by Mark Place
"Well, I suppose - Surely it isn't a question of niceness, is it?"
"It could be. I also understand that she claimed to have seen a murder committed."
"Oh that," said Mrs Drake contemptuously.
"You did not take that statement seriously?"
"Well, of course I didn't. It was a very silly thing to say."
"How did she come to say it?"
"Well, I think really they were all rather excited about Mrs Oliver being here. You are a very famous person, you must remember, dear," said Mrs Drake, addressing Mrs Oliver. The word "dear" seemed included in her speech without any accompanying enthusiasm.
"I don't suppose the subject would ever have arisen otherwise, but the children were excited by meeting a famous authoress"
"So Joyce said that she had seen a murder committed," said Poirot thoughtfully. "Yes, she said something of the kind. I wasn't really listening."
"But you do remember that she said it?"
"Oh yes, she said it. But I didn't believe it," said Mrs Drake. "Her sister hushed her up at once, very properly."
"And she was annoyed about that, was she?"
"Yes, she went on saying that it was true."
"In fact, she boasted about it."
"When you put it that way, yes."
"It might have been true, I suppose," said Poirot.
"Nonsense! I don't believe it for one minute," said Mrs Drake. "It's the sort of stupid thing Joyce would say."
"She was a stupid girl?"
"Well, she was the kind, I think, who liked to show off," said Mrs Drake. "You know, she always wanted to have seen more or done more than other girls."
"Not a very lovable character," said Poirot.
"No indeed," said Mrs Drake. "Really the kind that you have to be shutting up all the time."
"What did the other children who were there have to say about it? Were they impressed?"
"They laughed at her," said Mrs Drake. "So, of course, that made her worse."
"Well," said Poirot, as he rose, "I am glad to have your positive assurance on that point." He bowed politely over her hand. "Good-bye, Madame, thank you so much for allowing me to view the scene of this very unpleasant occurrence. I hope it has not recalled unpleasant memories too definitely to you."
"Of course," said Mrs Drake, "it is very painful to recall anything of this kind. I had so hoped our little party would go off well. Indeed, it was going off well and everyone seemed to be enjoying it so much till this terrible thing happened. However, the only thing one can do is to try and forget it all. Of course, it's very unfortunate that Joyce should have made this silly remark about seeing a murder."
"Have you ever had a murder in Woodleigh Common?"
"Not that I can remember," said Mrs Drake firmly.
"In this age of increased crime that we live in," said Poirot, "that really seems somewhat unusual, does it not?"
"Well, I think there was a lorry driver who killed a pal of his - something like that - and a little girl whom they found buried in a gravel pit about fifteen miles from here, but that was years ago. They were both rather sordid and uninteresting crimes. Mainly the result of drink, I think."
"In fact, the kind of murder unlikely to have been witnessed by a girl of twelve or thirteen."
"Most unlikely, I should say. And I can assure you, Monsieur Poirot, this statement that the girl made was solely in order to impress friends and perhaps interest a famous character." She looked rather coldly across at Mrs Oliver. "In fact," said Mrs Oliver, "it's all my fault for being at the party, I suppose."
"Oh, of course not, my dear, of course I didn't mean it that way." Poirot sighed as he departed from the house with Mrs Oliver by his side. "A very unsuitable place for a murder," he said, as they walked down the path to the gate. "No atmosphere, no haunting sense of tragedy, no character worth murdering, though I couldn't help thinking that just occasionally someone might feel like murdering Mrs Drake." "I know what you mean. She can be intensely irritating sometimes. So pleased with herself and so complacent."
"What is her husband like?"
"Oh, she's a widow. Her husband died a year or two ago. He got polio and had been a cripple for years. He was a banker originally, I think. He was very keen on games and sport and hated having to give all that up and be an invalid."
"Yes, indeed." He reverted to the subject of the child Joyce. "Just tell me this. Did anyone who was listening take this assertion of the child Joyce about murder seriously?"
"I don't know. I shouldn't have thought anyone did."
"The other children, for instance?"
"Well, I was thinking really of them. No, I don't think they believed what Joyce was saying. They thought she was making up things."
"Did you think that, too?"
"Well, I did really," said Mrs Oliver.
"Of course," she added, "Mrs Drake would like to believe that the murder never really happened, but she can't very well go as far as that, can she?"
"I understand that this may be painful for her."
"I suppose it is in a way," said Mrs Oliver, "but I think that by now, you know, she is actually getting quite pleased to talk about it. I don't think she likes to have to bottle it up all the time."
"Do you like her?" asked Poirot. "Do you think she's a nice woman?"
"You do ask the most difficult questions. Embarrassing ones," said Mrs Oliver. "It seems the only thing you are interested in is whether people are nice or not. Rowena Drake is the bossy type - likes running things and people. She runs this whole place more or less, I should think. But runs it very efficiently. It depends if you like bossy women. I don't much"
"What about Joyce's mother whom we are on our way to see?"
