Hallowe'en Party

by Agatha Christie

  “Oh!” Miranda gave a sudden cry of anguish. “Not in the wishing well? Not in the wishing well that I wanted to find so badly? Oh, I don’t want her to be in the wishing well. Who—who put her there?”

  “The same person who brought you here.”

  Twenty-six

  Once again four men sat looking at Poirot. Timothy Raglan, Superintendent Spence and the Chief Constable had the pleased expectant look of a cat who is counting on a saucer of cream to materialize at any moment. The fourth man still had the expression of one who suspends belief.

  “Well, Monsieur Poirot,” said the Chief Constable, taking charge of the proceedings and leaving the D.P.P. man to hold a watching brief. “We’re all here—”

  Poirot made a motion with his hand. Inspector Raglan left the room and returned ushering in a woman of thirty odd, a girl, and two adolescent young men.

  He introduced them to the Chief Constable. “Mrs. Butler, Miss Miranda Butler, Mr. Nicholas Ransom and Mr. Desmond Holland.”

  Poirot got up and took Miranda’s hand. “Sit here by your mother, Miranda—Mr. Richmond here who is what is called a Chief Constable, wants to ask you some questions. He wants you to answer them. It concerns something you saw—over a year ago now, nearer two years. You mentioned this to one person, and, so I understand, to one person only. Is that correct?”

  “I told Joyce.”

  “And what exactly did you tell Joyce?”

  “That I’d seen a murder.”

  “Did you tell anyone else?”

  “No. But I think Leopold guessed. He listens, you know. At doors. That sort of thing. He likes knowing people’s secrets.”

  “You have heard that Joyce Reynolds, on the afternoon before the Hallowe’en party, claimed that she herself had seen a murder committed. Was that true?”

  “No. She was just repeating what I’d told her—but pretending that it had happened to her.”

  “Will you tell us now just what you did see.”

  “I didn’t know at first that it was a murder. I thought there had been an accident. I thought she’d fallen from up above somewhere.”

  “Where was this?”

  “In the Quarry Garden—in the hollow where the fountain used to be. I was up in the branches of a tree. I’d been looking at a squirrel and one has to keep very quiet, or they rush away. Squirrels are very quick.”

  “Tell us what you saw.”

  “A man and a woman lifted her up and were carrying her up the path. I thought they were taking her to a hospital or to the Quarry House. Then the woman stopped suddenly and said, ‘Someone is watching us,’ and stared at my tree. Somehow it made me feel frightened. I kept very still. The man said ‘Nonsense,’ and they went on. I saw there was blood on a scarf and there was a knife with blood on that—and I thought perhaps someone had tried to kill themselves—and I went on keeping very still.”

  “Because you were frightened?”

  “Yes, but I don’t know why.”

  “You didn’t tell your mother?”

  “No. I thought perhaps I oughtn’t to have been there watching. And then the next day nobody said anything about an accident, so I forgot about it. I never thought about it again until—”

  She stopped suddenly. The Chief Constable opened his mouth—then shut it. He looked at Poirot and made a very slight gesture.

  “Yes, Miranda,” said Poirot, “until what?”

  “It was as though it was happening all over again. It was a green woodpecker this time, and I was being very still, watching it from behind some bushes. And those two were sitting there talking—about an island—a Greek island. She said something like, ‘It’s all signed up. It’s ours, we can go to it whenever we like. But we’d better go slow still—not rush things.’ And then the woodpecker flew away, and I moved. And she said—‘Hush—be quiet—somebody’s watching us.’ It was just the way she’d said it before, and she had just the same look on her face, and I was frightened again, and I remembered. And this time I knew. I knew it had been a murder I had seen and it had been a dead body they were carrying away to hide somewhere. You see, I wasn’t a child any more. I knew—things and what they must mean—the blood and the knife and the dead body all limp—”

  “When was this?” asked the Chief Constable. “How long ago?”

  Miranda thought for a moment.

  “Last March—just after Easter.”

  “Can you say definitely who these people were, Miranda?”

