Hallowe'en Party Read online

  “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.”

  Poirot took out a little notebook. The page was already headed “Victims.” Under, he wrote, “No. 1. suggested, Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe.” On the next pages of his book he wrote down the other names that Spence had given him. He said, inquiringly:

  “Charlotte Benfield?”

  Spence replied promptly. “Sixteen-year-old shop assistant. Multiple head injuries. Found on a footpath near the Quarry Wood. Two young men came under suspicion. Both had walked out with her from time to time. No evidence.”

  “They assisted the police in their inquiries?” asked Poirot.

  “As you say. It’s the usual phrase. They didn’t assist much. They were frightened. Told a few lies, contradicted themselves. They didn’t carry conviction as likely murderers. But either of them might have been.”

  “What were they like?”

  “Peter Gordon, twenty-one. Unemployed. Had had one or two jobs but never kept them. Lazy. Quite good-looking. Had been on probation once or twice for minor pilferings, things of that kind. No record before of violence. Was in with a rather nasty lot of likely young criminals, but usually managed to keep out of serious trouble.”

  “And the other one?”

  “Thomas Hudd. Twenty. Stammered. Shy. Neurotic. Wanted to be a teacher, but couldn’t make the grade. Mother a widow. The doting mother type. Didn’t encourage girlfriends. Kept him as close to her apron strings as she could. He had a job in a stationer’s. Nothing criminal known against him, but a possibility psychologically, so it seems. The girl played him up a good deal. Jealousy a possible motive, but no evidence that we could prosecute on. Both of them had alibis. Hudd’s was his mother’s. She would have sworn to kingdom come that he was indoors with her all that evening, and nobody can say he wasn’t or had seen him elsewhere or in the neighbourhood of the murder. Young Gordon was given an alibi by some of his less reputable friends. Not worth much, but you couldn’t disprove it.”

  “This happened when?”

  “Eighteen months ago.”

  “And where?”

  “In a footpath in a field not far from Woodleigh Common.”

  “Three quarters of a mile,” said Elspeth.

  “Near Joyce’s house—the Reynolds’ house?”

  “No, it was on the other side of the village.”

  “It seems unlikely to have been the murder Joyce was talking about,” said Poirot thoughtfully. “If you see a girl being bashed on the head by a young man you’d be likely to think of murder straight away. Not to wait for a year before you began to think it was murder.”

  Poirot read another name.

  “Lesley Ferrier.”

  Spence spoke again. “Lawyer’s clerk, twenty-eight, employed by Messrs Fullerton, Harrison and Leadbetter of Market Street, Medchester.”

  “Those were Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe’s solicitors, I think you said.”

  “Yes. Same ones.”

  “And what happened to Lesley Ferrier?”

  “He was stabbed in the back. Not far from the Green Swan Pub. He was said to have been having an affair with the wife of the landlord, Harry Griffin. Handsome piece, she was, indeed still is. Getting perhaps a bit long in the tooth. Five or six years older than he was, but she liked them young.”

  “The weapon?”

  “The knife wasn’t found. Les was said to have broken with her and taken up with some other girl, but what girl was never satisfactorily discovered.”

  “Ah. And who was suspected in this case
? The landlord or the wife?”

  “Quite right,” said Spence. “Might have been either. The wife seemed the more likely. She was half gypsy and a temperamental piece. But there were other possibilities. Our Lesley hadn’t led a blameless life. Got into trouble in his early twenties, falsifying his accounts somewhere. With a spot of forgery. Was said to have come from a broken home and all the rest of it. Employers spoke up for him. He got a short sentence and was taken on by Fullerton, Harrison and Leadbetter when he came out of prison.”

  “And after that he’d gone straight?”

  “Well, nothing proved. He appeared to do so as far as his employers were concerned, but he had been mixed up in a few questionable transactions with his friends. He’s what you might call a wrong ’un but a careful one.”

  “So the alternative was?”

  “That he might have been stabbed by one of his less reputable associates. When you’re in with a nasty crowd you’ve got it coming to you with a knife if you let them down.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Well, he had a good lot of money in his bank account. Paid in in cash, it had been. Nothing to show where it came from. That was suspicious in itself.”

