something."
"And I have carried things one step
further," said Poirot. "J have come to
you."
"Because you want me to do something?
I tell you, there's nothing I can do."
"Oh yes there is. You can tell me all
about the people. The people who live
here. The people who went to that party.
The fathers and mothers of the children
who were at the party. The school, the
teachers, the lawyers, the doctors. Somebody, during a party, induced a child to
kneel down, and perhaps, laughing, saying: 'I'll show you the best way to get
hold of an apple with your teeth. I know
the trick of it.' And then he or she--
whoever it was--put a hand on that girl's
head. There wouldn't have been much
struggle or noise or anything of that kind."
"A nasty business," said Spence. "I
thought so when I heard about it. What
do you want to know? I've been here a
year. My sister's been here longer--two or
58
three years. It's not a big community. It's
not a particularly settled one either. People
come and go. The husband has a job in
either Medchester or Great Canning, or
one of the other places round about. Their
children go to school here. Then perhaps
the husband changes his job and they go
somewhere else. It's not a fixed community.
Some of the people have been
here a long time. Miss Ernlyn, the schoolmistress, has. Dr. Ferguson has. But on
the whole, it fluctuates a bit."
"One supposes," said Hercule Poirot, "that having agreed with you that this was
a nasty business, I might hope that you
would know who are the nasty people
here."
"Yes," said Spence. "It's the first thing
one looks for, isn't it? And the next thing one looks for is a nasty adolescent in a
thing of this kind. Who wants to strangle
or drown or get rid of a lump of a girl of
thirteen? There doesn't seem to have been
any evidence of a sexual assault or
anything of that kind, which would be the
first thing one looks for. Plenty of that sort
of thing in every small town or village
nowadays. There again, I think there's
59
more of it than there used to be in my
young day. We had our mentally disturbed, or whatever they call them, but
not so many as we have now. I expect
there are more of them let out of the place
they ought to be kept safe in. All our
mental homes are too full; overcrowded, so doctor's say 'Let him or her lead a
normal life. Go back and live with his relatives,' etc. And then the nasty bit of goods, or the poor afflicted fellow, whichever way
you look at it, gets the urge again and
another young woman goes out walking
and is found in a gravel pit, or is silly
enough to take lifts in a car. Children
don't come home from school because
they've accepted a lift from a stranger, although they've been warned not to. Yes, there's a lot of that nowadays."
"Does that quite fit the pattern we have
here?"
"Well, it's the first thing one thinks of,"
said Spence. "Somebody was at the party
who had the urge, shall we say. Perhaps
he'd done it before, perhaps he'd only
wanted to do it. I'd say roughly that there
might be some past history of assaulting a
child somewhere. As far as I know,
60
nobody's come up with anything of that
kind. Not officially, I mean. There were
two in the right age group at the party.
Nicholas Ransom, nice-looking lad, seventeen
or eighteen. He'd be the right age.
Comes from the East Coast or somewhere
like that, I think. Seems all right. Looks
normal enough, but who knows? And
there's Desmond, remanded once for a
psychiatric report, but I wouldn't say there
was much to it. It's got to be someone at
the party, though of course I suppose
anyone could have come in from outside.
A house isn't usually locked up during a
party. There's a side door open, or a side
window. One of our half-baked people, I
suppose, could have come along to see
what was on and sneaked in. A pretty big
risk to take. Would a child agree, a child
who'd gone to a party, to go playing apple
games with anyone she didn't know?
Anyway, you haven't explained yet, Poirot, what brings you into it. You said
it was Mrs. Oliver. Some wild idea of
hers?"
"Not exactly a wild idea," said Poirot.
"It is true that writers are prone to wild
ideas. Ideas, perhaps, which are on the far
61
side of probability. But this was simply
something that she heard the girl say."
"What, the child Joyce?"
"Yes."
Spence leant forward and looked at
Poirot inquiringly.
"I will tell you," said Poirot.
Quietly and succinctly he recounted the
story as Mrs. Oliver had told it to him.
"I see," said Spence. He rubbed his
moustache. "The girl said that, did she?
Said she'd seen a murder committed. Did
she say when or how?"
"No," said Poirot.
"What led up to it?"
