Agatha Christie - Hallowe'en Party

"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 Ernlyn, 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; overcrowded, so doctor's 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 look at it, gets the urge again and another young woman goes out walking and is found in a gravel pit, 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, 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. Oliver'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 farfetched 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 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."

"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 recognise that it was a murder she was looking at 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 realise its true significance. That might apply to a lot of things you know, mon cher.

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 realise 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. Terhaps 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.