how invaluable your help will be to us in this terrible crisis.’

‘Rest assured, Madame, I shall do what I can, but as you no doubt realize from your experience of life, it is going to be a difficult business.’

‘Difficult?’ said Mrs Drake. ‘Of course it’s going to be difficult. It seems incredible, absolutely incredible, that such an awful thing should have happened. I suppose,’ she added, ‘the police may know something? Inspector Raglan has a very good reputation locally, I believe. Whether or not they ought to call Scotland Yard[63] in, I don’t know. The idea seems to be that this poor child’s death must have had a local significance. I needn’t tell you, Monsieur Poirot—after all, you read the papers as much as I do—that there have been very many sad fatalities with children all over the countryside. They seem to be getting more and more frequent. Mental instability seems to be on the increase, though I must say that mothers and families generally are not looking after their children properly, as they used to do. Children are sent home from school alone, on dark evenings, go alone on dark early mornings. And children, however much you warn them, are unfortunately very foolish when it comes to being offered a lift in a smart-looking car. They believe what they’re told. I suppose one cannot help that.’

‘But what happened here, Madame, was of an entirely different nature.’

‘Oh, I know—I know. That is why I used the term incredible. I still cannot quite believe it,’ said Mrs Drake. ‘Everything was entirely under control. All the arrangements were made. Everything was going perfectly, all according to plan. It just seems—seems incredible. Personally I consider myself that there must be what I call an outside significance to this. Someone walked into the house—not a difficult thing to do under the circumstances—someone of highly disturbed mentality, I suppose, the kind of people who are let out of mental homes simply because there is no room for them there, as far as I can see. Nowadays, room has to be made for fresh patients all the time. Anyone peeping in through a window could see a children’s party was going on, and this poor wretch—if one can really feel pity for these people, which I really must say I find it very hard to do myself sometimes—enticed this child away somehow and killed her. You can’t think such a thing could happen, but it did happen.’

‘Perhaps you would show me where—’

‘Of course. No more coffee?’

‘I thank you, no.’

Mrs Drake got up. ‘The police seem to think it took place while the Snapdragon was going on. That was taking place in the dining-room.’

She walked across the hall, opened the door and, rather in the manner of someone doing the honours of a stately home to a party of charabanc goers[64], indicated the large dining-table and the heavy velvet curtains.

‘It was dark here, of course, except for the blazing dish. And now—’

She led them across the hall and opened the door of a small room with arm-chairs, sporting prints and bookshelves.

‘The library,’ said Mrs Drake, and shivered a little. ‘The bucket was here. On a plastic sheet, of course—’

Mrs Oliver had not accompanied them into the room. She was standing outside in the hall—

‘I can’t come in,’ she said to Poirot. ‘It makes me think of it too much.’

‘There’s nothing to see now,’ said Mrs Drake. ‘I mean, I’m just showing you where, as you asked.’

‘I suppose,’ said Poirot, ‘there was water—a good deal of water.’

‘There was water in the bucket, of course,’ said Mrs Drake.

She looked at Poirot as though she thought that he was not quite all there[65].

‘And there was water on the sheet. I mean, if the child’s head was pushed under water, there would be a lot of water splashed about.’

‘Oh yes. Even while the bobbing was going on, the bucket had to be filled up once or twice.’

‘So the person who did it? That person also would have got wet, one would think.’

‘Yes, yes, I suppose so.’

‘That was not specially noticed?’

‘No, no, the Inspector asked me about that. You see, by the end of the evening nearly everyone was a bit dishevelled or damp or floury. There doesn’t seem to be any useful clues there at all. I mean, the police didn’t think so.’

‘No,’ said Poirot. ‘I suppose the only clue was the child herself. I hope you will tell me all you know about her.’

‘About Joyce?’

Mrs Drake looked slightly taken aback. It was as though Joyce in her mind had by now retreated so far out of things that she was quite surprised to be reminded of her.

‘The victim is always important,’ said Poirot. ‘The victim, you see, is so often the cause of the crime.’

‘Well, I suppose, yes, I see what you mean,’ said Mrs Drake, who quite plainly did not. ‘Shall we come back to the drawing-room?’