  “Of course I can.” Miranda looked bewildered.

  “You saw their faces?”

  “Of course.”

  “Who were they?”

  “Mrs. Drake and Michael….”

  It was not a dramatic denunciation. Her voice was quiet, with something in it like wonder, but it carried conviction.

  The Chief Constable said, “You did not tell anyone. Why not?”

  “I thought—I thought it might have been a sacrifice.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Michael told me—he said sacrifices were necessary.”

  Poirot said gently, “You loved Michael?”

  “Oh yes,” said Miranda, “I loved him very much.”

  Twenty-seven

  “Now I’ve got you here at last,” said Mrs. Oliver, “I want to know all about everything.”

  She looked at Poirot with determination and asked severely:

  “Why haven’t you come sooner?”

  “My excuses, Madame, I have been much occupied assisting the police with their inquiries.”

  “It’s criminals who do that. What on earth made you think of Rowena Drake being mixed up in a murder? Nobody else would have dreamed of it?”

  “It was simple as soon as I got the vital clue.”

  “What do you call the vital clue?”

  “Water. I wanted someone who was at the party and who was wet, and who shouldn’t have been wet. Whoever killed Joyce Reynolds would necessarily have got wet. You hold down a vigorous child with its head in a full bucket of water, and there will be struggling and splashing and you are bound to be wet. So something has got to happen to provide an innocent explanation of how you got wet. When everyone crowded into the dining room for the Snapdragon, Mrs. Drake took Joyce with her to the library. If your hostess asks you to come with her, naturally you go. And certainly Joyce had no suspicion of Mrs. Drake. All Miranda had told her was that she had once seen a murder committed. And so Joyce was killed and her murderer was fairly well soaked with water. There must be a reason for that and she set about creating a reason. She had to get a witness as to how she got wet. She waited on the landing with an enormous vase of flowers filled with water. In due course Miss Whittaker came out from the Snapdragon room—it was hot in there. Mrs. Drake pretended to start nervously, and let the vase go, taking care that it flooded her person as it crashed down to the hall below. She ran down the stairs and she and Miss Whittaker picked up the pieces and the flowers while Mrs. Drake complained at the loss of her beautiful vase. She managed to give Miss Whittaker the impression that she had seen something or someone coming out of the room where a murder had been committed. Miss Whittaker took the statement at its face value, but when she mentioned it to Miss Emlyn, Miss Emlyn realized the really interesting thing about it. And so she urged Miss Whittaker to tell me the story.

  “And so,” said Poirot, twirling his moustaches, “I, too, knew who the murderer of Joyce was.”

  “And all the time Joyce had never seen any murder committed at all!”

  “Mrs. Drake did not know that. But she had always suspected that someone had been there in the Quarry Wood when she and Michael Garfield had killed Olga Seminoff, and might have seen it happen.”

  “When did you know it had been Miranda and not Joyce?”

  “As soon as common sense forced me to accept the universal verdict that Joyce was a liar. Then Miranda was clearly indicated. She was frequently in the Quarry Wood, observing birds and squirrels. Joyce was, as Miranda told me, her be
st friend. She said: ‘We tell each other everything.’ Miranda was not at the party, so the compulsive liar Joyce could use the story her friend had told her of having once seen a murder committed—probably in order to impress you, Madame, the well-known crime writer.”

  “That’s right, blame it all on me.”

  “No, no.”

  “Rowena Drake,” mused Mrs. Oliver. “I still can’t believe it of her.”

  “She had all the qualities necessary. I have always wondered,” he added, “exactly what sort of woman Lady Macbeth was. What would she be like if you met her in real life? Well, I think I have met her.”

  “And Michael Garfield? They seem such an unlikely pair.”

  “Interesting—Lady Macbeth and Narcissus, an unusual combination.”

  “Lady Macbeth,” Mrs. Oliver murmured thoughtfully.

  “She was a handsome woman—efficient and competent—a born administrator—an unexpectedly good actress. You should have heard her lamenting over the death of the little boy Leopold and weeping large sobs into a dry handkerchief.”

