AgathaChristie-HalloweenParty

by Hallowe'en Party (lit)

  to commit crimes, quite young children.

  Children of seven, of nine and so on, and it was often difficult to know how to

  dispose of these natural, it seemed, young

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  criminals who came before the juvenile

  courts. Excuses had to be brought for

  them. Broken homes. Negligent and

  unsuitable parents. But the people who

  spoke the most vehemently for them, the

  people who sought to bring forth every

  excuse for them, were usually the type of

  Rowena Drake. A stern and censorious

  woman, except in such cases.

  For himself, Poirot did not agree. He

  was a man who thought first always of

  justice. He was suspicious, had always

  been suspicious, of mercy--too much

  mercy, that is to say. Too much mercy, as he knew from former experience both

  in Belgium and this country, often resulted

  in further crimes which were fatal to innocent

  victims who need not have been

  victims if justice had been put first and

  mercy second.

  "I see," said Poirot. "I see."

  "You don't think it's possible that Miss

  Whittaker might have seen someone go

  into the library?" suggested Mrs. Drake.

  Poirot was interested.

  "Ah, you think that that might have

  been so?"

  "It seemed to me merely a possibility.

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  She might have caught sight of someone

  going in through the library, say, perhaps

  five minutes or so earlier, and then, when

  I dropped the vase it might have suggested

  to her that I could have caught a glimpse

  of the same person. That I might have

  seen who it was. Perhaps she doesn't like

  to say anything that might suggest,

  unfairly perhaps, some person whom she

  had perhaps only half glimpsed—not

  enough to be sure of. Some back view

  perhaps of a child, or a young boy."

  "You think, do you not, Madame, that

  it was—shall we say, a child—a boy or

  girl, a mere child, or a young adolescent?

  You think it was not any definite one of

  these but, shall we say, you think that that

  is the most likely type to have committed

  the crime we are discussing?"

  She considered the point thoughtfully,

  turning it over in her mind.

  "Yes," she said at last, "I suppose I do.

  I haven't thought it out. It seems to me

  that crimes are so often associated

  nowadays with the young. People who

  don't really know quite what they are

  doing, who want silly revenges, who have

  an instinct for destruction. Even the

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  c

  people who wreck telephone boxes, or who

  slash the tyres of cars, do all sorts of things

  just to hurt people, just because they hate

  --not anyone in particular, but the whole

  world. It's a sort of symptom of this age.

  So I suppose when one comes across something

  like a child drowned at a party for

  no reason really, one does assume that it's

  someone who is not yet fully responsible

  for their actions. Don't you agree with me

  that--that--well, that that is certainly the

  most likely possibility here?"

  "The police, I think, share your point

  of view--or did share it."

  "Well, they should know. We have a

  very good class of policeman in this

  district. They've done well in several

  crimes. They are painstaking and they

  never give up. I think probably they will

  solve this murder, though I don't think it

  will happen very quickly. These things

  seem to take a long time. A long time of

  patient gathering of evidence."

  "The evidence in this case will not be very easy to gather, Madame."

  "No, I suppose it won't. When my

  husband was killed-- He was a cripple, you know. He was crossing the road and

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  a car ran over him and knocked him down.

  They never found the person who was

  responsible. As you know, my husband--

  or perhaps you don't know--my husband

  was a polio victim. He was partially paralysed

  as a result of polio, six years ago.

  His condition had improved, but he was

  still crippled, and it would be difficult for

  him to get out of the way if a car bore

  down upon him quickly. I almost felt that

  I had been to blame, though he always

  insisted on going out without me or

  without anyone with him, because he

  would have resented very much being in

  the care of a nurse, or a wife who took the

  part of a nurse, and he was always careful

  before crossing a road. Still, one does

  blame oneself when accidents happen."

  "That came on top of the death of your

  aunt?"

  "No. She died not long afterwards.

  Everything seems to come at once, doesn't

  it?"

  "That is very true," said Hercule

  Poirot. He went on: "The police were not

  able to trace the car that ran down your

  husband?"

  "It was a Grasshopper Mark 7, I

  Hpi6 233

  believe. Every third car you notice on the

  road is a Grasshopper Mark 7—or was

  then. It's the most popular car on the

  market, they tell me. They believe it was

  pinched from the Market Place in

  Medchester. A car park there. It belonged

  to a Mr. Waterhouse, an elderly seed

  merchant in Medchester. Mr. Waterhouse

  was a slow and careful driver. It was

  certainly not he who caused the accident.

