Eight

It was six o’clock at Pine Crest. Hercule Poirot put a piece of sausage intohis mouth and followed it up with a sip of tea. The tea was strong and toPoirot singularly unpalatable. The sausage, on the other hand, was deli-cious. Cooked to perfection. He looked with appreciation across the tableto where Mrs. McKay presided over the large brown teapot.

Elspeth McKay was as unlike her brother, Superintendent Spence, as shecould be in every way. Where he was broad, she was angular. Her sharp,thin face looked out on the world with shrewd appraisal. She was thin as athread, yet there was a certain likeness between them. Mainly the eyesand the strongly marked line of the jaw. Either of them, Poirot thought,could be relied upon for judgement and good sense. They would expressthemselves differently, but that was all. Superintendent Spence would ex-press himself slowly and carefully as the result of due thought and delib-eration. Mrs. McKay would pounce, quick and sharp, like a cat upon amouse.

“A lot depends,” said Poirot, “upon the character of this child. JoyceReynolds. This is what puzzles me most.”

He looked inquiringly at Spence.

“You can’t go by me,” said Spence, “I’ve not lived here long enough. Bet-ter ask Elspeth.”

Poirot looked across the table, his eyebrows raised inquiringly. Mrs.

McKay was sharp as usual in response.

“I’d say she was a proper little liar,” she said.

“Not a girl whom you’d trust and believe what she said?”

Elspeth shook her head decidedly.

“No, indeed. Tell a tall tale, she would, and tell it well, mind you. But I’dnever believe her.”

“Tell it with the object of showing off?”

“That’s right. They told you the Indian story, didn’t they? There’s manyas believed that, you know. Been away for the holidays, the family had.

Gone abroad somewhere. I don’t know if it was her father and mother orher uncle and aunt, but they went to India and she came back from thoseholidays with tall tales of how she’d been taken there with them. Made agood story of it, she did. A Maharajah and a tiger shoot and elephants—ah,it was fine hearing and a lot of those around her here believed it. But Isaid straight along, she’s telling more than ever happened. Could be, Ithought at first, she was just exaggerating. But the story got added to everytime. There were more tigers, if you know what I mean. Far more tigersthan could possibly happen. And elephants, too, for that matter. I’d knownher before, too, telling tall stories.”

“Always to get attention?”

“Aye, you’re right there. She was a great one for getting attention.”

“Because a child told a tall story about a travel trip she never took,” saidSuperintendent Spence, “you can’t say that every tall tale she told was alie.”

“It might not be,” said Elspeth, “but I’d say the likelihood was that it usu-ally would be.”

“So you think that if Joyce Reynolds came out with a tale that she’d seena murder committed, you’d say she was probably lying and you wouldn’tbelieve the story was true?”

“That’s what I’d think,” said Mrs. McKay.

“You might be wrong,” said her brother.

“Yes,” said Mrs. McKay. “Anyone may be wrong. It’s like the old story ofthe boy who cried ‘Wolf, wolf,’ and he cried it once too often, when it wasa real wolf, and nobody believed him, and so the wolf got him.”

“So you’d sum it up—”

“I’d still say the probabilities are that she wasn’t speaking the truth. ButI’m a fair woman. She may have been. She may have seen something. Notquite so much as she said she saw, but something.”

“And so she got herself killed,” said Superintendent Spence. “You’ve gotto mind that, Elspeth. She got herself killed.”

“That’s true enough,” said Mrs. McKay. “And that’s why I’m sayingmaybe I’ve misjudged her. And if so, I’m sorry. But ask anyone who knewher and they’ll tell you that lies came natural to her. It was a party she wasat, remember, and she was excited. She’d want to make an effect.”

“Indeed, they didn’t believe her,” said Poirot.

Elspeth McKay shook her head doubtfully.

“Who could she have seen murdered?” asked Poirot.

He looked from brother to sister.

“Nobody,” said Mrs. McKay with decision.

“There must have been deaths here, say, over the last three years.”

