Hallowe'en Party

Fullerton, Harrison and Leadbetter of Market Street, Medchester."

"Those were Mrs. LlewellynSmythe'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 recognised 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 that time. When was Janet White killed?"

"Two and a half years ago."

"That again," said Poirot, "is about the right time. Both for not realising 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 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.