Agatha Christie - Hallowe'en Party

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, 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."

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 CID 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 to-day 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 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 headmistress 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, 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, organised by her, nothing like this ought to have happened.