Hercule Poirot looked up at the fa?ade of Quarry1 House. A solid, well-built example of mid-Victorian architecture. He had a vision of its interior—a heavy mahogany sideboard, a centralrectangular table also of heavy mahogany, a billiard room, perhaps, a large kitchen with adjacentscullery, stone flags on the floor, a massive coal range now no doubt replaced by electricity or gas.
He noted3 that most of the upper windows were still curtained. He rang the front doorbell. It wasanswered by a thin, grey-haired woman who told him that Colonel and Mrs. Weston were away inLondon and would not be back until next week.
He asked about the Quarry Woods and was told that they were open to the public withoutcharge. The entrance was about five minutes’ walk along the road. He would see a notice board onan iron gate.
He found his way there easily enough, and passing through the gate began to descend4 a paththat led downwards5 through trees and shrubs7.
Presently he came to a halt and stood there lost in thought. His mind was not only on what hesaw, on what lay around him. Instead he was conning8 over one or two sentences, and reflectingover one or two facts that had given him at the time, as he expressed it to himself, furiously tothink. A forged Will, a forged Will and a girl. A girl who had disappeared, the girl in whosefavour the Will had been forged. A young artist who had come here professionally to make out ofan abandoned quarry of rough stone a garden, a sunk garden. Here again, Poirot looked round himand nodded his head with approval of the phrase. A Quarry Garden was an ugly term. It suggestedthe noise of blasting rock, the carrying away by lorries of vast masses of stone for road making. Ithad behind it industrial demand. But a Sunk Garden—that was different. It brought with it vagueremembrances in his own mind. So Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe had gone on a National Trust tour ofgardens in Ireland. He himself, he remembered, had been in Ireland five or six years ago. He hadgone there to investigate a robbery of old family silver. There had been some interesting pointsabout the case which had aroused his curiosity, and having (as usual)—Poirot added this bracket tohis thoughts—solved his mission with full success, he had put in a few days travelling around andseeing the sights.
He could not remember now the particular garden he had been to see. Somewhere, he thought,not very far from Cork9. Killarney? No, not Killarney. Somewhere not far from Bantry Bay. Andhe remembered it because it had been a garden quite different from the gardens which he had sofar acclaimed10 as the great successes of this age, the gardens of the Ch?teaux in France, the formalbeauty of Versailles. Here, he remembered, he had started with a little group of people in a boat. Aboat difficult to get into if two strong and able boatmen had not practically lifted him in. They hadrowed towards a small island, not a very interesting island, Poirot had thought, and began to wishthat he had not come. His feet were wet and cold and the wind was blowing through the crevicesof his mackintosh. What beauty, he had thought, what formality, what symmetrical arrangement ofgreat beauty could there be on this rocky island with its sparse11 trees? A mistake—definitely amistake.
They had landed at the little wharf12. The fishermen had landed him with the same adroitness13 theyhad shown before. The remaining members of the party had gone on ahead, talking and laughing.
Poirot, readjusting his mackintosh in position and tying up his shoes again, had followed them upthe rather dull path with shrubs and bushes and a few sparse trees either side. A most uninterestingpark, he thought.
And then, rather suddenly, they had come out from among the scrub on to a terrace with stepsleading down from it. Below it he had looked down into what struck him at once as somethingentirely magical. Something as it might have been if elemental beings such as he believed werecommon in Irish poetry, had come out of their hollow hills and had created there, not so much bytoil and hard labour as by waving a magic wand, a garden. You looked down into the garden. Itsbeauty, the flowers and bushes, the artificial water below in the fountain, the path round it,enchanted, beautiful and entirely14 unexpected. He wondered how it had been originally. It seemedtoo symmetrical to have been a quarry. A deep hollow here in the raised ground of the island, butbeyond it you could see the waters of the Bay and the hills rising the other side, their misty16 tops anenchanting scene. He thought perhaps that it might have been that particular garden which hadstirred Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe to possess such a garden of her own, to have the pleasure of takingan unkempt quarry set in this smug, tidy, elementary and essentially17 conventional countryside ofthat part of England.