"Some remark, I think, about the
murders in Mrs. Oliver's books. Somebody
said something about it to Mrs.
Oliver. One of the children, I think, to the
effect that there wasn't enough blood in
her books or enough bodies. And then
Joyce spoke up and said she'd seen a
murder once."
"Boasted of it? That's the impression
you're giving me."
"That's the impression Mrs. Oliver got.
Yes, she boasted of it."
"It mightn't have been true."
62
"No, it might not have been true at all,"
said Poirot.
"Children often make these extravagant
statements when they wish to call attention
to themselves or to make an effect. On the
other hand, it might have been true. Is
that what you think?"
"I do not know," said Poirot. "A child
boasts of having witnessed'a murder. Only
a few hours later, that child is dead. You
must admit that there are grounds for
believing that it might--it's a farfetched
idea perhaps--but it might have been
cause and effect. If so, somebody lost no
time."
"Definitely," said Spence. "How many were present at the time the girl made her
statement re murder, do you know
exactly?"
"All that Mrs. Oliver said was that she
thought there were about fourteen or
fifteen people, perhaps more. Five or six
children, five or six grown-ups who were
running the show. But for exact information
I must rely on you."
"Well, that will be easy enough," said
Spence. "I don't say I know off-hand at Ae moment, but it's e
asily obtained from
I 63
the locals. As to the party itself, I know
pretty well already. A preponderance of
women, on the whole. Fathers don't turn
up much at children's parties. But they
look in, sometimes, or come to take their
children home. Dr. Ferguson was there,
the vicar was there. Otherwise, mothers,
aunts, social workers, two teachers from
the school. Oh, I can give you a list—
and roughly about fourteen children. The
youngest not more than ten—running on
into teenagers."
"And I suppose you would know the list
of probables amongst them?" said Poirot.
"Well, it won't be so easy now if what
you think is true."
"You mean you are no longer looking
for a sexually disturbed personality. You
are looking instead for somebody who has
committed a murder and got liway with it,
someone who never expected it to be
found out and who suddenly got a nasty
shock."
"Blest if I can think who it could .have
been, all the same," said Spence. ^ "I
shouldn't have said we had any likely
murderers round here. And certainly
64
nothing spectacular in the way of
murders."
"One can have likely murderers anywhere,"
said Poirot, "or shall I say
unlikely murderers, but nevertheless
murderers. Because unlikely murderers are
not so prone to be suspected. There is
probably not very much evidence against
them, and it would be a rude shock to
such a murderer to find that there had
actually been an eye-witness to his or her
crime."
"Why didn't Joyce say anything at the
time? That's what I'd like to know. Was
she bribed to silence by someone, do you
think? Too risky surely."
"No," said Poirot. "I gather from what
Mrs. Oliver mentioned that she didn't
recognise that it was a murder she was
looking at at the time."
"Oh, surely that's most unlikely," said
Spence.
"Not necessarily," said Poirot. "A child
of thirteen was speaking. She was remembering
something she'd seen in the past.
We don't know exactly when. It might
have been three or even four years
previously. She saw something but she
65
didn't realise its true significance. That
might apply to a lot of things you know, mon cher. Some rather peculiar car accident.
A car where it appeared that the
driver drove straight at the person who
was injured or perhaps killed. A child
might not realise it was deliberate at the
time. But something someone said, or
something she saw or heard a year or two
later might awaken her memory and she'd
think perhaps: *A or B or X did it on
purpose.9 Terhaps it was really a murder, not just an accident.' And there are plenty
of other possibilities. Some of them I will
admit suggested by my friend, Mrs.
Oliver, who can easily come up with about
twelve different solutions to everything, most of them not very probable but all of
them faintly possible. Tablets added to a
cup of tea administered to someone.
Roughly that sort of thing. A push perhaps
on a dangerous spot. You have no cliffs
here, which is rather a pity from the point
of view of likely theories. Yes, I think
there could be plenty of possibilities.
Perhaps it is some murder story that the
girl reads which recalls to her an incident.
It may have been an incident that puzzled
66
her at the time, and she might, when she
reads the story, say: 'Well, that might
have been so-and-so and so-and-so. I
wonder if he or she did it on purpose?"
Yes, there are a lot of possibilities."
