Hallowe'en Party

Fullerton was a careful and competent lawyer. He was sure of that. The kind of lawyer, too, who would never advise a client to bring a case or to take legal proceedings unless there was very good evidence and justification for so doing.

He turned a corner of the pathway feeling for the moment that his feet were much more important than his speculations.

Was he taking a short cut to Superintendent Spence's dwelling or was he not? As the crow flies, perhaps, but the main road might have been more good to his feet. This path was not a grassy or mossy one, it had the quarry hardness of stone. Then he paused.

In front of him were two figures. Sitting on an outcrop of rock was Michael Garfield. He had a sketching block on his knees and he was drawing, his attention fully on what he was doing. A little way away from him, standing close beside a minute but musical stream that flowed down from above, Miranda Butler was standing. Hercule Poirot forgot his feet, forgot the pains and ills of the human body, and concentrated again on the beauty that human beings could attain.

There was no doubt that Michael Garfield was a very beautiful young man. He found it difficult to know whether he himself liked Michael Garfield or not. It is always difficult to know if you like anyone beautiful. You like beauty to look at, at the same time you dislike beauty almost on principle. Women could be beautiful, but Hercule Poirot was not at all sure that he liked beauty in men. He would not have liked to be a beautiful young man himself, not that there had ever been the least chance of that. There was only one thing about his own appearance which really pleased Hercule Poirot, and that was the profusion of his moustaches, and the way they responded to grooming and treatment and trimming. They were magnificent. He knew of nobody else who had any moustache half as good. He had never been handsome or good-looking. Certainly never beautiful.

And Miranda? He thought again, as he had thought before, that it was her gravity that was so attractive. He wondered what passed through her mind. It was the sort of thing one would never know. She would not say what she was thinking easily. He doubted if she would tell you what she was thinking, if you asked her. She had an original mind, he thought, a reflective mind. He thought too she was vulnerable.

Very vulnerable. There were other things about her that he knew, or thought he knew. It was only thinking so far, but yet he was almost sure.

Michael Garfield looked up and said.

"Ha! Senor Moustachios. A very good afternoon to you, sir."

"Can I look at what you are doing or would it incommode you? I do not want to be intrusive."

"You can look," said Michael Garfield, "it makes no difference to me."

He added gently, "I'm enjoying myself very much."

Poirot came to stand behind his shoulder. He nodded. It was a very delicate pencil drawing, the lines almost invisible. The man could draw, Poirot thought. Not only design gardens. He said, almost under his breath:

"Exquisite!"

"I think so too," said Michael Garfield.

He let it be left doubtful whether he referred to the drawing he was making, or to the sitter.

"Why? asked Poirot.

"Why am I doing it? Do you think I have a reason?"

"You might have."

"You're quite right. If I go away from here, there are one or two things I want to remember. Miranda is one of them."

"Would you forget her easily?"

"Very easily. I am like that. But to have forgotten something or someone, to be unable to bring a face, a turn of a shoulder, a gesture, a tree, a flower, a contour of landscape, to know what it was like to see it but not to be able to bring that image in front of one's eyes, that sometimes causes-what shall I say?-almost agony. You see, you record-and it all passes away."

"Not the Quarry Garden or park. That has not passed away."

"Don't you think so? It soon will. It soon will if no-one is here.

Nature takes over, you know. It needs love and attention and care and skill. If a Council takes it over-and that's what happens very often nowadays-then it will be what they call "kept up'. The latest sort of shrubs may be put in, extra paths will be made, seats will be put at certain distances. Litter bins even may be erected. Oh, they are so careful, so kind at preserving. You can't preserve this. It's wild.

To keep something wild is far more difficult than to preserve it."

"Monsieur Poirot." Miranda's voice came across the stream.

Poirot moved forward, so that he came within earshot of her.

"So I find you here. So you came to sit for your portrait, did you?"

She shook her head.

"I didn't come for that. That just happened."

"Yes," said Michael Garfield, "yes, it just happened. A piece of luck sometimes comes one's way."

"You were just walking in your favourite garden?"

"I was looking for the well, really," said Miranda.

"A well?"

"There was a wishing well once in this wood."

"In a former quarry? I didn't know they kept wells in quarries."