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 greataunts,
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."
Unwillingly 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
13
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.
14
2
PREPARATIONS 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
15
that nobody likes. Having turfed 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
16
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
17
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
18
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
fsce of the man who shall please your
&
nbsp; mind."
A sudden shaft of light shot across the
room from a step-ladder, placed behind a
19
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.
20
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.
21
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."
22
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 neverending
controversy 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 meme,"
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
24
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."
"It would be extremely tedious," Poirot
agreed.
The telephone bell rang again.
"And now who has a cold?" he
demanded. "I have not asked anyone
else."
George crossed towards the telephone.
"I will take the call here," said Poirot.
"I have no doubt that it is nothing of
interest. But at any rate—" he shrugged
his shoulders—"—it will perhaps pass the
time. Who knows?"
George said, "Very good, sir," and left
tile room.
25
Poirot stretched out a hand, raised the
receiver, thus stilling the clamour of the
bell.
"Hercule Poirot speaks," he said, with
a certain grandeur of manner designed to
impress whoever was at the other end of
the line.
"That's wonderful," said an eager voice.
A female voice, slightly impaired with
breathlessness. "I thought you'd be sure
to be out, that you wouldn't be there."
&nbs
p; "Why should you think that?" inquired
Poirot.
"Because I can't help feeling that
nowadays things always happen to frustrate
one. You want someone in a terrible
hurry, you feel you can't wait, and you have to wait. I wanted to get hold of you
urgently--absolutely urgently.''
"And who are you?" asked Hercule
Poirot.
The voice, a female one, seemed
surprised.
"Don't you Anow?" it said incredulously.
"Yes, I know," said Hercule Poirot.
"You are my friend, Ariadne."
26
"And I'm in a terrible state," said
Ariadne.
"Yes, yes, I can hear that. Have you
also been running? You are very breathless, are you not?"
"I haven't been exactly running. It's
emotion. Can I come and see you at
oncer
Poirot let a few moments elapse before
he answered. His friend, Mrs. Oliver, sounded in a highly excitable condition.
Whatever was the matter with her, she
would no doubt spend a very long time
pouring out her grievances, her woes, her
frustrations or whatever was ailing her.
Once having established herself within
Poirot's sanctum, it might be hard to
induce her to go home without a certain
amount of impoliteness. The things that
excited Mrs. Oliver were so numerous and
frequently so unexpected that one had to
be careful how one embarked upon a
discussion of them.
"Something has upset you?"
"Yes. Of course I'm upset. I don't know
what to do. I don't know--oh, I don't
know anything. What I feel is that I've got
to come and tell you--tell you just what's
27
happened, for you're the only person who
might know what to do. Who might tell
me what I ought to do. So can I come?"
"But certainly, but certainly. I shall be
delighted to receive you."
The receiver was thrown down heavily
at the other end and Poirot summoned
George, reflected a few minutes, then
ordered lemon barley water, bitter lemon
and a glass of brandy for himself.
"Mrs. Oliver will be here in about ten
minutes," he said.
George withdrew. He returned with the
brandy for Poirot, who accepted it with a
nod of satisfaction, and George then
proceeded to provide the teetotal refreshment
that was the only thing likely to
appeal to Mrs. Oliver. Poirot took a sip of
brandy delicately, fortifying himself for
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