And so she had looked about for the proper kind of well-paid slave to do her bidding. And shehad found the professionally qualified18 young man called Michael Garfield and had brought himhere and had paid him no doubt a large fee, and had in due course built a house for him. MichaelGarfield, thought Poirot, had not failed her.
He went and sat down on a bench, a bench which had been strategically placed. He pictured tohimself what the sunken quarry would look like in the spring. There were young beech19 trees andbirches with their white shivering barks. Bushes of thorn and white rose, little juniper trees. Butnow it was autumn, and autumn had been catered20 for also. The gold and red of acers, a parrotia ortwo, a path that led along a winding21 way to fresh delights. There were flowering bushes of gorseor Spanish broom—Poirot was not famous for knowing the names of either flowers or shrubs—only roses and tulips could he approve and recognize.
But everything that grew here had the appearance of having grown by its own will. It had notbeen arranged or forced into submission22. And yet, thought Poirot, that is not really so. All hasbeen arranged, all has been planned to this tiny little plant that grows here and to that largetowering bush that rises up so fiercely with its golden and red leaves. Oh yes. All has been plannedhere and arranged. What is more, I would say that it had obeyed.
He wondered then whom it had obeyed. Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe or Michael Garfield? It makesa difference, said Poirot to himself, yes, it makes a difference. Mrs. Llewellyn- Smythe wasknowledgeable, he felt sure. She had gardened for many years, she was no doubt a Fellow of theRoyal Horticultural Society, she went to shows, she consulted catalogues, she visited gardens. Shetook journeys abroad, no doubt, for botanical reasons. She would know what she wanted, shewould say what she wanted. Was that enough? Poirot thought it was not quite enough. She couldhave given orders to gardeners and made sure her orders were carried out. But did she know—really know—see in her mind’s eye exactly what her orders would look like when they had beencarried out? Not in the first year of their planting, not even the second, but things that she wouldsee two years later, three years later, perhaps, even six or seven years later. Michael Garfield,thought Poirot, Michael Garfield knows what she wants because she has told him what she wants,and he knows how to make this bare quarry of stone and rock blossom as a desert can blossom. Heplanned and he brought it about; he had no doubt the intense pleasure that comes to an artist whois commissioned by a client with plenty of money. Here was his conception of a fairy-land tuckedaway in a conventional and rather dull hillside, and here it would grow up. Expensive shrubs forwhich large cheques would have to be written, and rare plants that perhaps would only beobtainable through the goodwill24 of a friend, and here, too, the humble25 things that were needed andwhich cost next to nothing at all. In spring on the bank just to his left there would be primroses26,their modest green leaves all bunched together up the side of it told him that.
“In England,” said Poirot, “people show you their herbaceous borders and they take you to seetheir roses and they talk at inordinate27 length about their iris15 gardens, and to show they appreciateone of the great beauties of England, they take you on a day when the sun shines and the beechtrees are in leaf, and underneath28 them are all the bluebells29. Yes, it is a very beautiful sight, but Ihave been shown it, I think, once too often. I prefer—” the thought broke off in his mind as hethought back to what he had preferred. A drive through Devon lanes. A winding road with greatbanks up each side of it, and on those banks a great carpet and showing of primroses. So pale, sosubtly and timidly yellow, and coming from them that sweet, faint, elusive30 smell that the primrosehas in large quantities, which is the smell of spring almost more than any other smell. And so itwould not be all rare shrubs here. There would be spring and autumn, there would be little wildcyclamen and there would be autumn crocus here too. It was a beautiful place.
He wondered about the people who lived in Quarry House now. He had their names, a retiredelderly Colonel and his wife, but surely, he thought, Spence might have told him more about them.
He had the feeling that whoever owned this now had not got the love of it that dead Mrs.
Llewellyn-Smythe had had. He got up and walked along the path a little way. It was an easy path,carefully levelled, designed, he thought, to be easy for an elderly person to walk where she wouldat will, without undue31 amount of steep steps, and at a convenient angle and convenient intervals32 aseat that looked rustic33 but was much less rustic than it looked. In fact, the angle for the back andfor one’s feet was remarkably34 comfortable. Poirot thought to himself, I’d like to see this MichaelGarfield. He made a good thing of this. He knew his job, he was a good planner and he gotexperienced people to carry his plans out, and he managed, I think, to get his patron’s plans soarranged that she would think that the whole planning had been hers. But I don’t think it was onlyhers. It was mostly his. Yes, I’d like to see him. If he’s still in the cottage—or the bungalow—thatwas built for him, I suppose—his thought broke off.