‘And then you will tell me about Joyce,’ said Poirot.

They settled themselves once more in the drawing-room.

Mrs Drake was looking uncomfortable.

‘I don’t know really what you expect me to say, Monsieur Poirot,’ she said. ‘Surely all information can be obtained quite easily from the police or from Joyce’s mother. Poor woman, it will be painful for her, no doubt, but—’

‘But what I want,’ said Poirot, ‘is not a mother’s estimate of a dead daughter. It is a clear, unbiased opinion from someone who has a good knowledge of human nature. I should say, Madame, that you your self have been an active worker in many welfare and social fields here. Nobody, I am sure, could sum up more aptly the character and disposition of someone whom you know.’

‘Well—it is a little difficult. I mean, children of that age—she was thirteen, I think, twelve or thirteen—are very much alike at a certain age.’

‘Ah no, surely not,’ said Poirot. ‘There are very great differences in character, in disposition. Did you like her?’

Mrs Drake seemed to find the question embar rassing.

‘Well, of course I—I liked her. I mean, well, I like all children. Most people do.’

‘Ah, there I do not agree with you,’ said Poirot. ‘Some children I consider are most unattractive.’

‘Well, I agree, they’re not brought up very well nowadays. Everything seems left to the school, and of course they lead very permissive lives. Have their own choice of friends and—er—oh, really, Monsieur Poirot.’

‘Was she a nice child or not a nice child?’ said Poirot insistently.

Mrs Drake looked at him and registered censure.

‘You must realize, Monsieur Poirot, that the poor child is dead.’’

‘Dead or alive, it matters. Perhaps if she was a nice child, nobody would have wanted to kill her, but if she was not a nice child, somebody might have wanted to kill her, and did so—’

‘Well, I suppose—Surely it isn’t a question of niceness, is it?’

‘It could be. I also understand that she claimed to have seen a murder committed.’

‘Oh that,’ said Mrs Drake contemptuously.

‘You did not take that statement seriously?’

‘Well, of course I didn’t. It was a very silly thing to say.’

‘How did she come to say it?’

‘Well, I think really they were all rather excited about Mrs Oliver being here. You are a very famous person, you must remember, dear,’ said Mrs Drake, addressing Mrs Oliver.

The word ‘dear’ seemed included in her speech without any accompanying enthusiasm.

‘I don’t suppose the subject would ever have arisen otherwise, but the children were excited by meeting a famous authoress—’

‘So Joyce said that she had seen a murder committed,’ said Poirot thoughtfully.

‘Yes, she said something of the kind. I wasn’t really listening.’

‘But you do remember that she said it?’

‘Oh yes, she said it. But I didn’t believe it,’ said Mrs Drake. ‘Her sister hushed her up at once, very properly.’

And she was annoyed about that, was she?’

‘Yes, she went on saying that it was true.’

‘In fact, she boasted about it.’

‘When you put it that way, yes.’

‘It might have been true, I suppose,’ said Poirot.

‘Nonsense! I don’t believe it for one minute,’ said Mrs Drake. ‘It’s the sort of stupid thing Joyce would say.’

‘She was a stupid girl?’

‘Well, she was the kind, I think, who liked to show off.’ said Mrs Drake. ‘You know, she always wanted to have seen more or done more than other girls.’

‘Not a very lovable character,’ said Poirot.

‘No indeed,’ said Mrs Drake. ‘Really the kind that you have to be shutting up all the time.’

‘What did the other children who were here have to say about it? Were they impressed?’

‘They laughed at her,’ said Mrs Drake. ‘So, of course, that made her worse.’

‘Well,’ said Poirot, as he rose, ‘I am glad to have your positive assurance on that point.’ He bowed politely over her hand. ‘Good-bye, Madame, thank you so much for allowing me to view the scene of this very unpleasant occurrence. I hope it has not recalled unpleasant memories too definitely to you.’

‘Of course,’ said Mrs Drake, ‘it is very painful to recall anything of this kind. I had so hoped our little party would go off well. Indeed, it was going off well and everyone seemed to be enjoying it so much till this terrible thing happened. However, the only thing one can do is to try and forget it all. of course, it’s very unfortunate that Joyce should have made this silly remark about seeing a murder.’