  It was clearly one of those cases where

  irresponsible young men help themselves

  to cars. Such careless, or should I say such

  callous young men, should be treated, one

  sometimes feels, more severely than they

  are now."

  "A long gaol sentence, perhaps. Merely

  to be fined, and the fine paid by indulgent

  relatives, makes little impression."

  "One has to remember," said Rowena

  Drake, "that there are young people at an

  age when it is vital that they should

  continue with their studies if they are to

  have the chance of doing well in life."

  "The sacred cow of eduction," said

  Hercule Poirot. "That is a phrase I have

  heard uttered," he added quickly, "by

  people—well, should I say people who

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  ought to know. People who themselves

  hold academic posts of some seniority."

  "They do not perhaps make enough

  allowances for youth, for a bad bringing

  up. Broken homes."

  "So you think they need something

  other than gaol sentences?"

  "Proper remedial treatment," said

  Rowena Drake firmly.

  "And that will make—(another oldfashioned

  proverb)—a silk purse out of a

  sow's ear? You do not believe in the

  maxim 'the fate of every man have we

  bound about his neck'?"
>
  Mrs. Drake looked extremely doubtful

  and slightly displeased.

  "An Islamic saying, I believe," said

  Poirot.

  Mrs. Drake looked unimpressed.

  "I hope," she said, "we do not take our

  ideas—or perhaps I should say our ideals

  —from the Middle East."

  "One must accept facts," said Poirot,

  "and a fact that is expressed by modern

  biologists—Western biologists—" he

  hastened to add, "—seems to suggest very

  strongly that the root of a person's actions

  lies in his genetic make-up. That a

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  murderer of twenty-four was a murderer

  in potential at two or three or four years

  old. Or of course a mathematician or a

  musical genius."

  "We are not discussing murderers," said

  Mrs. Drake. "My bu^and died as a result

  of an accident. An accident caused by a

  careless and badly adjusted personality.

  Whoever the boy or yo^S man was'there is always the hope of eventual adjustment

  to a belief and acceptance that it is a duty

  to consider others, W be tw^ to feel

  an abhorrence if you have taken nfe unawares, simply out of what may be

  described as criminal carelessness that was

  not really criminal in intent.

  "You are quite sure? therefore, that it

  was not criminal intent?

  "I should doubt it very much." Mrs.

  Drake looked slightly surprised. "I do not

  think that the police ever seriously

  considered that possibility. I certainly did

  not. It was an accident. A very tragic accident

  which altered the pattern of many

  lives, including my o^11'

  "You say we ?re not discussing

  murderers," said Poirot. "But in the case

  of Joyce that is just what we are

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  discussing. There was no accident about

  that. Deliberate hands pushed that child's

  head down into water, holding her there

  till death occurred. Deliberate intent."

  "I know. I know. It's terrible. I don't

  like to think of it, to be reminded of it."

  She got up, moving about restlessly.

  Poirot pushed on relentlessly.

  "We are still presented with a choice

  there. We still have to find the motive

  involved."

  "It seems to me that such a crime must

  have been quite motiveless."

  "You mean committed by someone

  mentally disturbed to the extent of

  enjoying killing someone? Presumably

  killing someone young and immature."

  "One does hear of such cases. What is

  the original cause of them is difficult to

  find out. Even psychiatrists do not agree."

  "You refuse to accept a simpler

  explanation?"

  She looked puzzled. "Simpler?"

  "Someone not mentally disturbed, not a

  possible case for psychiatrists to disagree

  over. Somebody perhaps who just wanted

  to be safe."

  "Safe? Oh, you mean—"

  237

  "The girl had boasted that same day,

  some hours previously, that she had seen

  someone commit a murder."

  "Joyce," said Mrs. Drake, with calm

  certainty, "was really a very silly little girl.

  Not, I am afraid, always very truthful."

  "So everyone has told me," said Hercuk

  Poirot. "I am beginning to believe, you

  know, that what everybody has told me

  must be right," he added with a sigh. "It

  usually is."

  He rose to his feet, adopting a different

  manner.

  "I must apologise, Madame. I have

  talked of painful things to you, things that

  do not truly concern me here. But it seemed from what Miss Whittaker told

  me»»

  "Why don't you find out more from

  her?"

  "You mean--?"

  "She is a teacher. She knows, much

  better than I can, what potentialities (as

  you have called them) exist amongst the

  children she teacher."

  She paused and then said:

  "Miss Ernlyn, too."

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  "The head-mistress?" Poirot looked

  surprised.