“Oh that, naturally,” said Spence. “Just the usual—old folks or invalidsor what you’d expect—or maybe a hit-and-run motorist—”

“No unusual or unexpected deaths?”

“Well—” Elspeth hesitated. “I mean—”

Spence took over.

“I’ve jotted a few names down here.” He pushed the paper over toPoirot. “Save you a bit of trouble, asking questions around.”

“Are these suggested victims?”

“Hardly as much as that. Say within the range of possibility.”

Poirot read aloud.

“Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe. Charlotte Benfield. Janet White. Lesley Ferrier—” He broke off, looked across the table and repeated the first name. Mrs.

Llewellyn-Smythe.

“Could be,” said Mrs. McKay. “Yes, you might have something there.”

She added a word that sounded like “opera.”

“Opera?” Poirot looked puzzled. He had heard of no opera.

“Went off one night, she did,” said Elspeth, “was never heard of again.”

“Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe?”

“No, no. The opera girl. She could have put something in the medicineeasily enough. And she came into all the money, didn’t she—or so shethought at the time?”

Poirot looked at Spence for enlightenment.

“And never been heard of since,” said Mrs. McKay. “These foreign girlsare all the same.”

The significance of the word “opera” came to Poirot.

“An au pair girl,” he said.

“That’s right. Lived with the old lady, and a week or two after the oldlady died, the au pair girl just disappeared.”

“Went off with some man, I’d say,” said Spence.

“Well, nobody knew of him if so,” said Elspeth. “And there’s usuallyplenty to talk about here. Usually know just who’s going with who.”

“Did anybody think there had been anything wrong about Mrs.

Llewellyn-Smythe’s death?” asked Poirot.

“No. She’d got heart trouble. Doctor attended her regularly.”

“But you headed your list of possible victims with her, my friend?”

“Well, she was a rich woman, a very rich woman. Her death was not un-expected but it was sudden. I’d say offhand that Dr. Ferguson was sur-prised, even if only slightly surprised. I think he expected her to livelonger. But doctors do have these surprises. She wasn’t one to do as thedoctor ordered. She’d been told not to overdo things, but she did exactly asshe liked. For one thing, she was a passionate gardener, and that doesn’tdo heart cases any good.”

Elspeth McKay took up the tale.

“She came here when her health failed. She was living abroad before.

She came here to be near her nephew and niece, Mr. and Mrs. Drake, andshe bought the Quarry House. A big Victorian house which included a dis-used quarry which attracted her as having possibilities. She spent thou-sands of pounds on turning that quarry into a sunk garden or whateverthey call the thing. Had a landscape gardener down from Wisley or one ofthese places to design it. Oh, I can tell you, it’s something to look at.”

“I shall go and look at it,” said Poirot. “Who knows—it might give meideas.”

“Yes, I would go if I were you. It’s worth seeing.”

“And she was rich, you say?” said Poirot.

“Widow of a big shipbuilder. She had packets of money.”

“Her death was not unexpected because she had a heart condition, but itwas sudden,” said Spence. “No doubts arose that it was due to anythingbut natural causes. Cardiac failure, or whatever the longer name is thatdoctors use. Coronary something.”

“No question of an inquest ever arose?”

Spence shook his head.

“It has happened before,” said Poirot. “An elderly woman told to becareful, not to run up and down stairs, not to do any intensive gardening,and so on and so on. But if you get an energetic woman who’s been an en-thusiastic gardener all her life and done as she liked in most ways, thenshe doesn’t always treat these recommendations with due respect.”

“That’s true enough. Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe made a wonderful thing ofthe quarry—or rather, the landscape artist did. Three or four years theyworked at it, he and his employer. She’d seen some garden, in Ireland Ithink it was, when she went on a National Trust tour visiting gardens.

With that in mind, they fairly transformed the place. Oh yes, it has to beseen to be believed.”

“Here is a natural death, then,” said Poirot, “certified as such by the localdoctor. Is that the same doctor who is here now? And whom I am shortlygoing to see?”