‘Have you ever had a murder in Woodleigh Com mon?’

‘Not that I can remember,’ said Mrs Drake firmly.

‘In this age of increased crime that we live in,’ said Poirot, ‘that really seems somewhat unusual, does it not?’

‘Well, I think there was a lorry driver who killed a pal of his—something like that—and a little girl whom they found buried in a gravel pit about fifteen miles from here, but that was years ago. They were both rather sordid and uninteresting crimes. Mainly the result of drink, I think.’

‘In fact, the kind of murder unlikely to have been witnessed by a girl of twelve or thirteen.’

‘Most unlikely, I should say. And I can assure you, Monsieur Poirot, this statement that the girl made was solely in order to impress friends and perhaps interest a famous character.’ She looked rather coldly across at Mrs Oliver.

‘In fact,’ said Mrs Oliver, ‘it’s all my fault for being at the party, I suppose.’

‘Oh, of course not, my dear, of course I didn’t mean it that way.’

Poirot sighed as he departed from the house with Mrs Oliver by his side.

‘A very unsuitable place for a murder,’ he said, as they walked down the path to the gate. ‘No atmosphere, no haunting sense of tragedy, no character worth murdering, though I couldn’t help thinking that just occasionally someone might feel like murdering Mrs Drake.’

‘I know what you mean. She can be intensely irritating sometimes. So pleased with herself and so complacent.’

‘What is her husband like?’

‘Oh, she’s a widow. Her husband died a year or two ago. He got polio and had been a cripple for years. He was a banker originally, I think. He was very keen on games and sport and hated having to give all that up and be an invalid.’

‘Yes, indeed.’ He reverted to the subject of the child Joyce. ‘Just tell me this. Did anyone who was listening take this assertion of the child Joyce about murder seriously?’

‘I don’t know. I shouldn’t have thought anyone did.’

‘The other children, for instance?’

‘Well, I was thinking really of them. No, I don’t think they believed what Joyce was saying. They thought she was making up things.’

‘Did you think that, too?’

‘Well, I did really,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘Of course,’ she added, ‘Mrs Drake would like to believe that the murder never really happened, but she can’t very well go as far as that, can she?’

‘I understand that this may be painful for her.’

‘I suppose it is in a way,’ said Mrs Oliver, ‘but I think that by now, you know, she is actually getting quite pleased to talk about it. I don’t think she likes to have to bottle it up all the time.’

‘Do you like her?’ asked Poirot. ‘Do you think she’s a nice woman?’

‘You do ask the most difficult questions. Embarrassing ones,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘It seems the only thing you are interested in is whether people are nice or not. Rowena Drake is the bossy type—likes running things and people. She runs this whole place more or less, I should think. But runs it very efficiently. It depends if you like bossy women. I don’t much—’

‘What about Joyce’s mother whom we are on our way to see?’

‘She’s quite a nice woman. Rather stupid, I should think. I’m sorry for her. It’s pretty awful to have your daughter murdered, isn’t it? And everyone here thinks it was a sex crime which makes it worse.’

‘But there was no evidence of sexual assault, or so I understand?’

‘No, but people like to think these things happen. It makes it more exciting. You know what people are like.’

‘One thinks one does—but sometimes—well—we do not really know at all.’

‘Wouldn’t it be better if my friend Judith Butler was to take you to see Mrs Reynolds? She knows her quite well, and I’m a stranger to her.’

‘We will do as planned.’

‘The Computer Programme will go on,’ murmured Mrs Oliver rebelliously.

CHAPTER 7

Mrs Reynolds was a complete contrast to Mrs Drake. There was no air of poised competence about her, nor indeed was there ever likely to be.

She was wearing conventional black, had a moist handkerchief clasped in her hand and was clearly prepared to dissolve into tears at any moment.

‘It’s very kind of you, I’m sure,’ she said to Mrs Oli ver, ‘to bring a friend of yours down here to help us.’ She put a damp hand into Poirot’s and looked at him doubtfully. ‘And if he can help in any way I’m sure I’ll be very grateful, though I don’t see what anyone can do. Nothing will bring her back, poor child. It’s awful to think of. How anyone could deliberately kill anyone of that age. If she had only cried out—though I suppose he rammed her head under water straight away and held it there. Oh, I can’t bear to think of it. I really can’t.’