  "Yes. She knows things. I mean, she is

  a natural psychologist. You said I might

  have ideas--half-formed ones--as to who

  killed Joyce. I haven't--but I think Miss

  Ernlyn might."

  "This is interesting ..."

  "I don't mean has evidence. I mean she

  just knows. She could tell you--but I

  don't think she will."

  "I begin to see," said Poirot, "that I

  have still a long way to go. People know

  things--but they will not tell them to me."

  He looked thoughtfully at Rowena Drake.

  "Your aunt, Mrs. LlewellynSmythe, had an au pair girl who looked after her, a foreign girl."

  "You seem to have got hold of all the

  local gossip." Rowena spoke dryly. "Yes, that is so. She left here rather suddenly

  soon after my aunt's death."

  "For good reasons, it would seem."

  "I don't know whether it's libel or

  slander to say so--but there seems no

  doubt that she forged a codicil to my

  aunt's Will--or that someone helped her

  to do so."

  239

  "Someone?'

  "She was friendly with a young man

  who worked in a solicitor's office in

  Medchester. He had been mixed up in a

  forgery case before. The case never came

  to court because the girl disappeared. She

  realised the Will would not be admitted to

  probate, and that there was going to be a

  court case. She left the neighbourhood and

  has never been heard of since."

  "She too came, I have heard, from a

  broken home," said Poirot.

  Rowena Drake looked at him sharply

  but he was smiling amiably.

  "Thank you for all you have told me, Madame," he said.

  When Poirot had left the house, he went

  for a short walk along a turning off the

  main road which was labelled "Helpsly

  Cemetery Road". The cemetery in question

  did not take him long to reach. It was

  at most ten minutes' walk. It was obviously

  a cemetery that had been made in

  the last ten years, presumably to cope with

  the rising importance of Woodleigh as a

  residential entity. The church, a church of

  reasonable size dating from some two or

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  three centuries back, had had a very small

  enclosure round it already well filled. So

  the new cemetery had come into being

  with a footpath connecting it across two

  fields. It was, Poirot, thought, a businesslike,

  modern cemetery with appropriate

  sentiments on marble or granite slabs; it

  had urns, chippings, small plantations of

  bushes or flowers. No interesting old epitaphs

  or inscriptions. Nothing much for an

  antiquarian. Cleaned, neat, tidy and with

  suitable sentiments expressed.

  He came to a halt to read a tablet

  erected on a
grave contemporary with

  several others near it, all dating within two

  or three years back. It bore a simple

  inscription, "Sacred to the Memory of

  Hugo Edmund Drake, beloved husband of

  Rowena Arabella Drake, who departed

  this life March the 20th 19--"

  He giveth his beloved sleep.

  It occurred to Poirot, fresh from the

  impact of the dynamic Rowena Drake, that perhaps sleep might have come in

  welcome guise to the late Mr. Drake.

  An alabaster urn had been fixed in

  241

  position there and contained the remains

  of flowers. An elderly gardener, obviously

  employed to tend the graves of good citizens

  departed this life, approached Poirot

  in the pleasurable hopes of a few minutes' conversation while he laid his hoe and his

  broom aside.

  "Stranger in these parts, I think," he

  said, "aren't you, sir?"

  "It is very true," said Poirot. "I am a

  stranger with you as were my fathers

  before me."

  "Ah, aye. We've got that text somewhere

  or summat very like it. Over down

  the other corner, it is." He went on, "He

  was a nice gentleman, he were, Mr.

  Drake. A cripple, you know. He had that

  infant paralysis, as they call it, though as

  often as not it isn't infants as suffer from

  it. It's grown-ups. Men and women too.

  My wife, she had an aunt, who caught it

  in Spain, she did. Went there with a tour, she did, and bathed somewhere in some

  river. And they said afterwards as it was

  the water infection, but I don't think they

  know much. Doctors don't, if you ask

  me. Still, it's made a lot of difference

  nowadays. All this inoculation they give

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  the children, and that. Not nearly as many

  cases as there were. Yes, he were a nice

  gentleman and didn't complain, though he

  took it hard, being a cripple, I mean. He'd

  been a good sportsman, he had, in his

  time. Used to bat for us here in the village

  team. Many a six he's hit to the boundary.

  Yes, he were a nice gentleman."

  "He died of an accident, did he not?" "That's right. Crossing the road,

  towards twilight this was. One of these

  cars come along, a couple of these young

  thugs in it with beards growing up to their

  ears. That's what they say. Didn't stop

  either. Went on. Never looked to see.

  Abandoned the car somewhere in a car

  park twenty miles away. Wasn't their own