  “Possibly pinched from Fullerton, Harrison and Leadbetter?” suggested Poirot.

  “They say not. They had a chartered accountant to work on it and look into things.”

  “And the police had no idea where else it might have come from?”

  “No.”

  “Again,” said Poirot, “not Joyce’s murder, I should think.”

  He read the last name, “Janet White.”

  “Found strangled on a footpath which was a short cut from the schoolhouse to her home. She shared a flat there with another teacher, Nora Ambrose. According to Nora Ambrose, Janet White had occasionally spoken of being nervous about some man with whom she’d broken off relations a year ago, but who had frequently sent her threatening letters. Nothing was ever found out about this man. Nora Ambrose didn’t know his name, didn’t know exactly where he lived.”

  “Aha,” said Poirot, “I like this better.”

  He made a good, thick black tick against Janet White’s name.

  “For what reason?” asked Spence.

  “It is a more likely murder for a girl of Joyce’s age to have witnessed. She could have recognized the victim, a schoolteacher whom she knew and who perhaps taught her. Possibly she did not know the attacker. She might have seen a struggle, heard a quarrel between a girl whom she knew and a strange man. But thought no more of it than that at the time. When was Janet White killed?”

  “Two and a half years ago.”

  “That again,” said Poirot, “is about the right time. Both for not realizing that the man she may have seen with his hands round Janet White’s neck was not merely necking her, but might have been killing her. But then as she grew more mature, the proper explanation came to her.”

  He looked at Elspeth. “You agree with my reasoning?”

  “I see what you mean,” said Elspeth. “But aren’t you going at all this the wrong way round? Looking for a victim of a past murder instead of looking for a man who killed a child here in Woodleigh Common not more than three days ago?”

  “We go from the past to the future,” said Poirot. “We arrive, shall we say, from two and a half years ago to three days ago. And, therefore, we have to consider—what you, no doubt, have already considered—who was there in Woodleigh Common amongst the people who were at the party who might have been connected with an older crime?”

  “One can narrow it down a bit more than that now,” said Spence. “That is if we are right in accepting your assumption that Joyce was killed because of what she claimed earlier in the day about seeing murder committed. She said those words during the time the preparations for the party were going on. Mind you, we may be wrong in believing that that was the motive for killing, but I don’t think we are wrong. So let us say she claimed to have seen a murder, and someone who was present during the preparations for the party that afternoon could have heard her and acted as soon as possible.”

  “Who was present?” said Poirot. “You know, I presume.”

  “Yes, I have the list for you here.”

  “You have checked it carefully?”

  “Yes, I’ve checked and re-checked, but it’s been quite a job. Here are the eighteen names.”

  List of people present during preparation for Hallowe’en Party

  Mrs. Drake (owner of house)

  Mrs. Butler

  Mrs. Oliver

  Miss Whittaker (schoolteacher)

  Rev. Charles Cotterell (Vicar)

  Simon Lampton (Curate)

  Miss Lee (Dr. Ferguson’s dispenser)

  Ann Reynolds

  Joyce Reynolds

  Leopold Reynolds

  Nicholas Ransom

  Desmond Holland

  Beatrice Ardley

  Cathie Grant

  Diana Brent

  Mrs. Garlton (household help)

  Mrs. Minden (cleaning woman)

  Mrs. Goodbody (helper)

  “You are sure these are all?”

  “No,” said Spence. “I’m not sure. I can’t really be sure. Nobody can. You see, odd people brought things. Somebody brought some coloured light bulbs. Somebody else supplied some mirrors. There were some extra plates. Someone lent a plastic pail. People brought things, exchanged a word or two and went away again. They didn’t remain to help. Therefore such a person could have been overlooked and not remembered as being present. But that somebody, even if they had only just deposited a bucket in the hall, could have overheard what Joyce was saying in the sitting room. She was shouting, you know. We can’t really limit it to this list, but it’s the best we can do. Here you are. Take a look at it. I’ve made a brief descriptive note against the names.”

  “I thank you. Just one question. You must have interrogated some of these people, those for instance who were also at the party. Did anyone, anyone at all, mention what Joyce had said about seeing a murder?”

