Hallowe'en Party (11 page)

“When my friend, Mrs. Oliver, asks me to do anything I always have to do it,” said Poirot.

“What nonsense,” said Mrs. Oliver.

“She was sure, quite sure, that you would be able to find out all about this beastly thing. Miranda, dear, will you go into the kitchen? You'll find the scones on the wire tray above the oven.”

Miranda disappeared. She gave, as she went, a knowledgeable smile directed at her mother that said as plainly as a smile could say, “She's getting me out of the way for a short time.”

“I tried not to let her know,” said Miranda's mother, “about this—this horrible thing that happened. But I suppose that was a forlorn chance from the start.”

“Yes indeed,” said Poirot. “There's nothing that goes round any residential centre with the same rapidity as news of a disaster, and particularly an unpleasant disaster. And anyway,” he added, “one
cannot go long through life without knowing what goes on around one. And children seem particularly apt at that sort of thing.”

“I don't know if it was Burns or Sir Walter Scott who said ‘There's a chiel among you taking notes,'” said Mrs. Oliver, “but he certainly knew what he was talking about.”

“Joyce Reynolds certainly seems to have noticed such a thing as a murder,” said Mrs. Butler. “One can hardly believe it.”

“Believe that Joyce noticed it?”

“I meant believe that if she saw such a thing she never spoke about it earlier. That seems very unlike Joyce.”

“The first thing that everybody seems to tell me here,” said Poirot, in a mild voice, “is that this girl, Joyce Reynolds, was a liar.”

“I suppose it's possible,” said Judith Butler, “that a child might make up a thing and then it might turn out to be true?”

“That is certainly the focal point from which we start,” said Poirot. “Joyce Reynolds was unquestionably murdered.”

“And you
have
started. Probably you know already all about it,” said Mrs. Oliver.

“Madame, do not ask impossibilities of me. You are always in such a hurry.”

“Why not?” said Mrs. Oliver. “Nobody would ever get anything done nowadays if they weren't in a hurry.”

Miranda returned at this moment with a plateful of scones.

“Shall I put them down here?” she asked. “I expect you've finished talking by now, haven't you? Or is there anything else you would like me to get from the kitchen?”

There was a gentle malice in her voice. Mrs. Butler lowered the Georgian silver teapot to the fender, switched on an electric kettle which had been turned off just before it came to the boil, duly
filled the teapot and served the tea. Miranda handed hot scones and cucumber sandwiches with a serious elegance of manner.

“Ariadne and I met in Greece,” said Judith.

“I fell into the sea,” said Mrs. Oliver, “when we were coming back from one of the islands. It had got rather rough and the sailors always say ‘jump' and, of course, they always say jump just when the thing's at its furthest point which makes it come right for you, but you don't think that can possibly happen and so you dither and you lose your nerve and you jump when it looks close and, of course, that's the moment when it goes far away.” She paused for breath. “Judith helped fish me out and it made a kind of bond between us, didn't it?”

“Yes, indeed,” said Mrs. Butler. “Besides, I liked your Christian name,” she added. “It seemed very appropriate, somehow.”

“Yes, I suppose it is a Greek name,” said Mrs. Oliver. “It's my own, you know. I didn't just make it up for literary purposes. But nothing Ariadne-like has ever happened to me. I've never been deserted on a Greek island by my own true love or anything like that.”

Poirot raised a hand to his moustache in order to hide the slight smile that he could not help coming to his lips as he envisaged Mrs. Oliver in the rôle of a deserted Greek maiden.

“We can't all live up to our names,” said Mrs. Butler.

“No, indeed. I can't see you in the rôle of cutting off your lover's head. That is the way it happened, isn't it, Judith and Holofernes, I mean?”

“It was her patriotic duty,” said Mrs. Butler, “for which, if I remember rightly, she was highly commended and rewarded.”