"She's quite a nice woman. Rather stupid, I should think. I'm sorry for her. It's pretty awful to have your daughter murdered, isn't it? And everyone here thinks it was a sex crime which makes it worse."
"But there was no evidence of sexual assault, or so I understand?"
"No, but people like to think these things happen. It makes it more exciting. You know what people are like."
"One thinks one does - but sometimes - well - we do not really know at all." "Wouldn't it be better if my friend Judith Butler was to take you to see Mrs Reynolds? She knows her quite well, and I'm a stranger to her."
"We will do as planned." "The Computer Programme will go on," murmured Mrs Oliver rebelliously.
Chapter 7
Mrs Reynolds was a complete contrast to Mrs Drake. There was no air of poised competence about her, nor indeed was there ever likely to be. She was wearing conventional black, had a moist handkerchief clasped in her hand and was clearly prepared to dissolve into tears at any moment.
"It's very kind of you, I'm sure," she said to Mrs Oliver, "to bring a friend of yours down here to help us." She put a damp hand into Poirot's and looked at him doubtfully. "And if he can help in any way I'm sure I'll be very grateful, though I don't see what anyone can do. Nothing will bring her back, poor child. It's awful to think of. How anyone could deliberately kill anyone of that age. If she had only cried out - though I suppose he rammed her head underwater straight away and held it there. Oh, I can't bear to think of it. I really can't."
"Indeed, Madame, I do not want to distress you. Please do not think of it. I only want to ask you a few questions that might help - help, that is, to find your daughter's murderer. You've no idea yourself, I suppose, who it can possibly be?"
"How could I have any idea? I shouldn't have thought there was anyone, anyone living here, I mean. This is such a nice place. And the people living here are such nice people. I suppose it was just someone - some awful man who came in through one of the windows. Perhaps he'd taken drugs or something. He saw the light and that it was a party, so he gate crashed -"
"You are quite sure that the assailant was male?"
"Oh, it must have been." Mrs Reynolds sounded shocked. "I'm sure it was. It couldn't have been a woman, could it?"
&
nbsp; "A woman might have been strong enough."
"Well, I suppose in a way I know what you mean. You mean women are much more athletic nowadays and all that. But they wouldn't do a thing like this, I'm sure. Joyce was only a child - thirteen years old."
"I don't want to distress you by staying here too long, Madame, or to ask you difficult questions. That already, I am sure, the police are doing elsewhere, and I don't want to upset you by dwelling on painful facts. It was just concerning a remark that your daughter made at the party. You were not there yourself, I think?"
"Well, no, I wasn't. I haven't been very well lately and children's parties can be very tiring. I drove them there, and then later I came back to fetch them. The three children went together, you know. Ann, that's the older one, she is sixteen, and Leopold who is nearly eleven. What was it Joyce said that you wanted to know about?"
"Mrs Oliver, who was there, will tell you what your daughter's words were exactly. She said, I believe, that she had once seen a murder committed."
"Joyce? Oh, she couldn't have said a thing like that. What murder could she possibly have seen committed?"
"Well, everyone seems to think it was rather unlikely," said Poirot. "I just wondered if you thought it likely. Did she ever speak to you about such a thing?"
"Seeing a murder? Joyce?"
"You must remember," said Poirot, "that the term murder might have been used by someone of Joyce's age in a rather loose way. It might have been just a question of somebody being run over by a car, or of children fighting together perhaps and one pushing another into a stream or over a bridge. Something that was not meant seriously, but which had an unfortunate result."
"Well, I can't think of anything like that happening here that Joyce could have seen, and she certainly never said anything about it to me. She must have been joking."
"She was very positive," said Mrs Oliver. "She kept on saying that it was true and that she'd seen it."
"Did anyone believe her?" asked Mrs Reynolds.
"I don't know," said Poirot.
"I don't think they did," said Mrs Oliver, "or perhaps they didn't want to - er - well, encourage her by saying they believed it."
"They were inclined to jeer at her and say she was making it all up," said Poirot, less kind-hearted than Mrs Oliver.
"Well, that wasn't very nice of them," said Mrs Reynolds. "As though Joyce would tell a lot of lies about things like that." She looked flushed and indignant.
"I know. It seems unlikely," said Poirot. "It was more possible, was it not, that she might have made a mistake, that she might have seen something she did think could have been described as a murder. Some accident, perhaps."
"She'd have said something about it to me if so, wouldn't she?" said Mrs Reynolds, still indignant.
"One would think so," said Poirot. "She did not say so at any time in the past? You might have forgotten. Especially if it wasn't really important."
"When do you mean?"
"We don't know," said Poirot. "That is one of the difficulties. It might have been three weeks ago - or three years. She said she had been 'quite young' at the time. What does a thirteen-year-old consider quite young? There was no sensational happening round here that you can recall?"
"Oh, I don't think so. I mean, you do hear of things. Or read about them in the papers. You know, I mean women being attacked, or a girl and her young man, or things like that. But nothing important that I can remember, nothing that Joyce took an interest in or anything of that kind."