  “Disgusting.”

  “You remember I asked you who, in your opinion, were or were not nice people.”

  “Was Michael Garfield in love with her?”

  “I doubt if Michael Garfield has ever loved anyone but himself. He wanted money—a lot of money. Perhaps he believed at first he could influence Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe to dote upon him to the extent of making a Will in his favour—but Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe was not that kind of woman.”

  “What about the forgery? I still don’t understand that. What was the point of it all?”

  “It was confusing at first. Too much forgery, one might say. But if one considered it, the purpose of it was clear. You had only to consider what actually happened.

  “Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe’s fortune all went to Rowena Drake. The codicil produced was so obviously forged that any lawyer would spot it. It would be contested, and the evidence of experts would result in its being upset, and the original Will would stand. As Rowena Drake’s husband had recently died she would inherit everything.”

  “But what about the codicil that the cleaning woman witnessed?”

  “My surmise is that Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe discovered that Michael Garfield and Rowena Drake were having an affair—probably before her husband died. In her anger Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe made a codicil to her Will leaving everything to her au pair girl. Probably the girl told Michael about this—she was hoping to marry him.”

  “I thought it was young Ferrier?”

  “That was a plausible tale told me by Michael. There was no confirmation of it.”

  “Then if he knew there was a real codicil why didn’t he marry Olga and get hold of the money that way?”

  “Because he doubted whether she really would get the money. There is such a thing as undue influence. Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe was an elderly woman and a sick woman also. All her preceding Wills had been in favour of her own kith and kin—good sensible Wills such as law courts approve of. This girl from foreign parts had been known to her only a year—and had no kind of claim upon her. That codicil even though genuine could have been upset. Besides, I doubt if Olga could have put through the purchase of a Greek island—or would even have been willing to do so. She had no influential friends, or contacts in business circles. She was attracted to Michael, but she looked upon him as a good prospect matrimonially, who would enable her to live in England—which is what she wanted to do.”

  “And Rowena Drake?”

  “She was infatuated. Her husband had been for many years a crippled invalid. She was middle-aged but she was a passionate woman, and into her orbit came a young man of unusual beauty. Women fell for him easily—but he wanted—not the beauty of women—but the exercise of his own creative urge to make beauty. For that he wanted money—a lot of money. As for love—he only loved himself. He was Narcissus. There is an old French song I heard many years ago—”

  He hummed softly.

  “Regarde, Narcisse

  Regarde dans l’eau

  Regarde, Narcisse, que tu es beau

  Il n’y a au monde

  Que la Beauté

  Et la Jeunesse,

  Hélas! Et la Jeunesse…

  Regarde, Narcisse…

  Regarde dans l’eau….”

  “I can’t believe—I simply can’t believe that anyone would do murder just to make a garden on a Greek island,” said Mrs. Oliver unbelievingly.

  “Can’t you? Can’t you visualize how he held it in his mind? Bare rock, perhaps, but so shaped as to hold possibilities. Earth, cargoes of fertile earth to clothe the bare bones of the rocks—and then plants, seeds, shrubs, trees. Perhaps he read in the paper of a shipping millionaire who had created an island garden for the woman he loved. And so it came to him—he would make a garden, not for a woman, but—for himself.”

  “It still seems to me quite mad.”

  “Yes. That happens. I doubt if he even thought of his motive as sordid. He thought of it only as necessary for the creation of more beauty. He’d gone mad on creation. The beauty of the Quarry Wood, the beauty of other gardens he’d laid out and made—and now he envisaged even more—a whole island of beauty. And there was Rowena Drake, infatuated with him. What did she mean to him but the source of money with which he could create beauty. Yes—he had become mad, perhaps. Whom the gods destroy, they first drive mad.”

  “He really wanted his island so much? Even with Rowena Drake tied round his neck as well? Bossing him the whole time?”

  “Accidents can happen. I think one might possibly have happened to Mrs. Drake in due course.”

