by Mark Place
"We ought to have made you do something connected with murders. Have a murder at the party tonight and make people solve it."
"No, thank you," said Mrs Oliver. "Never again."
"What do you mean, never again?"
"Well, I did once, and it didn't turn out much of a success," said Mrs Oliver. "But you've written lots of books," said Joyce, "you make a lot of money out of them, don't you?"
"In a way," said Mrs Oliver, her thoughts flying to the Inland Revenue. "And you've got a detective who's a Finn."
Mrs Oliver admitted the fact. A small stolid boy not yet, Mrs Oliver would have thought, arrived at the seniority of the eleven-plus, said sternly, "Why a Finn?"
"I've often wondered," said Mrs Oliver truthfully.
Mrs Hargreaves, the organist's wife, came into the room breathing heavily, and bearing a large green plastic pail. "What about this," she said, "for the apple bobbing? Kind of gay, I thought." Miss Lee, the doctor's dispenser, said, "Galvanised bucket's better. Won't tip over so easily. Where are you going to have it, Mrs Drake?"
"I thought the bobbing for apples had better be in the library. The carpet's old there and a lot of water always gets spilt, anyway."
"All right, we'll take 'em along. Rowena, here's another basket of apples."
"Let me help," said Mrs Oliver.
She picked up the two apples at her feet. Almost without noticing what she was doing, she sank her teeth into one of them and began to crunch it. Mrs Drake abstracted the second apple from her firmly and restored it to the basket. A buzz of conversation broke out.
"Yes, but where are we going to have the Snapdragon?"
"You ought to have the Snapdragon in the library, it's much the darkest room."
"No, we're going to have that in the dining-room."
"We'll have to put something on the table first."
"There's a green baize cloth to put on that and then the rubber sheet over it."
"What about the looking-glasses? Shall we really see our husbands in them?"
Surreptitiously removing her shoes and still quietly chomping at her apple, Mrs Oliver lowered herself once more on to the settee and surveyed the room full of people critically. She was thinking in her authoress's mind: "Now, if I was going to make a book about all these people, how should I do it? They're nice people, I should think, on the whole, but who knows?"
In a way, she felt, it was rather fascinating not to know anything about them. They all lived in Woodleigh Common, some of them had faint tags attached to them in her memory because of what Judith had told her. Miss Johnson - something to do with the church, not the vicar's sister. Oh no, it was the organist's sister, of course, Rowena Drake, who seemed to run things in Woodleigh Common. The puffing woman who had brought in the pail, a particularly hideous plastic pail. But then Mrs Oliver had never been fond of plastic things. And then the children, the teenage girls and boys. So far they were really only names to Mrs Oliver. There was a Nan and a Beatrice and a Cathie, a Diana and a Joyce, who was boastful and asked questions.
I don't like Joyce much, thought Mrs Oliver. A girl called Ann, who looked tall and superior. There were two adolescent boys who appeared to have just got used to trying out different hair styles, with rather unfortunate results. A smallish boy entered in some condition of shynesss.
"Mummy sent these mirrors to see if they'd do," he said in a slightly breathless voice. Mrs Drake took them from him. "Thank you so much, Eddy," she said.
"They're just ordinary looking hand-mirrors," said the girl called Ann. "Shall we really see our future husbands' faces in them?"
"Some of you may and some may not," said Judith Butler.
"Did you ever see your husband's face when you went to a party - I mean this kind of a party?"
"Of course she didn't," said Joyce.
"She might have," said the superior Beatrice.
"ESP, they call it. Extra sensory perception," she added in the tone of one pleased with being thoroughly conversant with the terms of the times.
"I read one of your books," said Ann to Mrs Oliver.
"The Dying Goldfish. It was quite good," she said kindly.
"I didn't like that one," said Joyce. "There wasn't enough blood in it. I like murders to have lots of blood."
"A bit messy," said Mrs Oliver, "don't you think?"
"But exciting," said Joyce.
"Not necessarily," said Mrs Oliver.
"I saw a murder once," said Joyce.
