No, I dont suppose I have, said Mrs Oliver. I havent told you the reason, I mean, why I came to you.
You knew
this Joyce, you knew her well?
I didnt know her at all. Id better explain to you, I think, just how I came to be there.
There is where?
Oh, a place called Woodleigh Common.
Woodleigh Common, said Poirot thoughtfully. Now where lately he broke off.
Its not very far from London. Aboutoh, thirty to forty miles, I think. Its near Medchester. Its one of those places where there are a few nice houses, but where a certain amount of new building has been done. Residential. A good school nearby, and people can commute from there to London or into Medchester. Its quite an ordinary sort of place where people with what you might call everyday reasonable incomes live.
Woodleigh Common, said Poirot again, thought fully.
I was staying with a friend there. Judith Butler. Shes a widow. I went on a Hellenic cruise this year and Judith was on the cruise and we became friends. Shes got a daughter. A girl called Miranda who is twelve or thirteen. Anyway, she asked me to come and stay and she said friends of hers were giving this party for children, and it was to be a Halloween party. She said perhaps I had some interesting ideas.
Ah, said Poirot, she did not suggest this time that you should arrange a murder hunt or anything of that kind?
Good gracious, no, said Mrs Oliver. Do you think I should ever consider such a thing again?
I should think it unlikely.
But it happened, thats whats so awful, said Mrs Oliver. I mean, it couldnt have happened just because I was there, could it?
I do not think so. At leastDid any of the people at the party know who you were?
Yes, said Mrs Oliver. One of the children said something about my writing books and that they liked murders. Thats how itwellthats what led to the thingI mean to the thing that made me come to you.
Which you still havent told me.
Well, you see, at first I didnt think of it. Not straight away. I mean, children do queer things sometimes. I mean there are queer children about, children whowell, once I suppose they would have been in mental homes and things, but they send them home now and tell them to lead ordinary lives or something, and then they go and do something like this.
There were some young adolescents there?
There were two boys, or youths as they always seem to call them in police reports. About sixteen to eighteen.
I suppose one of them might have done it. Is that what the police think?
They dont say what they think, said Mrs Oliver, but they looked as though they might think so.
Was this Joyce an attractive girl?
I dont think so, said Mrs Oliver. You mean attractive to boys, do you?
No, said Poirot, I think I meantwell, just the plain simple meaning of the word.
I dont think she was a very nice girl, said Mrs Oliver, not one youd want to talk to much. She was the sort of girl who shows off and boasts. Its a rather tiresome age, I think. It sounds unkind what Im saying, but
It is not unkind in murder to say what the victim was like, said Poirot. It is very, very necessary. The personality of the victim is the cause of many a murder. How many people were there in the house at the time?
You mean for the party and so on? Well, I suppose there were five or six women, some mothers, a school-teacher, a doctors wife, or sister, I think, a couple of middle-aged married people, the two boys of sixteen to eighteen, a girl of fifteen, two or three of eleven or twelvewell that sort of thing. About twenty-five or thirty in all, perhaps.
Any strangers?
They all knew each other, I think. Some better than others. I think the girls were mostly in the same school. There were a couple of women who had come in to help with the food and the supper and things like that. when the party ended, most of the mothers went home with their children. I stayed behind with Judith and a couple of others to help Rowena Drake, the woman who gave the party, to clear up a bit, so the cleaning women who came in the morning wouldnt have so much mess to deal with. You know, there was a lot of flour about, and paper caps out of crackers and different things. So we swept up a bit, and we got to the library last of all. And thats whenwhen we found her. And then I remembered what shed said.
What who had said?
Joyce.
What did she say? We are coming to it now, are we not? We are coming to the reason why you are here?
Yes. I thought it wouldnt mean anything tooh, to a doctor or the police or anyone, but I thought it might
mean something to you.
Eh bien, said Poirot, tell me. Was this something Joyce said at the party?
Noearlier in the day. That afternoon when we were fixing things up. It was after theyd talked about my writing murder stories and Joyce said I saw a murder once and her mother or somebody said Dont be silly, Joyce, saying things like that and one of the older girls said Youre just making it up and Joyce said I did. I saw it I tell you. I did. I saw someone do a murder, but no one believed her. They just laughed and she got very angry.