Agatha Christie - Hallowe'en Party

"We've lost Miranda."

"What do you mean, lost her?"

"We had lunch at The Black Boy. She went to the loo. She didn't come back.

Somebody said they saw her driving away with an elderly man. But it mightn't have been her. It might have been someone else. It-"

"Someone should have stayed with her.

Neither of you ought to have let her out of your sight. I told you there was danger.

Is Mrs. Butler very worried?"

"Of course she's worried. What do you think? She's frantic. She insists on ringing the police."

"Yes, that would be the natural thing to do. I will ring them also."

"But why should Miranda be in danger?"

"Don't you know? You ought to by now." He added, "The body's been found. I've just heard "

"What body?"

"A body in a well."

"IT'S beautiful," said Miranda, looking round her.

Kilterbury Ring was a local beauty spot though its remains were not particularly famous. They had been dismantled many hundreds of years ago. Yet here and there a tall megalithic stone still stood, upright, telling of a long past ritual worship. Miranda asked questions.

"Why did they have all these stones here?"

"For ritual. Ritual worship. Ritual sacrifice. You understand about sacrifice, don't you, Miranda?"

"I think so."

"It has to be, you see. It's important."

"You mean, it's not a sort of punishment?

It's something else?"

"Yes, it's something else. You die so that others should live. You die so that beauty should live. Should come into being. That's the important thing."

"I thought perhaps-"

"Yes, Miranda?"

"I thought perhaps you ought to die because what you've done has killed someone else."

"What put that into your head?"

"I was thinking of Joyce. If I hadn't told her about something, she wouldn't have died, would she?"

"Perhaps not."

"I've felt worried since Joyce died. I needn't have told her, need I?

I told her because I wanted to have something worth while telling her.

She'd been to India and she kept talking about it-about the tigers and about the elephants and their gold hangings and decorations and their trappings.

And I think, too-suddenly I wanted somebody else to know, because you see I hadn't really thought about it before." She added: "Was-was that a sacrifice, too?"

"In a way."

Miranda remained contemplative, then she said, "Isn't it time yet?"

"The sun is not quite right yet. Another five minutes, perhaps, and then it will fall directly on the stone."

Again they sat silent, beside the car.

"Now, I think," said Miranda's companion, looking up at the sky where the sun was dipping towards the horizon.

"Now is a wonderful moment. No one here. Nobody comes up at this time of day and walks up to the top of Kilterbury Down to see Kilterbury Ring. Too cold in November and the blackberries are over.

I'll show you the double axe first. The double axe on the stone.

Carved there when they came from Mycenae or from Crete hundreds of years ago. It's wonderful, Miranda, isn't it?"

"Yes, it's very wonderful," said Miranda. "Show it me."

They walked up to the topmost stone.

Beside it lay a fallen one and a little farther down the slope a slightly inclined one leant as though bent with the weariness of years.

"Are you happy, Miranda?"

"Yes, I'm very happy."

"There's the sign here."

"Is that really the double axe?"

"Yes, it's worn with time but that's it.

That's the symbol. Put your hand on it.

And now now we will drink to the past and the future and to beauty."

"Oh, how lovely," said Miranda.

A golden cup was put into her hand, and from a flask her companion poured a golden liquid into it.

"It tastes of fruit, of peaches. Drink it, Miranda, and you will be happier still."

Miranda took the gilt cup. She sniffed at it.

"Yes. Yes, it does smell of peaches. Oh look, there's the sun. Really red gold looking as though it was lying on the edge of the world."

He turned her towards it.

"Hold up the cup and drink."

She turned obediently. One hand was still on the megalithic stone and its semi erased sign. Her companion now was standing behind her. From below the inclined stone down the hill, two figures slipped out, bent half double. Those on the summit had their backs to them, and did not even notice them. Quickly but stealthily they ran up the hill.

"Drink to beauty, Miranda."

"Like hell she does!" said a voice behind them.

A rose velvet coat shot over a head, a knife was knocked from the hand that was slowly rising. Nicholas Ransom caught hold of Miranda, clasping her tightly and dragging her away from the other two who were struggling.

"You bloody little idiot," said Nicholas Ransom. "Coming up here with a barmy murderer. You should have known what you were doing."

"I did in a way," said Miranda.

"I was going to be a sacrifice, I think, because you see it was all my fault. It was because of me that Joyce was killed. So it was right for me to be a sacrifice, wasn't it? It would be a kind of ritual killing."

"Don't start talking nonsense about ritual killings. They've found that other girl. You know, the au pair girl who has been missing so long. A couple of years or something like that. They all thought she'd run away because she'd forged a Will. She hadn't run away. Her body was found in the well."

"Oh!" Miranda gave a sudden cry of anguish. "Not in the wishing well? Not in the wishing well that I wanted to find so badly? Oh, I don't want her to be in the wishing well. Who who put her there?"

"The same person who brought you here."

ONCE again four men sat looking at Poirot. Timothy Raglan, Superintendent Spence and the Chief Constable had the pleased expectant look of a cat who is counting on a saucer of cream to materialise at any moment. The fourth man still had the expression of one who suspends belief.

"Well, Monsieur Poirot," said the Chief Constable, taking charge of the proceedings and leaving the DPP man to hold a watching brief.

"We're all here-" Poirot made a motion with his hand.

Inspector Raglan left the room and returned ushering in a woman of thirty odd, a girl, and two adolescent young men.

He introduced them to the Chief Constable.

"Mrs. Butler, Miss Miranda Butler, Mr. Nicholas Ransom and Mr. Desmond Holland."

Poirot got up and took Miranda's hand.

"Sit here by your mother, Miranda-Mr. Richmond here who is what is called a Chief Constable, wants to ask you some questions. He wants you to answer them.

It concerns something you saw-over a year ago now, nearer two years.

You mention this to one person, and, so I understand, to one person only. Is that correct?"

"I told Joyce."

"And what exactly did you tell Joyce?"

"That I'd seen a murder."

"Did you tell anyone else?"

"No. But I think Leopold guessed. He listens, you know. At doors.

That sort of thing. He likes knowing people's secrets."

"You have heard that Joyce Reynolds, on the afternoon before the Hallowe'en party, claimed that she herself had seen a murder committed.

Was that true?"

"No. She was just repeating what I'd told her-but pretending that it had happened to her."

"Will you tell us now just what you did see."

"I didn't know at first that it was a murder. I thought there had been an accident.

I thought she'd fallen from up above somewhere."

"Where was this?"

"In the Quarry Garden in the hollow where the fountain used to be. I was up in the branches of a tree. I'd been looking at a squirrel and one has to keep very quiet, or they rush away. Squirrels are very quick."

"Tell us what you saw."

"A man and a woman lifted her up and were carrying her up the path. I thought they were taking her to a hospital or to the Quarry House. Then the woman stopped suddenly and said, "Someone is watching us," and stared at my tree. Somehow it made me feel frightened. I kept very still.