"Don't be silly, Joyce," said Miss Whittaker, the schoolteacher.
"I did," said Joyce.
"Did you really," asked Cathie, gazing at Joyce with wide eyes, "really and truly see a murder?"
"Of course she didn't," said Mrs Drake. "Don't say silly things, Joyce."
"I did see a murder," said Joyce. "I did. I did. I did."
A seventeen-year-old boy poised on a ladder looked down interestedly. "What kind of a murder?" he asked.
"I don't believe it," said Beatrice.
"Of course not," said Cathie's mother. "She's just making it up."
"I'm not. I saw it."
"Why didn't you go to the police about it?" asked Cathie.
"Because I didn't know it was a murder when I saw it. It wasn't really till a long time afterwards, I mean, that I began to know that it was a murder. Something that somebody said only about a month or two ago suddenly made me think: 'Of course, that was a murder I saw.'"
"You see," said Ann, "she's making it all up. It's nonsense."
"When did it happen?" asked Beatrice.
"Years ago," said Joyce. "I was quite young at the time," she added.
"Who murdered who?" said Beatrice.
"I shan't tell any of you," said Joyce. "You're all so horrid about it." Miss Lee came in with another kind of bucket. Conversation shifted to a comparison of buckets or plastic pails as most suitable for the sport of bobbing for apples. The majority of the helpers repaired to the library for an appraisal on the spot. Some of the younger members, it may be said, were anxious to demonstrate by a rehearsal the difficulties and their own accomplishment in the sport. Hair got wet, water got spilt, towels were sent for to mop it up. In the end it was decided that a galvanised bucket was preferable to the more meretricious charms of a plastic pail which overturned rather too easily. Mrs Oliver, setting down a bowl of apples which she had carried in to replenish the store required for tomorrow, once more helped herself to one.
"I read in the paper that you were fond of eating apples," the accusing voice of Ann or Susan - she was not quite sure which - spoke to her."
"It's my besetting sin," said Mrs Oliver.
"It would be more fun if it was melons," objected one of the boys. "They're so juicy. Think of the mess it would make," he said, surveying the carpet with pleasurable anticipation.
Mrs Oliver, feeling a little guilty at the public arraignment of greediness, left the room in search of a particular apartment, the geography of which is usually fairly easily identified. She went up the staircase and, turning the corner on the half landing, cannoned into a pair, a girl and a boy, clasped in each other's arms and leaning against the door which Mrs Oliver felt fairly certain was the door to the room to which she herself was anxious to gain access. The couple paid no attention to her. They sighed and they snuggled. Mrs Oliver wondered how old they were. The boy was fifteen, perhaps, the girl little more than twelve, although the development of her chest seemed certainly on the mature side. Apple Trees was a house of fair size. It had, she thought, several agreeable nooks and corners. How selfish people are, thought Mrs Oliver. No consideration for others. That well-known tag from the past came into her mind. It had been said to her in succession by a nursemaid, a nanny, a governess, her grandmother, two great aunts her mother and a few others. "Excuse me," said Mrs Oliver in a loud, clear voice. The boy and the girl clung closer than ever, their lips fastened on each other's. "Excuse me," said Mrs Oliver again, "do you mind letting me pass? I want to get in at this door." Unwi
llingly the couple fell apart. They looked at her in an aggrieved fashion. Mrs Oliver went in, banged the door and shot the bolt. It was not a very close fitting door. The faint sound of words came to her from outside.
"Isn't that like people?" one voice said in a somewhat uncertain tenor. "They might see we didn't want to be disturbed."
"People are so selfish," piped a girl's voice. "They never think of anyone but themselves."
"No consideration for others," said the boy's voice.
Chapter 2
Preparation for a children's party usually give far more trouble to the organisers than an entertainment devised for those of adult years. Food of good quality and suitable alcoholic refreshment - with lemonade on the side, that, to the right people, is quite enough to make a party go. It may cost more but the trouble is infinitely less. So Ariadne Oliver and her friend Judith Butler agreed together.
"What about teenage parties?" said Judith.
"I don't know much about them," said Mrs Oliver.