"But if Joyce said positively she saw a murder, would you think she really thought so?"
"She wouldn't say so unless she really did think so, would she?" said Mrs Reynolds. "I think she must have got something mixed up really."
"Yes, it seems possible. I wonder," he asked, "if I might speak to your two children who were also at the party?"
"Well, of course, though I don't know what you can expect them to tell you. Ann's doing her work for her 'A' levels upstairs and Leopold's in the garden assembling a model aeroplane."
Leopold was a solid, pudgy faced boy entirely absorbed, it seemed, in mechanical construction. It was some few moments before he could pay attention to the questions he was being asked. "You were there, weren't you, Leopold? You heard what your sister said. What did she say?"
"Oh, you mean about the murder?" He seemed bored.
"Yes, that's what I mean," said Poirot. "She said she saw a murder once. Did she really see such a thing?"
"No, of course she didn't," said Leopold. "It was just like Joyce, that."
"What do you mean?"
"It was just like her, showing off," said Leopold, winding round a piece of wire and breathing forceful through his nose as he concentrated. "She was an awfully stupid sort of girl," he said. "She'd say anything, you know, for people to sit up and take notice."
"Do you really think she invented the whole thing?"
Leopold shifted his gaze to Mrs Oliver.
"I expect she wanted to impress you all," he said. "You write detective stories, don't you? I think she was just putting it on so that you should take more notice of her than you did of the others."
"That would also be rather like her, would it?" said Poirot.
"Oh, she'd say anything," said Leopold. "I bet nobody believed her though."
"Were you listening? Do you think anyone believed it?"
"Well, I heard her say it, but I didn't really listen. Beatrice laughed at her and so did Cathie. They said 'that's a tall story', or something." There seemed little more to be got out of Leopold. They went upstairs to where Ann, looking rather more than her sixteen years, was bending over a table with various study books spread round her.
"Yes, I was at the party," she said.
"You heard your sister say something about having seen a murder?"
"Oh yes, I heard her. I didn't take any notice, though."
"You didn't think it was true?"
"Of course it wasn't true. There haven't been any murders here for ages. I don't think there's been a proper murder for years."
"Then why do you think she said so?"
"Oh, she likes showing off. I mean she used to like showing off. She had a wonderful story once about having travelled to India. My uncle had been on a voyage there and she pretended she went with him. Lots of girls at school actually believed her."
"So you don't remember any - what you call murders - taking place here in the last three or four years?"
"No, only the usual kind," said Ann. "I mean, the ones you read every day in the newspaper. And they weren't actually here in Woodleigh Common. They were mostly in Medchester, I think."
"Who do you think killed your sister, Ann? You must have known her friends, you would know any people who didn't like her."
"I can't imagine who'd want to kill her. I suppose someone who was just batty. Nobody else would, would they?"
"There was no one who had - quarrelled with her or who did not get on with her?"
"You mean, did she have an enemy? I think that's silly. People don't have enemies really. There are just people you don't like."
As they departed from the room, Ann said: "I don't want to be nasty about Joyce, because she's dead, and it wouldn't be kind, but she really was the most awful liar, you know. I mean, I'm sorry to say things about my sister, but it's quite true."
"Are we making any progress?" said Mrs Oliver as they left the house.
"None whatever," said Hercule Poirot.
"That is interesting," he said thoughtfully.
Mrs Oliver looked as though she didn't agree with him.
Chapter 8
It was six o'clock at Pine Crest. Hercule Poirot put a piece of sausage into his mouth and followed it up with a sip of tea. The tea was strong and to Poirot singularly unpalatable. The sausage, on the other hand, was delicious. Cooked to perfection. He looked with appreciation across the table to where Mrs McKay presided over the large brown teapot.
Elspeth McKay was as unlike her
brother, Superintendent Spence, as she could 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 a thread, yet there was a certain likeness between them. Mainly the eyes and the strongly marked line of the jaw. Either of them, Poirot thought, could be relied upon for judgment and good sense. They would express themselves differently, but that was all. Superintendent Spence would express himself slowly and carefully as the result of due thought and deliberation. Mrs McKay would pounce, quick and sharp, like a cat upon a mouse.
"A lot depends," said Poirot, "upon the character of this child, Joyce Reynolds.
That 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. Better 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'd never believe her."
"Tell it with the object of showing off?"
"That's right. They told you the Indian story, didn't they? There's many as 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 or her uncle and aunt, but they went to India and she came back from those holidays with tall tales of how she'd been taken there with them. Made a good 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 I said straight along, she's telling more than ever happened. Could be, I thought at first, she was just exaggerating. But the story got added to every time. There were more tigers, if you know what I mean. Far more tigers than could possibly happen. And elephants, too, for that matter. I'd known her before, too, telling tall stories."
"Always to get attention?"
"Aye, you're right there. She was a great one for getting attention."