He stared. Stared across a hollow that lay at his feet where the path ran round the other side ofit. Stared at one particular golden red branching shrub6 which framed something that Poirot did notknow for a moment was really there or was a mere35 effect of shadow and sunshine and leaves.
What am I seeing? thought Poirot. Is this the result of enchantment36? It could be. In this placehere, it could be. Is it a human being I see, or is it—what could it be? His mind reverted37 to someadventures of his many years ago which he had christened “The Labours of Hercules.” Somehow,he thought, this was not an English garden in which he was sitting. There was an atmosphere here.
He tried to pin it down. It had qualities of magic, of enchantment, certainly of beauty, bashfulbeauty, yet wild. Here, if you were staging a scene in the theatre, you would have your nymphs,your fauns, you would have Greek beauty, you would have fear too. Yes, he thought, in this sunkgarden there is fear. What did Spence’s sister say? Something about a murder that took place inthe original quarry years ago? Blood had stained the rock there, and afterwards, death had beenforgotten, all had been covered over, Michael Garfield had come, had planned and had created agarden of great beauty, and an elderly woman who had not many more years to live had paid outmoney for it.
He saw now it was a young man who stood on the other side of the hollow, framed by goldenred leaves, and a young man, so Poirot now recognized, of an unusual beauty. One didn’t think ofyoung men that way nowadays. You said of a young man that he was sexy or madly attractive, andthese evidences of praise are often quite justly made. A man with a craggy face, a man with wildgreasy hair and whose features were far from regular. You didn’t say a young man was beautiful.
If you did say it, you said it apologetically as though you were praising some quality that had beenlong dead. The sexy girls didn’t want Orpheus with his lute38, they wanted a pop singer with araucous voice, expressive39 eyes and large masses of unruly hair.
Poirot got up and walked round the path. As he got to the other side of the steep descent, theyoung man came out from the trees to meet him. His youth seemed the most characteristic thingabout him, yet, as Poirot saw, he was not really young. He was past thirty, perhaps nearer forty.
The smile on his face was very, very faint. It was not quite a welcoming smile, it was just a smileof quiet recognition. He was tall, slender, with features of great perfection such as a classicalsculptor might have produced. His eyes were dark, his hair was black and fitted him as a wovenchain mail helmet or cap might have done. For a moment Poirot wondered whether he and thisyoung man might not be meeting in the course of some pageant40 that was being rehearsed. If so,thought Poirot, looking down at his galoshes, I, alas41, shall have to go to the wardrobe mistress toget myself better equipped. He said:
“I am perhaps trespassing42 here. If so, I must apologize. I am a stranger in this part of the world.
I only arrived yesterday.”
“I don’t think one could call it trespassing.” The voice was very quiet; it was polite yet in acurious way uninterested, as if this man’s thoughts were really somewhere quite far away. “It’s notexactly open to the public, but people do walk round here. Old Colonel Weston and his wife don’tmind. They would mind if there was any damage done, but that’s not really very likely.”
“No vandalism,” said Poirot, looking round him. “No litter that is noticeable. Not even a littlebasket. That is very unusual, is it not? And it seems deserted43—strange. Here you would think,” hewent on, “there would be lovers walking.”
“Lovers don’t come here,” said the young man. “It’s supposed to be unlucky for some reason.”
“Are you, I wonder, the architect? But perhaps I’m guessing wrong.”
“My name is Michael Garfield,” said the young man.
“I thought it might be,” said Poirot. He gesticulated with a hand around him. “You made this?”
“Yes,” said Michael Garfield.
“It is beautiful,” said Poirot. “Somehow one feels it is always rather unusual when somethingbeautiful is made in—well, frankly44, what is a dull part of the English landscape.