"In one way," said Judith, "I think they're probably least trouble of all. I mean, they just throw all of us adults out. And say they'll do it all themselves."
"And do they?"
"Well, not in our sense of the word," said Judith. "They forget to order some of the things, and order a lot of other things that nobody likes. Having thrown us out, then they say there were things we ought to have provided for them to find. They break a lot of glasses, and other things, and there's always somebody undesirable or who brings an undesirable friend. You know the sort of thing. Peculiar drugs and what do they call it? Flower Pot or Purple Hemp or LSD, which I always have thought just meant money, but apparently it doesn't."
"I suppose it costs it," suggested Ariadne Oliver.
"It's very unpleasant, and Hemp has a nasty smell."
"It all sounds very depressing," said Mrs Oliver.
"Anyway, this party will go all right. Trust Rowena Drake for that. She's a wonderful organiser. You'll see."
"I don't feel I even want to go to a party," sighed Mrs Oliver.
"You go up and lie down for an hour or so. You'll see. You'll enjoy it when you get there. I wish Miranda hadn't got a temperature. She's so disappointed at not being able to go, poor child."
The party came into being at half past seven. Ariadne Oliver had to admit that her friend was right. Arrivals were punctual. Everything went splendidly. It was well imagined, well run and ran like clockwork. There were red and blue lights on the stairs and yellow pumpkins in profusion. The girls and boys arrived holding decorated broomsticks for a competition. After greetings, Rowena Drake announced the programme for the evening.
"First, judging of the broomstick competition," she said, "three prizes, first, second and third. Then comes cutting the flour cake. That'll be in the small conservatory. Then bobbing for apples - there's a list pinned upon the wall over there of the partners for that event - then there'll be dancing. Every time the lights go out you change partners. Then girls to the small study where they'll be given their mirrors. After that, supper, Snapdragon and then prize-giving."
Like all parties, it went slightly stickily at first. The brooms were admired, they were very small miniature brooms, and on the whole the decorating of them had not reached a very high standard of merit, "which makes it easier," said Mrs Drake in an aside to one of her friends.
"And it's a very useful thing because I mean there are always one or two children one knows only too well won't win a prize at anything else, so one can cheat a little over this."
"So unscrupulous, Rowena."
"I'm not really. I just arrange so that things should be fair and evenly divided. The whole point is that everyone wants to win something."
"What's the Flour Game?" asked Ariadne Oliver.
"Oh yes, of course, you weren't here when we were doing it. Well, you just fill a tumbler with flour, press it in well, then you turn it out in a tray and place a sixpence on top of it. Then everyone slices a slice off it very carefully so as not to tumble the sixpence off. As soon as someone tumbles the sixpence off, that person goes out. It's a sort of elimination. The last one left in gets the sixpence of course. Now then, away we go." And away they went. Squeals of excitement were heard coming from the library where bobbing for apples went on, and competitors returned from there with wet locks and having disposed a good deal of water about their persons. One of the most popular contests, at any rate among the girls, was the arrival of the Hallowe'en witch played by Mrs Goodbody, a local cleaning woman who, not only having the necessary hooked nose and chin which almost met, was admirably proficient in producing a semi-cooing voice which had definitely sinister undertones and also produced magical doggerel rhymes.
"Now then, come along. Beatrice, is it? Ah, Beatrice. A very interesting name. Now you want to know what your husband is going to look like. Now, my dear, sit here. Yes, yes, under this light here. Sit here and hold this little mirror in your hand, and presently when the lights go out you'll see him appear. You'll see him looking over your shoulder. Now hold the mirror steady. Abracadabra, who shall see? The face of the man who will marry me. Beatrice, Beatrice, you shall find, the face of the man who shall please your mind." A sudden shaft of light shot across the room from a step-ladder, placed behind a screen. It hit the right spot in the room, which was reflected in the mirror grasped in Beatrice's excited hand.
"Oh!" cried Beatrice. "I've seen him. I've seen him! I can see him in my mirror!" The beam was shut off, the lights came on and a coloured photograph pasted on a card floated down from the ceiling.