‘Indeed, Madame, I do not want to distress you. Please do not think of it. I only want to ask you a few questions that might help—help, that is, to find your daughter’s murderer. You’ve no idea yourself, I suppose, who it can possibly be?’

‘How could I have any idea? I shouldn’t have thought there was anyone, anyone living here, I mean. This is such a nice place. And the people living here are such nice people. I suppose it was just someone—some awful man who came in through one of the windows. Perhaps he’d taken drugs or something. He saw the light and that it was a party, so he gate-crashed.’

‘You are quite sure that the assailant was male?’

‘Oh, it must have been.’ Mrs Reynolds sounded shocked. ‘I’m sure it was. It couldn’t have been a woman, could it?’

‘A woman might have been strong enough.’

‘Well, I suppose in a way I know what you mean. You mean women are much more athletic nowadays and all that. But they wouldn’t do a thing like this, I’m sure. Joyce was only a child—thirteen years old.’

‘I don’t want to distress you by staying here too long, Madame, or to ask you difficult questions. That already, I am sure, the police are doing elsewhere, and I don’t want to upset you by dwelling on painful facts. It was just concerning a remark that your daughter made at the party. You were not there yourself, I think?’

‘Well, no, I wasn’t. I haven’t been very well lately and children’s parties can be very tiring. I drove them there, and then later I came back to fetch them. The three children went together, you know. Ann, that’s the older one, she is sixteen, and Leopold who is nearly eleven. What was it Joyce said that you wanted to know about?’

‘Mrs Oliver, who was there, will tell you what your daughter’s words were exactly. She said, I believe, that she had once seen a murder committed.’

‘Joyce? Oh, she couldn’t have said a thing like that. What murder could she possibly have seen committed?’

‘Well, everyone seems to think it was rather unlikely,’ said Poirot. ‘I just wondered if you thought it likely. Did she ever speak to you about such a thing?’

‘Seeing a murder? Joyce?’

‘You must remember,’ said Poirot, ‘that the term murder might have been used by someone of Joyce’s age in a rather loose way. It might have been just a question of somebody being run over by a car, or of children fighting together perhaps and one pushing another into a stream or over a bridge. Something that was not meant seriously, but which had an unfortunate result.’

‘Well, I can’t think of anything like that happening here that Joyce could have seen, and she certainly never said anything about it to me. She must have been joking.’

‘She was very positive,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘She kept on saying that it was true and that she’d seen it.’

‘Did anyone believe her?’ asked Mrs Reynolds.

‘I don’t know,’ said Poirot.

‘I don’t think they did,’ said Mrs Oliver, ‘or perhaps they didn’t want to—er—well, encourage her by saying they believed it.’

‘They were inclined to jeer at her and say she was making it all up,’ said Poirot, less kind-hearted than Mrs Oliver.

‘Well, that wasn’t very nice of them,’ said Mrs Reynolds. ‘As though Joyce would tell a lot of lies about things like that.’ She looked flushed and indignant.

‘I know. It seems unlikely,’ said Poirot. ‘It was more possible, was it not, that she might have made a mistake, that she might have seen something she did think could have been described as a murder. Some accident, perhaps.’

‘She’d have said something about it to me, if so, wouldn’t she?’ said Mrs Reynolds, still indignant.

‘One would think so,’ said Poirot. ‘She did not say so at any time in the past? You might have forgotten. Especially if it wasn’t really important.’

‘When do you mean?’

‘We don’t know,’ said Poirot. ‘That is one of the difficulties. It might have been three weeks ago—or three years. She said she had been “quite young” at the time. What does a thirteen-year-old consider quite young? There was no sensational happening round here that you can recall?’

‘Oh, I don’t think so. I mean, you do hear of things. Or read about them in the papers. You know, I mean women being attacked, or a girl and her young man, or things like that. But nothing important that I can remember, nothing that Joyce took an interest in or anything of that kind.’

‘But if Joyce said positively she saw a murder, would you think she really thought so?’

‘She wouldn’t say so unless she really did think so, would she?’ said Mrs Reynolds. ‘I think she must have got something mixed up really.’