“I'm not really very well up in Judith and Holofernes. It's the
Apocrypha, isn't it? Still, if one comes to think of it, people do give other people—their children, I mean—some very queer names, don't they? Who was the one who hammered some nails in someone's head? Jael or Sisera. I never remember which is the man or which is the woman there. Jael, I think. I don't think I remember any child having been christened Jael.”

“She laid butter before him in a lordly dish,” said Miranda unexpectedly, pausing as she was about to remove the tea tray.

“Don't look at me,” said Judith Butler to her friend, “it wasn't I who introduced Miranda to the Apocrypha. “That's her school training.”

“Rather unusual for schools nowadays, isn't it?” said Mrs. Oliver. “They give them ethical ideas instead, don't they?”

“Not Miss Emlyn,” said Miranda. “She says that if we go to church nowadays we only get the modern version of the Bible read to us in the lessons and things, and that it has no literary merit whatsoever. We should at least know the fine prose and blank verse sometimes of the Authorized Version. I enjoyed the story of Jael and Sisera very much,” she added. “It's not a thing,” she said meditatively, “that I should ever have thought of doing myself. Hammering nails, I mean, into someone's head when they were asleep.”

“I hope not indeed,” said her mother.

“And how
would
you dispose of your enemies, Miranda?” asked Poirot.

“I should be very kind,” said Miranda in a gently contemplative tone. “It would be more difficult, but I'd rather have it that way because I don't like hurting things. I'd use a sort of drug that gives people euthanasia. They would go to sleep and have beautiful dreams and they just wouldn't wake up.” She lifted some tea cups
and the bread and butter plate. “I'll wash up, Mummy,” she said, “if you like to take Monsieur Poirot to look at the garden. There are still some Queen Elizabeth roses at the back of the border.”

She went out of the room carefully carrying the tea tray.

“She's an astonishing child, Miranda,” said Mrs. Oliver.

“You have a very beautiful daughter, Madame,” said Poirot.

“Yes, I think she is beautiful
now.
One doesn't know what they will look like by the time they grow up. They acquire puppy fat and look like well-fattened pigs sometimes. But now—now she is like a wood nymph.”

“One does not wonder that she is fond of the Quarry Garden which adjoins your house.”

“I wish she wasn't so fond of it sometimes. One gets nervous about people wandering about in isolated places, even if they are quite near people or a village. One's—oh, one's very frightened all the time nowadays. That's why—why you've got to find out why this awful thing happened to Joyce, Monsieur Poirot. Because until we know who that was, we shan't feel safe for a minute—about
our
children, I mean. Take Monsieur Poirot out in the garden, will you, Ariadne? I'll join you in a minute or two.”

She took the remaining two cups and a plate and went into the kitchen. Poirot and Mrs. Oliver went out through the french window. The small garden was like most autumn gardens. It retained a few candles of golden rod and michaelmas daisies in a border, and some Queen Elizabeth roses held their pink statuesque heads up high. Mrs. Oliver walked rapidly down to where there was a stone bench, sat down, and motioned Poirot to sit down beside her.

“You said you thought Miranda was like a wood nymph,” she said. “What do you think of Judith?”

“I think Judith's name ought to be Undine,” said Poirot.

“A water spirit, yes. Yes, she does look as though she'd just come out of the Rhine or the sea or a forest pool or something. Her hair looks as though it had been dipped in water. Yet there's nothing untidy or scatty about her, is there?”

“She, too, is a very lovely woman,” said Poirot.

“What do you think about her?”

“I have not had time to think as yet. I just think that she is beautiful and attractive and that something is giving her great concern.”

“Well, of course, wouldn't it?”

“What I would like, Madame, is for you to tell me what
you
know or think about her.”

“Well, I got to know her very well on the cruise. You know, one does make quite intimate friends. Just one or two people. The rest of them, I mean, they like each other and all that, but you don't really go to any trouble to see them again. But one or two you do. Well, Judith was one of the ones I
did
want to see again.”

“You did not know her before the cruise?”

“No.”

“But you know something about her?”