“I congratulate you,” he said. “You must be satisfied with what you have done here.”
“Is one ever satisfied? I wonder.”
“You made it, I think, for a Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe. No longer alive, I believe. There is aColonel and Mrs. Weston, I believe? Do they own it now?”
“Yes. They got it cheap. It’s a big, ungainly house—not easy to run—not what most peoplewant. She left it in her Will to me.”
“And you sold it.”
“I sold the house.”
“And not the Quarry Garden?”
“Oh yes. The Quarry Garden went with it, practically thrown in, as one might say.”
“Now why?” said Poirot. “It is interesting, that. You do not mind if I am perhaps a littlecurious?”
“Your questions are not quite the usual ones,” said Michael Garfield.
“I ask not so much for facts as for reasons. Why did A do so and so? Why did B do somethingelse? Why was C’s behaviour quite different from that of A and B?”
“You should be talking to a scientist,” said Michael. “It is a matter—or so we are told nowadays—of genes45 or chromosomes46. The arrangement, the pattern, and so on.”
“You said just now you were not entirely satisfied because no one ever was. Was youremployer, your patron, whatever you like to call her — was she satisfied? With this thing ofbeauty?”
“Up to a point,” said Michael. “I saw to that. She was easy to satisfy.”
“That seems most unlikely,” said Hercule Poirot. “She was, I have learned, over sixty. Sixty-five at least. Are people of that age often satisfied?”
“She was assured by me that what I had carried out was the exact carrying out of herinstructions and imagination and ideas.”
“And was it?”
“Do you ask me that seriously?”
“No,” said Poirot. “No. Frankly I do not.”
“For success in life,” said Michael Garfield, “one has to pursue the career one wants, one has tosatisfy such artistic47 leanings as one has got, but one has as well to be a tradesman. You have to sellyour wares48. Otherwise you are tied to carrying out other people’s ideas in a way which will notaccord with one’s own. I carried out mainly my own ideas and I sold them, marketed them perhapsis a better word, to the client who employed me, as a direct carrying out of her plans and schemes.
It is not a very difficult art to learn. There is no more to it than selling a child brown eggs ratherthan white ones. The customer has to be assured they are the best ones, the right ones. The essenceof the countryside. Shall we say, the hen’s own preference? Brown, farm, country eggs. One doesnot sell them if one says ‘they are just eggs. There is only one difference in eggs. They are newlaid or they are not.’”
“You are an unusual young man,” said Poirot. “Arrogant,” he said thoughtfully.”
“Perhaps.”
“You have made here something very beautiful. You have added vision and planning to therough material of stone hollowed out in the pursuit of industry, with no thought of beauty in thathacking out. You have added imagination, a result seen in the mind’s eye, that you have managedto raise the money to fulfil. I congratulate you. I pay my tribute. The tribute of an old man who isapproaching a time when the end of his own work is come.”
“But at the moment you are still carrying it on?”
“You know who I am, then?”
Poirot was pleased indubitably. He liked people to know who he was. Nowadays, he feared,most people did not.
“You follow the trail of blood…It is already known here. It is a small community, news travels.
Another public success brought you here.”
“Ah, you mean Mrs. Oliver.”
“Ariadne Oliver. A best seller. People wish to interview her, to know what she thinks aboutsuch subjects as student unrest, socialism, girls’ clothing, should sex be permissive, and manyother things that are no concern of hers.”
“Yes, yes,” said Poirot, “deplorable, I think. They do not learn very much, I have noticed, fromMrs. Oliver. They learn only that she is fond of apples. That has now been known for twenty yearsat least, I should think, but she still repeats it with a pleasant smile. Although now, I fear, she nolonger likes apples.”
“It was apples that brought you here, was it not?”
“Apples at a Hallowe’en party,” said Poirot. “You were at that party?”
“No.”
“You were fortunate.”
“Fortunate?” Michael Garfield repeated the word, something that sounded faintly like surprisein his voice.
“To have been one of the guests at a party where murder is committed is not a pleasantexperience. Perhaps you have not experienced it, but I tell you, you are fortunate because—”
Poirot became a little more foreign “—il y a des ennuis, vous comprenez? People ask you times,dates, impertinent questions.” He went on, “You knew the child?”