‘Yes, it seems possible. I wonder,’ he asked, ‘if I might speak to your two children who were also at the party?’

‘Well, of course, though I don’t know what you can expect them to tell you. Ann’s doing her work for her “A” levels[66] upstairs and Leopold’s in the garden assembling a model aeroplane.’

Leopold was a solid, pudgy faced boy entirely absorbed, it seemed, in mechanical construction. It was some few moments before he could pay attention to the questions he was being asked.

‘You were there, weren’t you, Leopold? You heard what your sister said. What did she say?’

‘Oh, you mean about the murder?’ He sounded bored. ‘Yes, that’s what I mean,’ said Poirot. ‘She said she saw a murder once. Did she really see such a thing?’

‘No, of course she didn’t,’ said Leopold. ‘Who on earth would she see murdered? It was just like Joyce, that.’

‘How do you mean, it was just like her?’

‘Showing off,’ said Leopold, winding round a piece of wire and breathing forcefully through his nose as he concentrated. ‘She was an awfully stupid sort of girl,’ he added. ‘She’d say anything, you know, to make people sit up and take notice.’

‘So you really think she invented the whole thing?’

Leopold shifted his gaze to Mrs Oliver.

‘I expect she wanted to impress you a bit,’ he said. ‘You write detective stories, don’t you? I think she was just putting it on so that you should take more notice of her than you did of the others.’

‘That would also be rather like her, would it?’ said Poirot.

‘Oh, she’d say anything,’ said Leopold. ‘I bet nobody believed her though.’

‘Were you listening? Do you think anyone believed it?’

‘Well, I heard her say it, but I didn’t really listen. Beatrice laughed at her and so did Cathie. They said “that’s a tall story[67],” or something.’

There seemed little more to be got out of Leopold. They went upstairs to where Ann, looking rather more than her sixteen years, was bending over a table with various study books spread round her.

‘Yes, I was at the party,’ she said.

‘You heard your sister say something about having seen a murder?’

‘Oh yes, I heard her. I didn’t take any notice, though.’

‘You didn’t think it was true?’

‘Of course it wasn’t true. There haven’t been any murders here for ages. I don’t think there’s been a proper murder for years.’

‘Then why do you think she said so?’

‘Oh, she likes showing off. I mean she used to like showing off. She had a wonderful story once about having travelled to India. My uncle had been on a voyage there and she pretended she went with him. Lots of girls at school actually believed her.’

‘So you don’t remember any what you call murders taking place here in the last three or four years?’

‘No, only the usual kind,’ said Ann. ‘I mean, the ones you read every day in the newspaper. And they weren’t actually here in Woodleigh Common. They were mostly in Medchester, I think.’

‘Who do you think killed your sister, Ann? You must have known her friends, you would know any people who didn’t like her.’

‘I can’t imagine who’d want to kill her. I suppose someone who was just batty. Nobody else would, would they?’

‘There was no one who had—quarrelled with her or who did not get on with her?’

‘You mean, did she have an enemy? I think that’s silly. People don’t have enemies really. There are just people you don’t like.’

As they departed from the room, Ann said:

‘I don’t want to be nasty about Joyce, because she’s dead, and it wouldn’t be kind, but she really was the most awful liar, you know. I mean, I’m sorry to say things about my sister, but it’s quite true.’

Are we making any progress?’ said Mrs Oliver as they left the house.

‘None whatever,’ said Hercule Poirot. ‘That is interesting,’ he said thoughtfully.

Mrs Oliver looked as though she didn’t agree with him.

CHAPTER 8

It was six o’clock at Pine Crest. Hercule Poirot put a piece of sausage into his mouth and followed it up with a sip of tea. The tea was strong and to Poirot singularly unpalatable. The sausage, on the other hand, was delicious. Cooked to perfection. He looked with appreciation across the table to where Mrs McKay presided over the large brown teapot.

