"Mummy didn't want to tell me, but that
was rather silly, I think, don't you? I
mean, I'm twelve years old."
"Was Joyce a friend of yours?"
"Yes. She was a great friend in a way.
She told me very interesting things sometimes.
All about elephants and rajahs.
She'd been to India once. I wish I'd been
to India. Joyce and I used to tell each other all our secrets. I haven't so much to
tell as Mummy. Mummy's been to Greece, you know. That's where she met Aunt
Ariadne, but she didn't take me."
"Who told you about Joyce?"
"Mrs. Perring. She's our cook. She was
talking to Mrs. Minden who comes and
cleans. Someone held her head down in a
bucket of water."
"Have you any idea who that someone
was?"
173
"I shouldn't think so. They didn't seem
to know, but then they're both rather
stupid really."
"Do you know, Miranda?"
"I wasn't there. I had a sore throat and
a temperature so Mummy wouldn't take
me to the party. But I think I could know.
Because she was drowned. That's why I
asked if you thought people were born to
be drowned. We go through the hedge
here. Be careful of your clothes."
Poirot followed her lead. The entrance
through the hedge from the Quarry
Garden was more suited to the build of his
childish guide with her elfin slimness—it
was practically a highway to her. She was
solicitous for Poirot, however, warning
him of adjacent thorn bushes and holding
back the more prickly components of the
hedge. They emerged at a spot in the
garden adjacent to a compost heap and
turned a corner by a derelict cucumber
frame to where two dustbins stood. From
there on a small neat garden mostly
planted with roses gave easy access to the
small bungalow house. Miranda led the
way through an open french window,
announcing with the modest pride of a
174
collector who has just secured a sample of
a rare beetle:
"I've got him all right."
"Miranda, you didn't bring him through
the hedge, did you? You ought to have
gone round by the path at the side gate."
"This is a better way," said Miranda.
"Quicker and shorter."
"And much more painful, I suspect."
"I forget," said Mrs. Oliver—"I did
introduce you, didn't I, to my friend Mrs.
Butler?"
"Of course. In the post office."
The introduction in question had been a
matter of a few moments while there had
been a queue in front of the counter.
Poirot was better able now to study Mrs.
Oliver's friend at close quarters. Before it
had been a matter of a slim woman in a
disguising head-scarf and a mackintosh.
Judith Butler was a woman of about
thirty-five, and whilst her daughter
resembled a dryad or a wood-nymph,
Judith had more the attributes of a waterspirit.
She could have been a Rhine
maiden. Her long blonde hair hung limply
on her shoulders, she was delicately made
with a rather long face and faintly hollow
175
cheeks, whilst above them were big seagreen
eyes fringed with long eyelashes.
"I'm very glad to thank you properly,
Monsieur Poirot," said Mrs. Butler. "It
was very good of you to come down here
when Ariadne asked you."
"When my friend, Mrs. Oliver, asks me
to do anything I always have to do it," said
Poirot.
"What nonsense," said Mrs. Oliver.
"She was sure, quite sure, that you
would be able to find out all about this
beastly thing. Miranda, dear, will you go
into the kitchen? You'll find the scones on
the wire tray above the oven."
Miranda disappeared. She gave, as she
went, a knowledgeable smile directed at
her mother that said as plainly as a smile
could say, "She's getting me out of the
way for a short time."
"I tried not to let her know," said
Miranda's mother, "about this—this
suppose that was a forlorn chance from the
start."
"Yes indeed," said Poirot. "There's
nothing that goes round any residential
centre with the same rapidity as news of
176
a disaster, and particularly an unpleasant
disaster. And anyway," he added, "one
cannot go long through life without
knowing what goes on around one. And
children seem particularly apt at that sort
of thing."
"I don't know if it was Burns or Sir
Walter Scott who said. There's a chiel
among you taking notes'," said Mrs.
Oliver, "but he certainly knew what he
was talking about."
"Joyce Reynolds certainly seems to have
noticed such a thing as a murder," said
Mrs. Butler. "One can hardly believe it."
"Believe that Joyce noticed it?"
"I meant believe that if she saw such a
thing she never spoke about it earlier.
That seems very unlike Joyce."
"The first thing that everybody seems to
tell me here," said Poirot, in a mild voice,
"is that this girl, Joyce Reynolds, was a
liar."