“Oh yes. The Reynolds are well known here. I know most of the people living round here. Weall know each other in Woodleigh Common, though in varying degrees. There is some intimacy,some friendships, some people remain the merest acquaintances, and so on.”
“What was she like, the child Joyce?”
“She was—how can I put it?—not important. She had rather an ugly voice. Shrill49. Really, that’sabout all I remember about her. I’m not particularly fond of children. Mostly they bore me. Joycebored me. When she talked, she talked about herself.”
“She was not interesting?”
Michael Garfield looked slightly surprised.
“I shouldn’t think so,” he said. “Does she have to be?”
“It is my view that people devoid50 of interest are unlikely to be murdered. People are murderedfor gain, for fear or for love. One takes one’s choice, but one has to have a starting point—”
He broke off and glanced at his watch.
“I must proceed. I have an engagement to fulfil. Once more, my felicitations.”
He went on down, following the path and picking his way carefully. He was glad that for oncehe was not wearing his tight patent leather shoes.
Michael Garfield was not the only person he was to meet in the sunk garden that day. As hereached the bottom he noted that three paths led from here in slightly different directions. At theentrance of the middle path, sitting on a fallen trunk of a tree, a child was awaiting him. She madethis clear at once.
“I expect you are Mr. Hercule Poirot, aren’t you?” she said.
Her voice was clear, almost bell-like in tone. She was a fragile creature. Something about hermatched the sunk garden. A dryad or some elf-like being.
“That is my name,” said Poirot.
“I came to meet you,” said the child. “You are coming to tea with us, aren’t you?”
“With Mrs. Butler and Mrs. Oliver? Yes.”
“That’s right. That’s Mummy and Aunt Ariadne.” She added with a note of censure51: “You’rerather late.”
“I am sorry. I stopped to speak to someone.”
“Yes, I saw you. You were talking to Michael, weren’t you?”
“You know him?”
“Of course. We’ve lived here quite a long time. I know everybody.”
Poirot wondered how old she was. He asked her. She said,“I’m twelve years old. I’m going to boarding school next year.”
“Will you be sorry or glad?”
“I don’t really know till I get there. I don’t think I like this place very much, not as much as Idid.” She added, “I think you’d better come with me now, please.”
“But certainly. But certainly. I apologize for being late.”
“Oh, it doesn’t really matter.”
“What’s your name?”
“Miranda.”
“I think it suits you,” said Poirot.
“Are you thinking of Shakespeare?”
“Yes. Do you have it in lessons?”
“Yes. Miss Emlyn read us some of it. I asked Mummy to read some more. I liked it. It has awonderful sound. A brave new world. There isn’t anything really like that, is there?”
“You don’t believe in it?”
“Do you?”
“There is always a brave new world,” said Poirot, “but only, you know, for very special people.
The lucky ones. The ones who carry the making of that world within themselves.”
“Oh, I see,” said Miranda, with an air of apparently52 seeing with the utmost ease, though whatshe saw Poirot rather wondered.
She turned, started along the path and said,
“We go this way. It’s not very far. You can go through the hedge of our garden.”
Then she looked back over her shoulder and pointed53, saying:
“In the middle there, that’s where the fountain was.”
“A fountain?”
“Oh, years ago. I suppose it’s still there, underneath the shrubs and the azaleas and the otherthings. It was all broken up, you see. People took bits of it away but nobody has put a new onethere.”
“It seems a pity.”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure. Do you like fountains very much?”
“Ca dépend,” said Poirot.
“I know some French,” said Miranda. “That’s it depends, isn’t it?”
“You are quite right. You seem very well-educated.”
“Everyone says Miss Emlyn is a very fine teacher. She’s our headmistress. She’s awfully54 strictand a bit stern, but she’s terribly interesting sometimes in the things she tells us.”
“Then she is certainly a good teacher,” said Hercule Poirot. “You know this place very well—you seem to know all the paths. Do you come here often?”
“Oh yes, it’s one of my favourite walks. Nobody knows where I am, you see, when I come here.
