Seven

Mrs. Reynolds was a complete contrast to Mrs. Drake. There was no air ofpoised competence about her, nor indeed was there ever likely to be.

She was wearing conventional black, had a moist handkerchief claspedin her hand and was clearly prepared to dissolve into tears at any mo-ment.

“It’s very kind of you, I’m sure,” she said to Mrs. Oliver, “to bring afriend of yours down here to help us.” She put a damp hand into Poirot’sand looked at him doubtfully. “And if he can help in any way I’m sure I’llbe very grateful, though I don’t see what anyone can do. Nothing willbring her back, poor child. It’s awful to think of. How anyone could delib-erately kill anyone of that age. If she had only cried out—though I supposehe rammed her head under water straight away and held it there. Oh, Ican’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, tofind your daughter’s murderer. You’ve no idea yourself, I suppose, who itcan 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 livinghere are such nice people. I suppose it was just someone—some awfulman who came in through one of the windows. Perhaps he’d taken drugsor 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 itwas. 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 aremuch more athletic nowadays and all that. But they wouldn’t do a thinglike this, I’m sure. Joyce was only a child—thirteen years old.”

“I don’t want to distress you by staying here too long, Madame, or to askyou difficult questions. That already, I am sure, the police are doing else-where, and I don’t want to upset you by dwelling on painful facts. It wasjust concerning a remark that your daughter made at the party. You werenot there yourself, I think?”

“Well, no, I wasn’t. I haven’t been very well lately and children’s partiescan be very tiring. I drove them there, and then later I came back to fetchthem. The three children went together, you know. Ann, that’s the olderone, she is sixteen, and Leopold who is nearly eleven. What was it Joycesaid that you wanted to know about?”

“Mrs. Oliver, who was there, will tell you what your daughter’s wordswere exactly. She said, I believe, that she had once seen a murder commit-ted.”

“Joyce? Oh, she couldn’t have said a thing like that. What murder couldshe possibly have seen committed?”

“Well, everyone seems to think it was rather unlikely,” said Poirot. “Ijust wondered if you thought it likely. Did she ever speak to you aboutsuch a thing?”

“Seeing a murder? Joyce?”

“You must remember,” said Poirot, “that the term murder might havebeen used by someone of Joyce’s age in a rather loose way. It might havebeen just a question of somebody being run over by a car, or of childrenfighting together perhaps and one pushing another into a stream or over abridge. Something that was not meant seriously, but which had an unfor-tunate result.”

“Well, I can’t think of anything like that happening here that Joyce couldhave seen, and she certainly never said anything about it to me. She musthave been joking.”

“She was very positive,” said Mrs. Oliver. “She kept on saying that it wastrue 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 to—er—well, encourage her by saying they believed it.”

“They were inclined to jeer at her and say she was making it all up,” saidPoirot, less kindhearted than Mrs. Oliver.

“Well, that wasn’t very nice of them,” said Mrs. Reynolds. “As thoughJoyce would tell a lot of lies about things like that.” She looked flushed andindignant.

“I know. It seems unlikely,” said Poirot. “It was more possible, was itnot, that she might have made a mistake, that she might have seen some-thing 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?” saidMrs. Reynolds, still indignant.

“One would think so,” said Poirot. “She did not say so at any time in thepast? 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 mighthave been three weeks ago—or three years. She said she had been ‘quiteyoung’ at the time. What does a thirteen-year-old consider quite young?

There was no sensational happening round here that you can recall?”

“Oh, I don’t think so. I mean, you do hear of things. Or read about themin the papers. You know, I mean women being attacked, or a girl and heryoung man, or things like that. But nothing important that I can remem-ber, nothing that Joyce took an interest in or anything of that kind.”

“But if Joyce said positively she saw a murder, would you think shereally thought so?”

“She wouldn’t say so unless she really did think so, would she?” saidMrs. Reynolds. “I think she must have got something mixed up really.”

“Yes, it seems possible. I wonder,” he asked, “if I might speak to yourtwo children who were also at the party?”

“Well, of course, though I don’t know what you can expect them to tellyou. Ann’s doing her work for her ‘A’ levels upstairs and Leopold’s in thegarden assembling a model aeroplane.”

Leopold was a solid, pudgy-faced boy entirely absorbed, it seemed, inmechanical construction. It was some few moments before he could payattention to the questions he was being asked.

“You were there, weren’t you, Leopold? You heard what your sister said.

What did she say?”

“Oh, you mean about the murder?” He sounded bored.

“Yes, that’s what I mean,” said Poirot. “She said she saw a murder once.

Did she really see such a thing?”

“No, of course she didn’t,” said Leopold. “Who on earth would she seemurdered? It was just like Joyce, that.”

“How do you mean, it was just like her?”

“Showing off,” said Leopold, winding round a piece of wire and breath-ing forcefully through his nose as he concentrated. “She was an awfullystupid sort of girl,” he added. “She’d say anything, you know, to makepeople sit up and take notice.”

“So you really think she invented the whole thing?”

Leopold shifted his gaze to Mrs. Oliver.

“I expect she wanted to impress you a bit,” he said. “You write detectivestories, don’t you? I think she was just putting it on so that you should takemore notice of her than you did of the others.”

“That would also be rather like her, would it?” said Poirot.

“Oh, she’d say anything,” said Leopold. “I bet nobody believed herthough.”

“Were you listening? Do you think anyone believed it?”

“Well, I heard her say it, but I didn’t really listen. Beatrice laughed ather and so did Cathie. They said ‘that’s a tall story,’ or something.”

There seemed little more to be got out of Leopold. They went upstairs towhere Ann, looking rather more than her sixteen years, was bending overa table with various study books spread round her.

“Yes, I was at the party,” she said.

“You heard your sister say something about having seen a murder?”

“Oh yes, I heard her. I didn’t take any notice, though.”

“You didn’t think it was true?”

“Of course it wasn’t true. There haven’t been any murders here for ages.

I don’t think there’s been a proper murder for years.”

“Then why do you think she said so?”

“Oh, she likes showing off. I mean she used to like showing off. She hada wonderful story once about having travelled to India. My uncle hadbeen on a voyage there and she pretended she went with him. Lots of girlsat school actually believed her.”

“So you don’t remember any what you call murders taking place here inthe last three or four years?”

“No, only the usual kind,” said Ann. “I mean, the ones you read everyday in the newspaper. And they weren’t actually here in Woodleigh Com-mon. They were mostly in Medchester, I think.”

“Who do you think killed your sister, Ann? You must have known herfriends, you would know any people who didn’t like her.”

“I can’t imagine who’d want to kill her. I suppose someone who was justbatty. Nobody else would, would they?”

“There was no one who had—quarrelled with her or who did not get onwith her?”

“You mean, did she have an enemy? I think that’s silly. People don’thave enemies really. There are just people you don’t like.”

As they departed from the room, Ann said:

“I don’t want to be nasty about Joyce, because she’s dead, and itwouldn’t be kind, but she really was the most awful liar, you know. Imean, I’m sorry to say things about my sister, but it’s quite true.”

“Are we making any progress?” said Mrs. Oliver as they left the house.

“None whatever,” said Hercule Poirot. “That is interesting,” he saidthoughtfully.

Mrs. Oliver looked as though she didn’t agree with him.