Elspeth McKay was as unlike her brother, Superintendent Spence, as she could be in every way. where he was broad, she was angular. Her sharp, thin face looked out on the world with shrewd appraisal. She was thin as a thread, yet there was a certain likeness between them. Mainly the eyes and the strongly marked line of the jaw. either of them, Poirot thought, could be relied upon for judgement and good sense. they would express themselves differently, but that was all. Superintendent Spence would express himself slowly and carefully as the result of due thought and deliberation. Mrs McKay would pounce, quick and sharp, like a cat upon a mouse.

‘a lot depends,’ said Poirot, ‘upon the character of this child. Joyce Reynolds. This is what puzzles me most.’

He looked inquiringly at Spence.

‘You can’t go by me,’ said Spence, ‘I’ve not lived here long enough. Better ask Elspeth.’

Poirot looked across the table, his eyebrows raised inquiringly. Mrs McKay was sharp as usual in response.

‘I’d say she was a proper little liar,’ she said.

‘Not a girl whom you’d trust and believe what she said?’

Elspeth shook her head decidedly.

‘No, indeed. Tell a tall tale, she would, and tell it well, mind you. But I’d never believe her.’

‘Tell it with the object of showing off?’

‘That’s right. They told you the Indian story, didn’t they? There’s many as believed that, you know. Been away for the holidays, the family had. Gone abroad somewhere. I don’t know if it was her father and mother or her uncle and aunt, but they went to India and she came back from those holidays with tall tales of how she’d been taken there with them. Made a good story of it, she did. A Maharajah and a tiger shoot and elephants—ah, it was fine hearing and a lot of those around her here believed it. But I said straight along, she’s telling more than ever happened. Could be, I thought at first, she was just exaggerating. But the story got added to every time. There were more tigers, if you know what I mean. Far more tigers than could possibly happen. And elephants, too, for that matter. I’d known her before, too, telling tall stories.’

‘Always to get attention?’

‘Aye[68], you’re right there. She was a great one for getting attention.’

‘Because a child told a tall story about a travel trip she never took,’ said Superintendent Spence, ‘you can’t say that every tall tale she told was a lie.’

‘It might not be,’ said Elspeth, ‘but I’d say the likelihood was that it usually would be.’

‘So you think that if Joyce Reynolds came out with a tale that she’d seen a murder committed, you’d say she was probably lying and you wouldn’t believe the story was true?’

‘That’s what I’d think,’ said Mrs McKay.

‘You might be wrong,’ said her brother.

‘Yes,’ said Mrs McKay. ‘Anyone may be wrong. It’s like the old story of the boy who cried “Wolf, wolf,” and he cried it once too often, when it was a real wolf, and nobody believed him, and so the wolf got him.’

‘So you’d sum it up—’

‘I’d still say the probabilities are that she wasn’t speaking the truth. But I’m a fair woman. She may have been. She may have seen something. Not quite so much as she said she saw, but something.’’

‘And so she got herself killed,’ said Superintendent Spence. ‘You’ve got to mind that, Elspeth. She got herself killed.’

‘That’s true enough,’ said Mrs McKay. ‘And that’s why I’m saying maybe I’ve misjudged her. And if so, I’m sorry. But ask anyone who knew her and they’ll tell you that lies came natural to her. It was a party she was at, remember, and she was excited. She’d want to make an effect.’

‘Indeed, they didn’t believe her,’ said Poirot.

Elspeth McKay shook her head doubtfully.

‘Who could she have seen murdered?’ asked Poirot.

He looked from brother to sister.

‘Nobody,’ said Mrs McKay with decision.

‘There must have been deaths here, say, over the last three years.’

‘Oh that, naturally,’ said Spence. ‘Just the usual—old folks or invalids or what you’d expect—or maybe a hit- and-run motorist—’

‘No unusual or unexpected deaths?’

‘Well—’ Elspeth hesitated. ‘I mean—’

Spence took over.

‘I’ve jotted a few names down here.’ He pushed the paper over to Poirot. ‘Save you a bit of trouble, asking questions around.’

‘Are these suggested victims?’

‘Hardly as much as that. Say within the range of possibility.’

Poirot read aloud.

‘Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe. Charlotte Benfield. Janet White. Lesley Ferrier—’ He broke off, looked across the table and repeated the first name. Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe.

‘Could be,’ said Mrs McKay. ‘Yes, you might have some thing there.’ She added a word that sounded like ‘opera.’