Hallowe'en Party

Reynolds? She knows her quite well, and I'm a stranger to her."

"We will do as planned."

"The Computer Programme will go on," murmured Mrs. Oliver rebelliously.

"RS. REYNOLDS was a complete contrast to Mrs. Drake. There was no air of poised competence about her, nor indeed was there ever likely to be.

She was wearing conventional black, had a moist handkerchief clasped in her hand and was clearly prepared to dissolve into tears at any moment.

"It's very kind of you, I'm sure," she said to Mrs. Oliver, "to bring a friend of yours down here to help us." She put a damp hand into Poirot's and looked at him doubtfully.

"And if he can help in any way I'm sure I'll be very grateful, though I don't see what anyone can do. Nothing will bring her back, poor child.

It's awful to think of. How anyone could deliberately kill anyone of that age. If she had only cried out-though I suppose he rammed her head underwater straight away and held it there. Oh, I can't bear to think of it. I really can't."

"Indeed, Madame, I do not want to distress you. Please do not think of it. I only want to ask you a few questions that might help-help, that is, to find your daughter's murderer. You've no idea yourself, I suppose, who it can possibly be?"

"How could I have any idea? I shouldn't have thought there was anyone, anyone living here, I mean. This is such a nice place. And the people living here are such nice people. I suppose it was just someone -some awful man who came in through one of the windows. Perhaps he'd taken drugs or something. He saw the light and that it was a party, so he gate crashed "You are quite sure that the assailant was male?"

"Oh, it must have been." Mrs. Reynolds sounded shocked.

"I'm sure it was.

It couldn't have been a woman, could it?"

"A woman might have been strong enough."

"Well, I suppose in a way I know what you mean. You mean women are much "lore athletic nowadays and all that. But ^ey wouldn't do a thing like this, I'm Are. Joyce was only a child-thirteen years old."

"I don't want to distress you by staying here too long, Madame, or to ask you difficult questions. That already, I am sure, the police are doing elsewhere, and I don't want to upset you by dwelling on painful facts. It was just concerning a remark that your daughter made at the party. You were not there yourself, I think?"

"Well, no, I wasn't. I haven't been very well lately and children's parties can be very tiring. I drove them there, and then later I came back to fetch them. The three children went together, you know. Arm, that's the older one, she is sixteen, and Leopold who is nearly eleven.

What was it Joyce said that you wanted to know about?"

"Mrs. Oliver, who was there, will tell you what your daughter's words were exactly. She said, I believe, that she had once seen a murder committed."

"Joyce? Oh, she couldn't have said a thing like that. What murder could she possibly have seen committed?"

"Well, everyone seems to think it was rather unlikely," said Poirot.

"I just wondered if you thought it likely. Did she ever speak to you about such a thing?"

"Seeing a murder? Joyce?"

"You must remember," said Poirot, "that the term murder might have been used by someone of Joyce's age in a rather loose way. It might have been just a question of somebody being run over by a car, or of children fighting together perhaps and one pushing another into a stream or over a bridge. Something that was not meant seriously, but which had an unfortunate result."

"Well, I can't think of anything like that happening here that Joyce could have seen, and she certainly never said anything about it to me.

She must have been joking."

"She was very positive," said Mrs.

Oliver.

"She kept on saying that it was true and that she'd seen it."

"Did anyone believe her?" asked Mrs.

Reynolds.

"I don't know," said Poirot.

"I don't think they did," said Mrs.

Oliver, "or perhaps they didn't want toer-well, encourage her by saying they believed it."

"They were inclined to jeer at her and say she was making it all up," said Poirot, less kind-hearted than Mrs. Oliver.

"Well, that wasn't very nice of them," said Mrs. Reynolds.

"As though Joyce would tell a lot of lies about things like that." She looked flushed and indignant.

"I know. It seems unlikely," said Poirot.

"It was more possible, was it not, that she might have made a mistake, that she might have seen something she did think could have been described as a murder. Some accident, perhaps."

"She'd have said something about it to me if so, wouldn't she?" said Mrs. Reynolds, still indignant.

"One would think so," said Poirot.

"She did not say so at any time in the past?

You might have forgotten. Especially if it wasn't really important."

"When do you mean?"

"We don't know," said Poirot.

"That is one of the difficulties. It might have been three weeks ago-or three years. She said she had been "quite young' at the time.

What does a thirteen-year-old consider quite young? There was no sensational happening round here that you can recall?"