  “One more murder?”

  “Yes. It started simply. Olga had to be removed because she knew about the codicil—and she was also to be the scapegoat, branded as a forger. Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe had hidden the original document, so I think that young Ferrier was given money to produce a similar forged document. So obviously forged that it would arouse suspicion at once. That sealed his death warrant. Lesley Ferrier, I soon decided, had had no arrangement or love affair with Olga. That was a suggestion made to me by Michael Garfield, but I think it was Michael who paid money to Lesley. It was Michael Garfield who was laying siege to the au pair girl’s affections, warning her to keep quiet about this and not tell her employer, speaking of possible marriage in the future but at the same time marking her down cold-bloodedly as the victim whom he and Rowena Drake would need if the money was to come to them. It was not necessary for Olga Seminoff to be accused of forgery, or prosecuted. She needed only to be suspected of it. The forgery appeared to benefit her. It could have been done by her very easily, there was evidence to the effect that she did copy her employer’s handwriting and if she was suddenly to disappear, it would be assumed that she had been not only a forger, but quite possibly might have assisted her employer to die suddenly. So on a suitable occasion Olga Seminoff died. Lesley Ferrier was killed in what is purported to have been a gang knifing or a knifing by a jealous woman. But the knife that was found in the well corresponds very closely with the knife wounds that he suffered. I knew that Olga’s body must be hidden somewhere in this neighbourhood, but I had no idea where until I heard Miranda one day inquiring about a wishing well, urging Michael Garfield to take her there. And he was refusing. Shortly afterwards when I was talking to Mrs. Goodbody, I said I wondered where that girl had disappeared to, and she said ‘Ding dong dell, pussy’s in the well’ and then I was quite sure the girl’s body was in the wishing well. I discovered it was in the wood, in the Quarry Wood, on an incline not far from Michael Garfield’s cottage and I thought that Miranda could have seen either the actual murder or the disposal of the body later. Mrs. Drake and Michael feared that someone had been a witness—but they had no idea who it was—and as nothing happened they were lulled into security. They made their plans—they were in no hurry, but they set things in motion. She talked about buying land abroad—gave people the idea she wanted to get away from Woodleigh
Common. Too many sad associations, referring always to her grief over her husband’s death. Everything was nicely in train and then came the shock of Hallowe’en and Joyce’s sudden assertion of having witnessed a murder. So now Rowena knew, or thought she knew, who it had been in the wood that day. So she acted quickly. But there was more to come. Young Leopold asked for money—there were things he wanted to buy, he said. What he guessed or knew is uncertain, but he was Joyce’s brother, and so they probably thought he knew far more than he really did. And so—he, too, died.”

  “You suspected her because of the water clue,” said Mrs. Oliver. “How did you come to suspect Michael Garfield?”

  “He fitted,” said Poirot simply. “And then—the last time I spoke to Michael Garfield, I was sure. He said to me, laughing—‘Get thee beyond me, Satan. Go and join your police friends.’ And I knew then, quite certainly. It was the other way round. I said to myself: ‘I am leaving you behind me, Satan.’ A Satan so young and beautiful as Lucifer can appear to mortals….”

  There was another woman in the room—until now she had not spoken, but now she stirred in her chair.

  “Lucifer,” she said. “Yes, I see now. He was always that.”

  “He was very beautiful,” said Poirot, “and he loved beauty. The beauty that he made with his brain and his imagination and his hands. To it he would sacrifice everything. In his own way, I think, he loved the child Miranda—but he was ready to sacrifice her—to save himself. He planned her death very carefully—he made of it a ritual and, as one might put it, indoctrinated her with the idea. She was to let him know if she were leaving Woodleigh Common—he instructed her to meet him at the Inn where you and Mrs. Oliver lunched. She was to have been found on Kilterbury Ring—there by the sign of the double axe, with a golden goblet by her side—a ritual sacrifice.”

  “Mad,” said Judith Butler. “He must have been mad.”

  “Madame, your daughter is safe—but there is something I would like to know very much.”