“Dr. Ferguson—yes. He’s a man of about sixty, good at his job and well-liked here.”

“But you suspect that her death might have been murder? For any otherreason than those that you’ve already given me?”

“The opera girl, for one thing,” said Elspeth.

“Why?”

“Well, she must have forged the Will. Who forged the Will if she didn’t?”

“You must have more to tell me,” said Poirot. “What is all this about aforged Will?”

“Well, there was a bit of fuss when it came to probating, or whateveryou call it, the old lady’s Will.”

“Was it a new Will?”

“It was what they call—something that sounded like fish—a codi—a co-dicil.”

Elspeth looked at Poirot, who nodded.

“She’d made Wills before,” said Spence. “All much the same. Bequests tocharities, legacies to old servants, but the bulk of her fortune always wentto her nephew and his wife, who were her near relatives.”

“And this particular codicil?”

“Left everything to the opera girl,” said Elspeth, “because of her devotedcare and kindness. Something like that.”

“Tell me, then, more about the au pair girl.”

“She came from some country in the middle of Europe. Some longname.”

“How long had she been with the old lady?”

“Just over a year.”

“You call her the old lady always. How old was she?”

“Well in the sixties. Sixty-five or six, say.”

“That is not so very old,” said Poirot feelingly.

“Made several Wills, she had, by all accounts,” said Elspeth. “As Bert hastold you, all of them much the same. Leaving money to one or two charit-ies and then perhaps she’d change the charities and some differentsouvenirs to old servants and all that. But the bulk of the money alwayswent to her nephew and his wife, and I think some other old cousin whowas dead, though, by the time she died. She left the bungalow she’d builtto the landscape man, for him to live in as long as he liked, and some kindof income for which he was to keep up the quarry garden and let it bewalked in by the public. Something like that.”

“I suppose the family claimed that the balance of her mind had been dis-turbed, that there had been undue influence?”

“I think probably it might have come to that,” said Spence. “But the law-yers, as I say, got on to the forgery sharply. It was not a very convincingforgery, apparently. They spotted it almost at once.”

“Things came to light to show that the opera girl could have done itquite easily,” said Elspeth. “You see, she wrote a great many of Mrs.

Llewellyn- Smythe’s letters for her and it seems Mrs. Llewellyn- Smythehad a great dislike of typed letters being sent to friends or anything likethat. If it wasn’t a business letter, she’d always say ‘write it in handwritingand make it as much like mine as you can and sign it with my name.’ Mrs.

Minden, the cleaning woman, heard her say that one day, and I supposethe girl got used to doing it and copying her employer’s handwriting andthen it came to her suddenly that she could do this and get away with it.

And that’s how it all came about. But as I say, the lawyers were too sharpand spotted it.”

“Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe’s own lawyers?”

“Yes. Fullerton, Harrison and Leadbetter. Very respectable firm inMedchester. They’d always done all her legal business for her. Anyway,they got experts on to it and questions were asked and the girl was askedquestions and got the wind up. Just walked out one day leaving half herthings behind her. They were preparing to take proceedings against her,but she didn’t wait for that. She just got out. It’s not so difficult, really, toget out of this country, if you do it in time. Why, you can go on day trips onthe Continent without a passport, and if you’ve got a little arrangementwith someone on the other side, things can be arranged long before thereis any real hue and cry. She’s probably gone back to her own country orchanged her name or gone to friends.”

“But everyone thought that Mrs. Llewellyn- Smythe died a naturaldeath?” asked Poirot.

“Yes, I don’t think there was ever any question of that. I only say it’s pos-sible because, as I say, these things have happened before where the doc-tor has no suspicion. Supposing that girl Joyce had heard something, hadheard the au pair girl giving medicines to Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe, and theold lady saying ‘this medicine tastes different to the usual one.’ Or ‘this hasgot a bitter taste’ or ‘it’s peculiar.’”

“Anyone would think you’d been there listening to things yourself,Elspeth,” said Superintendent Spence. “This is all your imagination.”