I sit in trees—on the branches, and watch things. I like that. Watching things happen.”
“What sort of things?”
“Mostly birds and squirrels. Birds are very quarrelsome, aren’t they? Not like in the bit ofpoetry that says ‘birds in their little nests agree.’ They don’t really, do they? And I watchsquirrels.”
“And you watch people?”
“Sometimes. But there aren’t many people who come here.”
“Why not, I wonder?”
“I suppose they are afraid.”
“Why should they be afraid?”
“Because someone was killed here long ago. Before it was a garden, I mean. It was a quarryonce and then there was a gravel55 pile or a sand pile and that’s where they found her. In that. Doyou think the old saying is true—about you’re born to be hanged or born to be drowned?”
“Nobody is born to be hanged nowadays. You do not hang people any longer in this country.”
“But they hang them in some other countries. They hang them in the streets. I’ve read it in thepapers.”
“Ah. Do you think that is a good thing or a bad thing?”
Miranda’s response was not strictly56 in answer to the question, but Poirot felt that it was perhapsmeant to be.
“Joyce was drowned,” she said. “Mummy didn’t want to tell me, but that was rather silly, Ithink, 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 aboutelephants and rajahs. She’d been to India once. I wish I’d been to India. Joyce and I used to telleach other all our secrets. I haven’t so much to tell as Mummy. Mummy’s been to Greece, youknow. That’s where she met Aunt Ariadne, but she didn’t take me.”
“Who told you about Joyce?”
“Mrs. Perring. That’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?”
“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 peoplewere 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 moresuited to the build of his childish guide with her elfin slimness—it was practically a highway toher. She was solicitous57 for Poirot, however, warning him of adjacent thorn bushes and holdingback the more prickly components58 of the hedge. They emerged at a spot in the garden adjacent toa 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 smallbungalow house. Miranda led the way through an open french window, announcing with themodest pride of a collector who has just secured a sample of a rare beetle59:
“I’ve got him all right.”
“Miranda, you didn’t bring him through the hedge, did you? You ought to have gone round bythe 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 queuein 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 headscarf and a mackintosh. JudithButler was a woman of about thirty-five, and whilst her daughter resembled a dryad or a woodnymph, Judith had more the attributes of a water-spirit. She could have been a Rhine maiden60. Herlong blonde hair hung limply on her shoulders, she was delicately made with a rather long faceand faintly hollow cheeks, whilst above them were big sea-green eyes fringed with long eyelashes.
“I’m very glad to thank you properly, Monsieur Poirot,” said Mrs. Butler. “It was very good ofyou 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 scones61 on the wire tray above theoven.”
Miranda disappeared. She gave, as she went, a knowledgeable23 smile directed at her mother thatsaid 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 horrible thing thathappened. But I suppose that was a forlorn chance from the start.”
“Yes indeed,” said Poirot. “There’s nothing that goes round any residential62 centre with the samerapidity as news of 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 seemparticularly 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 takingnotes,’” 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 spoke63 about it earlier. That seems veryunlike Joyce.”
“The first thing that everybody seems to tell me here,” said Poirot, in a mild voice, “is that thisgirl, Joyce Reynolds, was a liar2.”
“I suppose it’s possible,” said Judith Butler, “that a child might make up a thing and then itmight turn out to be true?”
“That is certainly the focal point from which we start,” said Poirot. “Joyce Reynolds wasunquestionably 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’tin 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’tyou? Or is there anything else you would like me to get from the kitchen?”
There was a gentle malice64 in her voice. Mrs. Butler lowered the Georgian silver teapot to thefender, 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 sandwicheswith a serious elegance65 of manner.
“Ariadne and I met in Greece,” said Judith.
“I fell into the sea,” said Mrs. Oliver, “when we were coming back from one of the islands. Ithad got rather rough and the sailors always say ‘jump’ and, of course, they always say jump justwhen the thing’s at its furthest point which makes it come right for you, but you don’t think thatcan possibly happen and so you dither and you lose your nerve and you jump when it looks closeand, of course, that’s the moment when it goes far away.” She paused for breath. “Judith helpedfish me out and it made a kind of bond between us, didn’t it?”