"And you have come here to inquire
into them?"
"It would be in the public interest, I
think, don't you?" said Poirot.
"Ah, we're to be public spirited, are we,
you and I?"
"You can at least give me information,"
said Poirot. "You know the people here."
"I'll do what I can," said Spence. "And
I'll rope in Elspeth. There's not much
about people she doesn't know."
V..
*
67
6
SATISFIED with what he had
achieved, Poirot took leave of his
friend.
The information he wanted would be
forthcoming--he had no doubt as to that.
He had got Spence interested. And
Spence, once set upon a trail, was not one
to relinquish it. His reputation as a retired
high-ranking officer of the CID would
have won him friends in the local police
departments concerned.
And next--Poirot consulted his watch
--he was to meet Mrs. Oliver in exactly
ten minutes' time outside a house called
Apple Trees. Really, the name seemed
uncannily appropriate.
Really, thought Poirot, one didn't seem
able to get away from apples. Nothing
could be more agreeable than a juicy
English apple--And yet here were apples
mixed up with broomsticks, and witches, and old-fashioned folklore, and a murdered
child.
68
Following the route indicated to him, poirot arrived to the minute outside a red
brick Georgian style house with a neat
beech hedge enclosing it, and a pleasant
garden showing beyond.
and entered through the wrought iron gate
which bore a painted board labelled
"Apple Trees". A path led up to the front
door. Looking rather like one of those
Swiss clocks where figures come out automatically
of a door above the clock face,
the front door opened and Mrs. Oliver
emerged on the steps.
"You're absolutely punctual," she said
breathlessly. "I was watching for you from
the window."
Poirot turned and closed the gate carefully
behind him. Practically on every
occasion that he had met Mrs. Oliver, whether by appointment or by accident, a
motif of apples seemed to be introduced
almost immediately. She was either eating an apple or had been eating an apple--
witness an apple core nestling on her broad
chest--or was carrying a bag of apples. But to-day there was no apple in evidence
at all. Very correct, Poirot thought approv-
69
ingly. It would have been in very bad taste
to be gnawing an apple here, on the scene
of what had been not only a crime but a
tragedy. For what else can it be but that?
thought Poirot. The sudden death of a
child of only thirteen years old. He did not
like to think of it, and because he did not
like to think of it he was all the more
decided in his mind
that that was exactly
what he was going to think of until by
some means or other, light should shine
out of the darkness and he should see
clearly what he had come here to see.
"I can't think why you wouldn't come
and stay with Judith Butler," said Mrs.
Oliver. "Instead of going to a fifth-class
guest house."
"Because it is better that I should survey
things with a certain degree of aloofness,"
said Poirot. "One must not get involved,
you comprehend."
"I don't see how you can avoid getting
involved," said Mrs. Oliver. "You've got
to see everyone and talk to them, haven't
you?"
"That most decidedly," said Poirot.
"Who have you seen so far?"
"My friend. Superintendent Spence."
70
"What's he like nowadays?" said Mrs.
Oliver.
"A good deal older than he was," said
Poirot.
"Naturally," said Mrs. Oliver, "what
else would you expect? Is he deafer or
blinder or fatter or thinner?"
Poirot considered.
"He has lost a little weight. He wears
spectacles for reading the paper. I do not
think he is deaf, not to any noticeable
extent."
"And what does he think about it all?"
"You go too quickly," said Poirot.
"And what exactly are you and he going
to do?"
"I have planned my programme," said
Poirot. "First I have seen and consulted
with my old friend. I asked him to get me,
perhaps, some information that would not
be easy to get otherwise."
"You mean the police here will be his
buddies and he'll get a lot of inside stuff
from them?"
"Well, I should not put it exactly like
Aat, but yes, those are the lines along
which I have been thinking."
"And after that?"
."^i- •
J|| 71
"I come to meet you here, Madame.
I have to see just where this thing
happened."
Mrs. Oliver turned her head and looked
up at the house.
"It doesn't look the sort of house there'd
be a murder in, does it?" she said.
Poirot thought again: What an unerring
instinct she has!
"No," he said, "it does not look at all
that sort of a house. After I have seen where, then I go with you to see the
mother of the dead child. I hear what she
can tell me. This afternoon my friend