“When did she die?” said Poirot. “Morning, evening, indoors, out ofdoors, at home or away from home?”

“Oh, at home. She’d come up from doing things in the garden one day,breathing rather heavily. She said she was very tired and she went to liedown on her bed. And to put it in one sentence, she never woke up. Whichis all very natural, it seems, medically speaking.”

Poirot took out a little notebook. The page was already headed “Vic-tims.” Under, he wrote, “No. 1. suggested, Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe.” On thenext pages of his book he wrote down the other names that Spence hadgiven him. He said, inquiringly:

“Charlotte Benfield?”

Spence replied promptly. “Sixteen- year- old shop assistant. Multiplehead injuries. Found on a footpath near the Quarry Wood. Two youngmen came under suspicion. Both had walked out with her from time totime. No evidence.”

“They assisted the police in their inquiries?” asked Poirot.

“As you say. It’s the usual phrase. They didn’t assist much. They werefrightened. Told a few lies, contradicted themselves. They didn’t carry con-viction as likely murderers. But either of them might have been.”

“What were they like?”

“Peter Gordon, twenty-one. Unemployed. Had had one or two jobs butnever kept them. Lazy. Quite good-looking. Had been on probation onceor twice for minor pilferings, things of that kind. No record before of viol-ence. Was in with a rather nasty lot of likely young criminals, but usuallymanaged to keep out of serious trouble.”

“And the other one?”

“Thomas Hudd. Twenty. Stammered. Shy. Neurotic. Wanted to be ateacher, but couldn’t make the grade. Mother a widow. The doting mothertype. Didn’t encourage girlfriends. Kept him as close to her apron stringsas she could. He had a job in a stationer’s. Nothing criminal known againsthim, but a possibility psychologically, so it seems. The girl played him up agood deal. Jealousy a possible motive, but no evidence that we could pro-secute on. Both of them had alibis. Hudd’s was his mother’s. She wouldhave sworn to kingdom come that he was indoors with her all that even-ing, and nobody can say he wasn’t or had seen him elsewhere or in theneighbourhood of the murder. Young Gordon was given an alibi by someof his less reputable friends. Not worth much, but you couldn’t disproveit.”

“This happened when?”

“Eighteen months ago.”

“And where?”

“In a footpath in a field not far from Woodleigh Common.”

“Three quarters of a mile,” said Elspeth.

“Near Joyce’s house—the Reynolds’ house?”

“No, it was on the other side of the village.”

“It seems unlikely to have been the murder Joyce was talking about,”

said Poirot thoughtfully. “If you see a girl being bashed on the head by ayoung man you’d be likely to think of murder straight away. Not to waitfor a year before you began to think it was murder.”

Poirot read another name.

“Lesley Ferrier.”

Spence spoke again. “Lawyer’s clerk, twenty-eight, employed by MessrsFullerton, Harrison and Leadbetter of Market Street, Medchester.”

“Those were Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe’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 wassaid to have been having an affair with the wife of the landlord, HarryGriffin. Handsome piece, she was, indeed still is. Getting perhaps a bit longin the tooth. Five or six years older than he was, but she liked themyoung.”

“The weapon?”

“The knife wasn’t found. Les was said to have broken with her andtaken up with some other girl, but what girl was never satisfactorily dis-covered.”

“Ah. And who was suspected in this case? The landlord or the wife?”

“Quite right,” said Spence. “Might have been either. The wife seemed themore likely. She was half gypsy and a temperamental piece. But therewere other possibilities. Our Lesley hadn’t led a blameless life. Got intotrouble in his early twenties, falsifying his accounts somewhere. With aspot of forgery. Was said to have come from a broken home and all therest of it. Employers spoke up for him. He got a short sentence and wastaken on by Fullerton, Harrison and Leadbetter when he came out ofprison.”

“And after that he’d gone straight?”

“Well, nothing proved. He appeared to do so as far as his employerswere concerned, but he had been mixed up in a few questionable transac-tions with his friends. He’s what you might call a wrong ’un but a carefulone.”