“Yes, indeed,” said Mrs. Butler. “Besides, I liked your Christian66 name,” she added. “It seemedvery appropriate, somehow.”
“Yes, I suppose it is a Greek name,” said Mrs. Oliver. “It’s my own, you know. I didn’t justmake it up for literary purposes. But nothing Ariadne-like has ever happened to me. I’ve neverbeen 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 helpcoming to his lips as he envisaged67 Mrs. Oliver in the r?le 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 r?le of cutting off your lover’s head. That is the way ithappened, isn’t it, Judith and Holofernes, I mean?”
“It was her patriotic68 duty,” said Mrs. Butler, “for which, if I remember rightly, she was highlycommended and rewarded.”
“I’m not really very well up in Judith and Holofernes. It’s the Apocrypha69, isn’t it? Still, if onecomes to think of it, people do give other people—their children, I mean—some very queernames, don’t they? Who was the one who hammered some nails in someone’s head? Jael orSisera. I never remember which is the man or which is the woman there. Jael, I think. I don’t thinkI remember any child having been christened Jael.”
“She laid butter before him in a lordly dish,” said Miranda unexpectedly, pausing as she wasabout to remove the tea tray.
“Don’t look at me,” said Judith Butler to her friend, “it wasn’t I who introduced Miranda to theApocrypha. “That’s her school training.”
“Rather unusual for schools nowadays, isn’t it?” said Mrs. Oliver. “They give them ethical70 ideasinstead, don’t they?”
“Not Miss Emlyn,” said Miranda. “She says that if we go to church nowadays we only get themodern version of the Bible read to us in the lessons and things, and that it has no literary meritwhatsoever. We should at least know the fine prose and blank verse sometimes of the AuthorizedVersion. I enjoyed the story of Jael and Sisera very much,” she added. “It’s not a thing,” she saidmeditatively, “that I should ever have thought of doing myself. Hammering nails, I mean, intosomeone’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 moredifficult, but I’d rather have it that way because I don’t like hurting things. I’d use a sort of drugthat gives people euthanasia. They would go to sleep and have beautiful dreams and they justwouldn’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 someQueen 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 theygrow up. They acquire puppy fat and look like well-fattened pigs sometimes. But now—now sheis 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 inisolated places, even if they are quite near people or a village. One’s—oh, one’s very frightenedall the time nowadays. That’s why—why you’ve got to find out why this awful thing happened toJoyce, 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 joinyou in a minute or two.”
She took the remaining two cups and a plate and went into the kitchen. Poirot and Mrs. Oliverwent out through the french window. The small garden was like most autumn gardens. It retaineda few candles of golden rod and michaelmas daisies in a border, and some Queen Elizabeth rosesheld their pink statuesque heads up high. Mrs. Oliver walked rapidly down to where there was astone 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 ofJudith?”
“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 ora forest pool or something. Her hair looks as though it had been dipped in water. Yet there’snothing untidy or scatty about her, is there?”
“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 thatsomething is giving her 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 intimatefriends. Just one or two people. The rest of them, I mean, they like each other and all that, but youdon’t really go to any trouble to see them again. But one or two you do. Well, Judith was one ofthe 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 husband died a good manyyears ago—he was an air pilot. He was killed in a car accident. One of those pileup things, I thinkit was, coming off the M what-is-it that runs near here on to the ordinary road one evening, orsomething of that kind. He left her rather badly off, I imagine. She was very broken up about it, Ithink. 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 afixed 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 ofcourse one doesn’t hear about her much. Aren’t the people who are alive enough for you?”
demanded Mrs. Oliver with some irritation71.
“Certainly not,” said Poirot. “I have also to inquire into those who have died or disappearedfrom the scene.”
“Who’s disappeared?”
“An au pair girl,” said Poirot.
“Oh well,” said Mrs. Oliver, “they’re always disappearing, aren’t they? I mean, they come overhere and get their fare paid and then they go straight into hospital because they’re pregnant andhave a baby, and call it Auguste, or Hans or Boris, or some name like that. Or they’ve come overto marry someone, or to follow up some young man they’re in love with. You wouldn’t believe thethings friends tell me! The thing about au pair girls seems to be either they’re Heaven’s gift tooverworked mothers and you never want to part with them, or they pinch your stockings—or getthemselves murdered—” She stopped. “Oh!” she said.
