Hallowe'en Party (6 page)

I
t 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, 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 something there.” She added a word that sounded like “opera.”

“Opera?” Poirot looked puzzled. He had heard of no opera.

“Went off one night, she did,” said Elspeth, “was never heard of again.”

“Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe?”

“No, no. The opera girl. She could have put something in the medicine easily enough. And she came into all the money, didn't she—or so she thought at the time?”

Poirot looked at Spence for enlightenment.

“And never been heard of since,” said Mrs. McKay. “These foreign girls are all the same.”

The significance of the word “opera” came to Poirot.

“An
au pair
girl,” he said.

“That's right. Lived with the old lady, and a week or two after the old lady died, the
au pair
girl just disappeared.”

“Went off with some man, I'd say,” said Spence.

“Well, nobody knew of him if so,” said Elspeth. “And there's usually plenty to talk about here. Usually know just who's going with who.”

“Did anybody think there had been anything wrong about Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe's death?” asked Poirot.

“No. She'd got heart trouble. Doctor attended her regularly.”

“But you headed your list of possible victims with her, my friend?”

“Well, she was a rich woman, a very rich woman. Her death was not unexpected but it
was
sudden. I'd say offhand that Dr. Ferguson was surprised, even if only slightly surprised. I think he expected her to live longer. But doctors do have these surprises. She wasn't one to do as the doctor ordered. She'd been told not to overdo things, but she did exactly as she liked. For one thing, she was a passionate gardener, and that doesn't do heart cases any good.”

Elspeth McKay took up the tale.

“She came here when her health failed. She was living abroad before. She came here to be near her nephew and niece, Mr. and Mrs. Drake, and she bought the Quarry House. A big Victorian house which included a disused quarry which attracted her as hav
ing possibilities. She spent thousands of pounds on turning that quarry into a sunk garden or whatever they call the thing. Had a landscape gardener down from Wisley or one of these places to design it. Oh, I can tell you, it's something to look at.”

“I shall go and look at it,” said Poirot. “Who knows—it might give me ideas.”

“Yes, I would go if I were you. It's worth seeing.”

“And she was rich, you say?” said Poirot.

“Widow of a big shipbuilder. She had packets of money.”

“Her death was not unexpected because she had a heart condition, but it
was
sudden,” said Spence. “No doubts arose that it was due to anything but natural causes. Cardiac failure, or whatever the longer name is that doctors use. Coronary something.”

“No question of an inquest ever arose?”

Spence shook his head.

“It has happened before,” said Poirot. “An elderly woman told to be careful, not to run up and down stairs, not to do any intensive gardening, and so on and so on. But if you get an energetic woman who's been an enthusiastic gardener all her life and done as she liked in most ways, then she doesn't always treat these recommendations with due respect.”

“That's true enough. Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe made a wonderful thing of the quarry—or rather, the landscape artist did. Three or four years they worked at it, he and his employer. She'd seen some garden, in Ireland I think it was, when she went on a National Trust tour visiting gardens. With that in mind, they fairly transformed the place. Oh yes, it has to be seen to be believed.”

“Here is a natural death, then,” said Poirot, “certified as such
by the local doctor. Is that the same doctor who is here now? And whom I am shortly going to see?”

“Dr. Ferguson—yes. He's a man of about sixty, good at his job and well-liked here.”

“But you suspect that her death
might
have been murder? For any other reason than those that you've already given me?”

“The opera girl, for one thing,” said Elspeth.

“Why?”

“Well, she must have forged the Will. Who forged the Will if she didn't?”

“You must have more to tell me,” said Poirot. “What is all this about a forged Will?”

“Well, there was a bit of fuss when it came to probating, or whatever you call it, the old lady's Will.”

“Was it a new Will?”

“It was what they call—something that sounded like fish—a codi—a codicil.”

Elspeth looked at Poirot, who nodded.

“She'd made Wills before,” said Spence. “All much the same. Bequests to charities, legacies to old servants, but the bulk of her fortune always went to her nephew and his wife, who were her near relatives.”

“And this particular codicil?”

“Left everything to the opera girl,” said Elspeth, “
because of her devoted care and kindness.
Something like that.”

“Tell me, then, more about the
au pair
girl.”

“She came from some country in the middle of Europe. Some long name.”

“How long had she been with the old lady?”

“Just over a year.”

“You call her the old lady always. How old was she?”

“Well in the sixties. Sixty-five or six, say.”

“That is not so very old,” said Poirot feelingly.

“Made several Wills, she had, by all accounts,” said Elspeth. “As Bert has told you, all of them much the same. Leaving money to one or two charities and then perhaps she'd change the charities and some different souvenirs to old servants and all that. But the bulk of the money always went to her nephew and his wife, and I think some other old cousin who was dead, though, by the time she died. She left the bungalow she'd built to the landscape man, for him to live in as long as he liked, and some kind of income for which he was to keep up the quarry garden and let it be walked in by the public. Something like that.”

“I suppose the family claimed that the balance of her mind had been disturbed, that there had been undue influence?”

“I think probably it might have come to that,” said Spence. “But the lawyers, as I say, got on to the forgery sharply. It was not a very convincing forgery, apparently. They spotted it almost at once.”

“Things came to light to show that the opera girl could have done it quite easily,” said Elspeth. “You see, she wrote a great many of Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe's letters for her and it seems Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe had a great dislike of typed letters being sent to friends or anything like that. If it wasn't a business letter, she'd always say ‘write it in handwriting and make it as much like mine as you can and sign it with my name.' Mrs. Minden, the cleaning woman, heard her say that one day, and I suppose the girl
got used to doing it and copying her employer's handwriting and then it came to her suddenly that she could do this and get away with it. And that's how it all came about. But as I say, the lawyers were too sharp and spotted it.”

“Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe's own lawyers?”

“Yes. Fullerton, Harrison and Leadbetter. Very respectable firm in Medchester. They'd always done all her legal business for her. Anyway, they got experts on to it and questions were asked and the girl was asked questions and got the wind up. Just walked out one day leaving half her things behind her. They were preparing to take proceedings against her, but she didn't wait for that. She just got out. It's not so difficult, really, to get out of this country, if you do it in time. Why, you can go on day trips on the Continent without a passport, and if you've got a little arrangement with someone on the other side, things can be arranged long before there is any real hue and cry. She's probably gone back to her own country or changed her name or gone to friends.”

“But everyone thought that Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe died a natural death?” asked Poirot.

“Yes, I don't think there was ever any question of that. I only say it's possible because, as I say, these things have happened before where the doctor has no suspicion. Supposing that girl Joyce had heard something, had heard the
au pair
girl giving medicines to Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe, and the old lady saying ‘this medicine tastes different to the usual one.' Or ‘this has got a bitter taste' or ‘it's peculiar.'”

“Anyone would think you'd been there listening to things yourself, Elspeth,” said Superintendent Spence. “This is all your imagination.”

“When did she die?” said Poirot. “Morning, evening, indoors, out of doors, at home or away from home?”

“Oh, at home. She'd come up from doing things in the garden one day, breathing rather heavily. She said she was very tired and she went to lie down on her bed. And to put it in one sentence, she never woke up. Which is all very natural, it seems, medically speaking.”