“So the alternative was?”

“That he might have been stabbed by one of his less reputable associ-ates. When you’re in with a nasty crowd you’ve got it coming to you with aknife if you let them down.”

“Anything else?”

“Well, he had a good lot of money in his bank account. Paid in in cash, ithad been. Nothing to show where it came from. That was suspicious in it-self.”

“Possibly pinched from Fullerton, Harrison and Leadbetter?” suggestedPoirot.

“They say not. They had a chartered accountant to work on it and lookinto 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 school-house to her home. She shared a flat there with another teacher, Nora Am-brose. According to Nora Ambrose, Janet White had occasionally spokenof being nervous about some man with whom she’d broken off relations ayear ago, but who had frequently sent her threatening letters. Nothingwas 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 recognized the victim, a schoolteacher whom she knewand who perhaps taught her. Possibly she did not know the attacker. Shemight have seen a struggle, heard a quarrel between a girl whom sheknew and a strange man. But thought no more of it than that at the time.

When was Janet White killed?”

“Two and a half years ago.”

“That again,” said Poirot, “is about the right time. Both for not realizingthat the man she may have seen with his hands round Janet White’s neckwas not merely necking her, but might have been killing her. But then asshe 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 thewrong way round? Looking for a victim of a past murder instead of look-ing for a man who killed a child here in Woodleigh Common not morethan three days ago?”

“We go from the past to the future,” said Poirot. “We arrive, shall wesay, from two and a half years ago to three days ago. And, therefore, wehave to consider—what you, no doubt, have already considered—who wasthere in Woodleigh Common amongst the people who were at the partywho might have been connected with an older crime?”

“One can narrow it down a bit more than that now,” said Spence. “Thatis if we are right in accepting your assumption that Joyce was killed be-cause of what she claimed earlier in the day about seeing murder commit-ted. She said those words during the time the preparations for the partywere going on. Mind you, we may be wrong in believing that that was themotive for killing, but I don’t think we are wrong. So let us say she claimedto have seen a murder, and someone who was present during the prepara-tions for the party that afternoon could have heard her and acted as soonas 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 theeighteen names.”

List of people present during preparation for Hallowe’en PartyMrs. Drake (owner of house)

Mrs. Butler

Mrs. Oliver

Miss Whittaker (schoolteacher)

Rev. Charles Cotterell (Vicar)

Simon Lampton (Curate)

Miss Lee (Dr. Ferguson’s dispenser)

Ann Reynolds

Joyce Reynolds

Leopold Reynolds

Nicholas Ransom

Desmond Holland

Beatrice Ardley

Cathie Grant

Diana Brent

Mrs. Garlton (household help)

Mrs. Minden (cleaning woman)

Mrs. Goodbody (helper)

“You are sure these are all?”

“No,” said Spence. “I’m not sure. I can’t really be sure. Nobody can. Yousee, odd people brought things. Somebody brought some coloured lightbulbs. Somebody else supplied some mirrors. There were some extraplates. Someone lent a plastic pail. People brought things, exchanged aword or two and went away again. They didn’t remain to help. Thereforesuch a person could have been overlooked and not remembered as beingpresent. But that somebody, even if they had only just deposited a bucketin the hall, could have overheard what Joyce was saying in the sittingroom. She was shouting, you know. We can’t really limit it to this list, butit’s the best we can do. Here you are. Take a look at it. I’ve made a brief de-scriptive note against the names.”

“I thank you. Just one question. You must have interrogated some ofthese people, those for instance who were also at the party. Did anyone,anyone at all, mention what Joyce had said about seeing a murder?”

“I think not. There is no record of it officially. The first I heard of it iswhat you told me.”

“Interesting,” said Poirot. “One might also say remarkable.”

“Obviously no one took it seriously,” said Spence.

Poirot nodded thoughtfully.

“I must go now to keep my appointment with Dr. Ferguson, after his sur-gery,” he said.

He folded up Spence’s list and put it in his pocket.