"I suppose it's possible," said Judith
Butler, "that a child might make up a
thing and then it might turn out to be
true?"
"That is certainly the focal point from
177
which we start," said Poirot. "Joyce Reynolds
was unquestionably murdered."
"And you have started. Probably you
know already all about it," said Mrs.
Oliver.
"Madame, do not ask impossibilities of
me. You are always in such a hurry."
"Why not?" said Mrs. Oliver. "Nobody
would ever get anything done nowadays if
they weren't in a hurry."
Miranda returned at this moment with
a plateful of scones.
"Shall I put them down here?" she
asked. "I expect you've finished talking by
now, haven't you? Or is there anything
else you would like me to get from the
kitchen?"
There was a gentle malice in her voice.
Mrs. Butler lowered the Georgian silver
teapot to the fender, switched on an electric
kettle which had been turned off just
before it came to the boil, duly filled the
teapot and served the tea. Miranda handed
hot scones and cucumber sandwiches with
a serious elegance of manner.
"Ariadne and I met in Greece," said
Judith.
"I fell into the sea," said Mrs. Oliver,
178
"when we were coming back from one of
the islands. It had got rather rough and
the sailors always say 'jump' and, of
cou
rse, they say jump just when the
thing's at its furthest point which makes it
come right for you, but you don't think
that can possibly happen and so you dither
and you lose your nerve and you jump
when it looks close and, of course, that's
the moment when it goes far away." She
paused for breath. "Judith helped fish me
out and it made a kind of bond between
us, didn't it?"
"Yes, indeed," said Mrs. Butler.
"Besides, I liked your Christian name,"
she added. "It seemed very appropriate,
somehow."
"Yes, I suppose it is a Greek name,"
said Mrs. Oliver. "It's my own, you know.
I didn't just make it up for literary
purposes. But nothing Ariadne-like has
ever happened to me. I've never been
deserted on a Greek island by my own true
love or anything like that."
Poirot raised a hand to his moustache in
order to hide the slight smile that he could
not help coming to his lips as he envisaged
Mrs. Oliver in the role of a deserted Greek
maiden.
"We can't all live up to our names,"
said Mrs. Butler.
"No, indeed. I can't see you in the role
of cutting off your lover's head. That is
the way it happened, isn't it, Judith and
Holofernes, I mean?"
"It was her patriotic duty," said Mrs.
Butler, "for which, if I remember rightly,
she was highly commended and
rewarded."
"I'm not really very well up in Judith
and Holofernes. It's the Apochrypha, isn't
it? Still, if one comes to think of it, people
do give other people—their children, I
mean—some very queer names, don't
they? Who was the one who hammered
some nails in someone's head? Jael or
Sisera. I never remember which is the man
or which is the woman there. Jael, I think.
I don't think I remember any child having
been christened Jael."
"She laid butter before him in a lordly
dish," said Miranda unexpectedly, pausing
as she was about to remove the tea-tray.
"Don't look at me," said Judith Butler
to her friend, "it wasn't I who introduced
180
Miranda to the Apochrypha. That's her
school training,"
"Rather unusual for schools nowadays,
isn't it?" said Mrs. Oliver. "They give
them ethical ideas instead, don't they?"
"Not Miss Ernlyn," said Miranda. "She
says that if we go to church nowadays we
only get the modern version of the Bible
read to us in the lessons and things, and
that it has no literary merit whatsoever.
We should at least know the fine prose and
blank verse sometimes of the Authorised
Version. I enjoyed the story of Jael and
Sisera very much," she added. "It's not a
thing," she said meditatively, "that I
should ever have thought of doing myself.
Hammering nails, I mean into someone's
head when they were asleep."
"I hope not indeed," said her mother.
"And how would you dispose of your
enemies, Miranda?" asked Poirot.
"I should be very kind," said Miranda
in a gently contemplative tone. "It would
be more difficult, but I'd rather have it
that way because I don't like hurting
things. I'd use a sort of drug that gives
people euthanasia. They would go to sleep
and have beautiful dreams and they just
181
wouldn't wake up." She lifted some tea
cups and the bread and butter plate. "I'll
wash up. Mummy," she said, "if you like
to take Monsieur Poirot to look at the
garden. There are still some Queen Elizabeth
roses at the back of the border."
She went out of the room carefully
carrying the tea-tray.
"She's an astonishing child, Miranda,"
said Mrs. Oliver.
