Hallowe'en Party Read Online Free PDF Page A

kind?”
    â€œGood gracious, no,” said Mrs. Oliver. “Do you think I should ever consider such a thing again?”
    â€œI should think it unlikely.”
    â€œBut it happened, that’s what’s so awful,” said Mrs. Oliver. “I mean, it couldn’t have happened just because I was there, could it?”
    â€œI do not think so. At least—Did any of the people at the party know who you were?”
    â€œYes,” said Mrs. Oliver. “One of the children said something about my writing books and that they liked murders. That’s how it—well—that’s what led to the thing—I mean to the thing that made me come to you.”
    â€œWhich you still haven’t told me.”
    â€œWell, you see, at first I didn’t think of it. Not straight away. I mean, children do queer things sometimes. I mean there are queer children about, children who—well, once I suppose they would have been in mental homes and things, but they send them homenow and tell them to lead ordinary lives or something, and then they go and do something like this.”
    â€œThere were some young adolescents there?”
    â€œThere were two boys, or youths as they always seem to call them in police reports. About sixteen to eighteen.”
    â€œI suppose one of them might have done it. Is that what the police think?”
    â€œThey don’t say what they think,” said Mrs. Oliver, “but they looked as though they might think so.”
    â€œWas this Joyce an attractive girl?”
    â€œI don’t think so,” said Mrs. Oliver. “You mean attractive to boys, do you?”
    â€œNo,” said Poirot, “I think I meant—well, just the plain simple meaning of the word.”
    â€œI don’t think she was a very nice girl,” said Mrs. Oliver, “not one you’d want to talk to much. She was the sort of girl who shows off and boasts. It’s a rather tiresome age, I think. It sounds unkind what I’m saying, but—”
    â€œIt 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?”
    â€œYou mean for the party and so on? Well, I suppose there were five or six women, some mothers, a schoolteacher, a doctor’s 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 twelve—well that sort of thing. About twenty-five or thirty in all, perhaps.”
    â€œAny strangers?”
    â€œThey 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 wouldn’t 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 that’s when—when we found her. And then I remembered what she’d said.”
    â€œWhat who had said?”
    â€œJoyce.”
    â€œWhat did she say? We are coming to it now, are we not? We are coming to the reason why you are here?”
    â€œYes. I thought it wouldn’t mean anything to—oh, to a doctor or the police or anyone, but I thought it might mean something to you.”
    â€œ Eh bien, ” said Poirot, “tell me. Was this something Joyce said at the party?”
    â€œNo—earlier in the day. That afternoon when we were fixing things up. It was after they’d talked about my writing