Hallowe'en Party

"And this girl and the man who had committed forgery were great friends. He had given up his own girl and he'd tied up with the foreign girl instead."

"What you're suggesting is that that forged Will was forged by Lesley Ferrier."

"There seems a likelihood of it, does there not?"

"Olga was supposed to have been able to copy Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe's handwriting fairly well, but it seemed to me always that that was rather a doubtful point. She wrote handwritten letters for Mrs.

Llewellyn-Smythe but I don't suppose that they were really particularly similar. Not enough to pass muster. But if she and Lesley were in it together, that's different. I daresay he could pass off a good enough job and he was probably quite cocksure that it would go through.

But then he must have been sure of that when he committed his original offence, and he was wrong there, and I suppose he was wrong this time.

I suppose that when the balloon went up, when the lawyers began making trouble and difficulties, and experts were called in to examine things and started asking questions, it could be that she lost her nerve, and had a row with Lesley. And then she cleared out, hoping he'd carry the can."

He gave his head a sharp shake.

"Why do you come and talk to me about things like that here, in my beautiful wood?"

"I wanted to know."

"It's better not to know. It's better never to know. Better to leave things as they are. Not push and pry and poke."

"You want beauty," said Hercule Poirot.

"Beauty at any price. For me, it is truth I want. Always truth."

Michael Garfield laughed.

"Go on home to your police friends and leave me here in my local paradise. Get thee beyond me, Satan."

OIROT went on up the hill.

Suddenly he no longer felt the pain of his feet. Something had come to him. The fitting together of the things he had thought and felt, had known they were connected, but had not seen how they were connected. He was conscious now of danger danger that might come to someone any minute now unless steps were taken to prevent it. Serious danger.

Elspeth McKay came out to the door to meet him.

"You look fagged out," she said.

"Come and sit down."

"Your brother is here?"

"No. He's gone down to the station.

Something's happened, I believe."

"Something has happened?" He was startled.

"So soon? Not possible."

"Eh?" said Elspeth.

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing. Nothing. Something has happened to somebody, do you mean?"

"Yes, but I don't know who exactly.

Anyway, Tim Raglan rang up and asked for him to go down there. I'll get you a cup of tea, shall I?"

"No," said Poirot, "thank you very much, but I think-I think I will go home." He could not face the prospect of black bitter tea. He thought of a good excuse that would mask any signs of bad manners.

"My feet," he explained.

"My feet. I am not very suitably attired as to footwear for the country. A change of shoes would be desirable."

Elspeth McKay looked down at them.

"No," she said.

"I can see they're not.

Patent leather draws the feet. There's a letter for you, by the way.

Foreign stamps on it. Come from abroad-co Superintendent Spence, Pine Crest. I'll bring it to you."

She came back in a minute or two, and handed it to him.

"If you don't want the envelope, I'd like it for one of my nephews-he collects stamps."

"Of course." Poirot opened the letter and handed her the envelope. She thanked him and went back into the house.

Poirot unfolded the sheet and read.

Mr. Goby's foreign service was run with the same competence that he showed in his English one. He spared no expense and got his results quickly.

True, the results did not amount to much Poirot had not thought that they would.

Olga Seminoff had not returned to her home town. She had had no family still living. She had had a friend, an elderly woman, with whom she had corresponded intermittently, giving news of her life in England.

She had been on good terms with her employer who had been occasionally exacting, but has also been generous.

The last letters received from Olga had been dated about a year and a half ago. In them there had been mention of a young man. There were hints that they were considering marriage, but the young man, whose name she did not mention, had, she said, his way to make, so nothing could be settled as yet. In her last letter she spoke happily of their prospects being good.

When no more letters came, the elderly friend assumed that Olga had married her Englishman and changed her address.

Such things happened frequently when girls went to England. If they were happily married they often never wrote again.

She had not worried.

It fitted, Poirot thought. Lesley had spoken of marriage, but might not have meant it. Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe had been spoken of as "generous". Lesley had been given money by someone, Olga perhaps (money originally given her by her employers), to induce him to do forgery on her behalf.

Elspeth McKay came out on the terrace again. Poirot consulted her as to her surmises about a partnership between Olga and Lesley.