"You have a very beautiful daughter, Madame," said Poirot.
"Yes, I think she is beautiful now. One
doesn't know what they will look like by
the time they grow up. They acquire
puppy fat and look like well-fattened pigs
sometimes. But now--now she is like a
wood-nymph."
"One does not wonder that she is fond
of the Quarry Garden which adjoins your
house."
"I wish she wasn't so fond of it sometimes.
One gets nervous about people
wandering about in isolated places, even if
they are quite near people or a village.
One's--oh, one's frightened all the time
nowadays. That's why--why you've got to
find out why this awful thing happened to
182
Joyce, Monsieur Poirot. Because until we
know who that was, we shan't feel safe
for a minute—about our children, I mean.
Take Monsieur Poirot out in the garden,
will you, Ariadne? I'll join you in a minute
VYJ.J.J. JfU.y
or two."
She took the remaining two cups and a
plate and went into the kitchen. Poirot and
Mrs. Oliver went out through the french
window. The small garden was like most
autumn gardens. It retained a few candles
of golden rod and michaelmas daisies in a
border, and some Queen Elizabeth roses
held their pink statuesque heads up high.
Mrs. Oliver walked rapidly down to where
there was a stone bench, sat down, and
motioned Poirot to sit down beside her.
"You said you thought Miranda was like
a wood-nymph," she said. "What do you
think of Judith?"
"I think Judith's name ought to be
Undine," said Poirot.
"A water-spirit, yes. Yes, she does look
as though she'd just come out of the Rhine
or the sea or a forest pool or something.
Her hair looks as though it had been
dipped in water. Yet there's nothing
untidy or scatty about her, is there?"
183
"She, too, is a very lovely woman," said
Poirot.
"What do you think about her?"
"I have not had time to think as yet. I
just think that she is beautiful and
attractive and that something is giving her
very great concern."
"Well, of course, wouldn't it?"
"What I would like, Madame, is for you
to tell me what you know or think about
her."
"Well, I got to know her very well on
the cruise. You know, one does make
quite intimate friends. Just one or two
people. The rest of them, I mean, they like
each other and all that, but you don't
really go to any trouble to see them again.
But one or two you do. Well, Judith was
one of the ones I did want to see again."
"You did not know her before the
cruise?"
"No."
"But you know something about her?"
"Well, just ordinary things. She's a
widow," said Mrs. Oliver. "Her hus
band
died a good many years ago—he was an
air pilot. He was killed in a car accident.
One of those pile-up things, I think it was,
184
coming off the M what-is-it that runs near
here on to the ordinary road one evening,
or something of that kind. He left her
rather badly off, I imagine. She was very
broken up about it, I think. She doesn't
like talking about him."
"Is Miranda her only child?"
"Yes. Judith does some part-time
secretarial work in the neighbourhood, but
she hasn't got a fixed job."
"Did she know the people who lived at
the Quarry House?"
"You mean old Colonel and Mrs.
Weston?"
"I mean the former owner, Mrs.
Llewellyn-Smythe, wasn't it?"
"I think so. I think I've heard that name
mentioned. But she died two or three years
ago, so of course one doesn't hear about
her much. Aren't the people who are alive
enough for you?" demanded Mrs. Oliver
with some irritation.
"Certainly not," said Poirot. "I have
also to inquire into those who have died or
disappeared from the scene."
"Who's disappeared?"
"An au pair girl," said Poirot.
"Oh well," said Mrs. Oliver, "they're
HP13 185
always disappearing, aren't they? I mean, they come over here and get their fare paid
and then they go straight into hospital
because they're pregnant and have a baby, and call it Auguste, or Hans or Boris, or
some name like that. Or they've come over
to marry someone, or to follow up some
young man they're in love with. You
wouldn't believe the things friends tell me!
The thing about au pair girls seems to be
either they're Heaven's gift to overworked
mothers and you never want to part with
them, or they pinch your stockings--or
get themselves murdered--" She stopped.
"Oh!" she said.
"Calm yourself, Madame," said Poirot.
"There seems no reason to believe that an
au pair girl has been murdered--quite the
contrary."
"What do you mean by quite the
contrary? It doesn't make sense."
"Probably not. All the same--"
He took out his notebook and made an
entry in it.
"What are you writing down there?"
"Certain things that have occurred in
the past."
186
"You seem to be very perturbed by the
past altogether."
"The past is the father of the present,"