Beatrice danced about excitedly. "That was him! That was him! I saw him," she cried. "Oh, he's got a lovely ginger beard."
She rushed to Mrs Oliver, who was the nearest person. "Do look, do look. Don't you think he's rather wonderful? He's like Eddie Presweight, the pop singer. Don't you think so?"
Mrs Oliver did think he looked like one of the faces she daily deplored having to see in her morning paper. The beard, she thought, had been an after-thought of genius. "Where do all these things come from?" she asked.
"Oh, Rowena gets Nicky to make them. And his friend Desmond helps. He experiments a good deal with photography. He and a couple of pals of his made themselves up, with a great deal of hair or side-burns or beards and things. And then with the light on him and everything, of course it sends the girls wild with delight."
"I can't help thinking," said Ariadne Oliver, "that girls are really very silly nowadays."
"Don't you think they always were?" asked Rowena Drake.
Mrs Oliver considered.
"I suppose you're right," she admitted.
"Now then," cried Mrs Drake - "supper."
Supper went off well. Rich iced cakes, savouries, prawns, cheese and nut confections. The eleven-pluses stuffed themselves.
"And now," said Rowena, "that last one for the evening. Snapdragon. Across there, through the pantry. That's right. Now then. Prizes first." The prizes were presented, and then there was a wailing, banshee call. The children rushed across the hall back to the dining-room. The food had been cleared away. A green baize cloth was laid across the table and here was borne a great dish of flaming raisins. Everybody shrieked, rushing forward, snatching the blazing raisins, with cries of "Ow, I'm burned! Isn't it lovely?" Little by little the Snapdragon flickered and died down. The lights went up. The party was over.
"It's been a great success," said Rowena.
"So it should be with all the trouble you've taken."
"It was lovely," said Judith quietly.
"Lovely."
"And now," she added ruefully, "we'll have to clear up a bit. We can't leave everything for those poor women tomorrow morning."
Chapter 3
In a flat in London the telephone bell rang. The owner of the flat, Hercule Poirot, stirred in his chair. Disappointment attacked him. He knew before he answered it what it meant. His friend Solly, with whom he had been going to spend the evening, reviving their never ending controv
ersy about the real culprit in the Canning Road Municipal Baths murder, was about to say that he could not come. Poirot, who had collected certain bits of evidence in favour of his own somewhat far-fetched theory, was deeply disappointed. He did not think his friend Solly would accept his suggestions, but he had no doubt that when Solly in his turn produced his own fantastic beliefs, he himself, Hercule Poirot, would just as easily be able to demolish them in the name of sanity, logic, order and method. It was annoying, to say the least of it, if Solly did not come this evening. But it is true that when they had met earlier in the day, Solly had been racked with a chesty cough and was in a state of highly infectious catarrh.
"He had a nasty cold," said Hercule Poirot, "and no doubt, in spite of the remedies that I have handy here, he would probably have given it to me. It is better that he should not come. Tout de même," he added, with a sigh, "it will mean that now I shall pass a dull evening."
Many of the evenings were dull now, Hercule Poirot thought. His mind, magnificent as it was (for he had never doubted that fact) required stimulation from outside sources. He had never been of a philosophic cast of mind. There were times when he almost regretted that he had not taken to the study of theology instead of going into the police force in his early days. The number of angels who could dance on the point of a needle; it would be interesting to feel that that mattered and to argue passionately on the point with one's colleagues.
His manservant, George, entered the room.
"It was Mr Solomon Levy, sir."
"Ah yes," said Hercule Poirot.
"He very much regrets that he will not be able to join you this evening. He is in bed with a serious bout of 'flu."
"He has not got 'flu," said Hercule Poirot. "He has only a nasty cold. Everyone always thinks they have 'flu. It sounds more important. One gets more sympathy. The trouble with a catarrhal cold is that it is hard to glean the proper amount of sympathetic consideration from one's friends."
"Just as well he isn't coming here, sir, really," said George. "Those colds in the head are very infectious. Wouldn't be good for you to go down with one of those."