“Well, just ordinary things. She's a widow,” said Mrs. Oliver. “Her husband died a good many years ago—he was an air pilot. He was killed in a car accident. One of those pileup things, I think it was, coming off the M what-is-it that runs near here on to the ordinary road one evening, or something of that kind. He left her rather badly off, I imagine. She was very broken up about it, I think. She doesn't like talking about him.”

“Is Miranda her only child?”

“Yes. Judith does some part-time secretarial work in the neighbourhood, but she hasn't got a fixed job.”

“Did she know the people who lived at the Quarry House?”

“You mean old Colonel and Mrs. Weston?”

“I mean the former owner, Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe, wasn't it?”

“I think so. I think I've heard that name mentioned. But she died two or three years ago, so of course one doesn't hear about her much. Aren't the people who are alive enough for you?” demanded Mrs. Oliver with some irritation.

“Certainly not,” said Poirot. “I have also to inquire into those who have died or disappeared from the scene.”

“Who's disappeared?”

“An
au pair
girl,” said Poirot.

“Oh well,” said Mrs. Oliver, “they're always disappearing, aren't they? I mean, they come over here and get their fare paid and then they go straight into hospital because they're pregnant and have a baby, and call it Auguste, or Hans or Boris, or some name like that. Or they've come over to marry someone, or to follow up some young man they're in love with. You wouldn't believe the things friends tell me! The thing about
au pair
girls seems to be either they're Heaven's gift to overworked mothers and you never want to part with them, or they pinch your stockings—or get themselves murdered—” She stopped. “Oh!” she said.

“Calm yourself, Madame,” said Poirot. “There seems no reason to believe that an
au pair
girl has been murdered—quite the contrary.”

“What do you mean by quite the contrary? It doesn't make sense.”

“Probably not. All the same—”

He took out his notebook and made an entry in it.

“What are you writing down there?”

“Certain things that have occurred in the past.”

“You seem to be very perturbed by the past altogether.”

“The past is the father of the present,” said Poirot sententiously.

He offered her the notebook.

“Do you wish to see what I have written?”

“Of course I do. I daresay it won't mean anything to me. The things
you
think important to write down, I never do.”

He held out the small black notebook.

“Deaths: e.g. Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe (Wealthy). Janet White (Schoolteacher). Lawyer's clerk—Knifed, Former prosecution for forgery.”

Below it was written “Opera girl disappears.”

“What opera girl?”

“It is the word my friend, Spence's sister, uses for what you and I call an
au pair
girl.”

“Why should she disappear?”

“Because she was possibly about to get into some form of legal trouble.”

Poirot's finger went down to the next entry. The word was simply “Forgery,” with two question marks after it.

“Forgery?” said Mrs. Oliver. “Why forgery?”

“That is what
I
asked.
Why
forgery?”

“What kind of forgery?”

“A Will was forged, or rather a codicil to a Will. A codicil in the
au pair
girl's favour.”

“Undue influence?” suggested Mrs. Oliver.

“Forgery is something rather more serious than undue influence,” said Poirot.

“I don't see what that's got to do with the murder of poor Joyce.”

“Nor do I,” said Poirot. “But, therefore, it is interesting.”

“What is the next word? I can't read it.”

“Elephants.”

“I don't see what that's got to do with anything.”

“It might have,” said Poirot, “believe me, it might have.”

He rose.

“I must leave you now,” he said. “Apologize, please, to my hostess for my not saying good-bye to her. I much enjoyed meeting her and her lovely and unusual daughter. Tell her to take care of that child.”

“‘My mother said I never should, play with the children in the wood,'”
quoted Mrs. Oliver. “Well, good-bye. If you like to be mysterious, I suppose you will go on being mysterious. You don't even say what you're going to do next.”

“I have made an appointment for tomorrow morning with Messrs Fullerton, Harrison and Leadbetter in Medchester.”

“Why?”

“To talk about forgery and other matters.”

“And after that?”

“I want to talk to certain people who were also present.”