  “I think not. There is no record of it officially. The first I heard of it is what you told me.”

  “Interesting,” said Poirot. “One might also say remarkable.”

  “Obviously no one took it seriously,” said Spence.

  Poirot nodded thoughtfully.

  “I must go now to keep my appointment with Dr. Ferguson, after his surgery,” he said.

  He folded up Spence’s list and put it in his pocket.

  Nine

  Dr. Ferguson was a man of sixty, of Scottish extraction with a brusque manner. He looked Poirot up and down with shrewd eyes under bristling eyebrows, and said:

  “Well, what’s all this about? Sit down. Mind that chair leg. The castor’s loose.

  “I should perhaps explain,” said Dr. Ferguson. “Everybody knows everything in a place like this. That authoress woman brought you down here as God’s greatest detective to puzzle police officers. That’s more or less right, isn’t it?”

  “In part,” said Poirot. “I came here to visit an old friend ex-Superintendent Spence, who lives with his sister here.”

  “Spence? Hm. Good type, Spence. Bulldog breed. Good honest police officer of the old type. No graft. No violence. Not stupid either. Straight as a die.”

  “You appraise him correctly.”

  “Well,” said Ferguson, “what did you tell him and what did he tell you?”

  “Both he and Inspector Raglan have been exceedingly kind to me. I hope you will likewise.”

  “I’ve nothing to be kind about,” said Ferguson. “I don’t know what happened. Child gets her head shoved in a bucket and is drowned in the middle of a party. Nasty business. Mind you, doing in a child isn’t anything to be startled about nowadays. I’ve been called out to look at too many murdered children in the last seven to ten years—far too many. A lot of people who ought to be under mental restraint aren’t under mental restraint. No room in the asylums. They go about, nicely spoke
n, nicely got up and looking like everybody else, looking for somebody they can do in. And enjoy themselves. Don’t usually do it at a party, though. Too much chance of getting caught, I suppose, but novelty appeals even to a mentally disturbed killer.”

  “Have you any idea who killed her?”

  “Do you really suppose that’s a question I can answer just like that? I’d have to have some evidence, wouldn’t I? I’d have to be sure.”

  “You could guess,” said Poirot.

  “Anyone can guess. If I’m called in to a case I have to guess whether the chap’s going to have measles or whether it’s a case of an allergy to shellfish or to feather pillows. I have to ask questions to find out what they’ve been eating, or drinking, or sleeping on, or what other children they’ve been meeting. Whether they’ve been in a crowded bus with Mrs. Smith’s or Mrs. Robinson’s children who’ve all got the measles, and a few other things. Then I advance a tentative opinion as to which it is of the various possibilities, and that, let me tell you, is what’s called diagnosis. You don’t do it in a hurry and you make sure.”

  “Did you know this child?”

  “Of course. She was one of my patients. There are two of us here. Myself and Worrall. I happen to be the Reynolds’ doctor. She was quite a healthy child, Joyce. Had the usual small childish ailments. Nothing peculiar or out of the way. Ate too much, talked too much. Talking too much hadn’t done her any harm. Eating too much gave her what used to be called in the old days a bilious attack from time to time. She’d had mumps and chicken pox. Nothing else.”

  “But she had perhaps talked too much on one occasion, as you suggest she might be able to do?”

  “So that’s the tack you’re on? I heard some rumour of that. On the lines of ‘what the butler saw’—only tragedy instead of comedy. Is that it?”

  “It could form a motive, a reason.”

  “Oh yes. Grant you that. But there are other reasons. Mentally disturbed seems the usual answer nowadays. At any rate, it does always in the Magistrates’ courts. Nobody gained by her death, nobody hated her. But it seems to me with children nowadays you don’t need to look for the reason. The reason’s in another place. The reason’s in the killer’s mind. His disturbed mind or his evil mind or his kinky mind. Any kind of mind you like to call it. I’m not a psychiatrist. There are times when I get tired of hearing those words: ‘Remanded for a psychiatrist’s report,’ after a lad has broken in somewhere, smashed the looking glasses, pinched the bottles of whisky, stolen the silver, knocked an old woman on the head. Doesn’t matter much what it is now. Remand them for the psychiatrist’s report.”