“Calm yourself, Madame,” said Poirot. “There seems no reason to believe that an au pair girlhas 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.”
“You seem to be very perturbed72 by the past altogether.”
“The past is the father of the present,” said Poirot sententiously.
He offered her the notebook.
“Do you wish to see what I have written?”
“Of course I do. I daresay it won’t mean anything to me. The things you think important towrite down, I never do.”
He held out the small black notebook.
“Deaths: e.g. Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe (Wealthy). Janet White (Schoolteacher). Lawyer’s clerk—Knifed, Former prosecution73 for forgery74.”
Below it was written “Opera girl disappears.”
“What opera girl?”
“It is the word my friend, Spence’s sister, uses for what you and I call an au pair girl.”
“Why should she disappear?”
“Because she was possibly about to get into some form of legal trouble.”
Poirot’s finger went down to the next entry. The word was simply “Forgery,” with two questionmarks after it.
“Forgery?” said Mrs. Oliver. “Why forgery?”
“That is what I asked. Why forgery?”
“What kind of forgery?”
“A Will was forged, or rather a codicil75 to a Will. A codicil in the au pair girl’s favour.”
“Undue influence?” suggested Mrs. Oliver.
“Forgery is something rather more serious than undue influence,” said Poirot.
“I don’t see what that’s got to do with the murder of poor Joyce.”
“Nor do I,” said Poirot. “But, therefore, it is interesting.”
“What is the next word? I can’t read it.”
“Elephants.”
“I don’t see what that’s got to do with anything.”
“It might have,” said Poirot, “believe me, it might have.”
He rose.
“I must leave you now,” he said. “Apologize, please, to my hostess for my not saying good-byeto her. I much enjoyed meeting her and her lovely and unusual daughter. Tell her to take care ofthat child.”
“‘My mother said I never should, play with the children in the wood,’” quoted Mrs. Oliver.
“Well, good-bye. If you like to be mysterious, I suppose you will go on being mysterious. Youdon’t even say what you’re going to do next.”
“I have made an appointment for tomorrow morning with Messrs Fullerton, Harrison andLeadbetter in Medchester.”
“Why?”
“To talk about forgery and other matters.”
“And after that?”
“I want to talk to certain people who were also present.”
“At the party?”
“No—at the preparation for the party.”
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1
quarry
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| n.采石场；v.采石；费力地找 | |
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liar
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| n.说谎的人 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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descend
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| vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降 | |
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downwards
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| adj./adv.向下的（地），下行的（地） | |
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shrub
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| n.灌木，灌木丛 | |
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shrubs
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| 灌木( shrub的名词复数 ) | |
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conning
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| v.诈骗，哄骗( con的现在分词 )；指挥操舵( conn的现在分词 ) | |
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cork
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| n.软木，软木塞 | |
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acclaimed
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| adj.受人欢迎的 | |
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sparse
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| adj.稀疏的，稀稀落落的，薄的 | |
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wharf
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| n.码头，停泊处 | |
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adroitness
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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iris
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| n.虹膜，彩虹 | |
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misty
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| adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的 | |
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essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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qualified
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| adj.合格的，有资格的，胜任的，有限制的 | |
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beech
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| n.山毛榉；adj.山毛榉的 | |
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catered
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| 提供饮食及服务( cater的过去式和过去分词 )； 满足需要，适合 | |
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winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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submission
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| n.服从，投降；温顺，谦虚；提出 | |
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knowledgeable
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| adj.知识渊博的；有见识的 | |
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goodwill
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| n.善意，亲善，信誉，声誉 | |
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humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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primroses
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| n.报春花( primrose的名词复数 )；淡黄色；追求享乐（招至恶果） | |
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inordinate
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| adj.无节制的；过度的 | |
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underneath
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| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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bluebells
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| n.圆叶风铃草( bluebell的名词复数 ) | |
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elusive
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| adj.难以表达(捉摸)的；令人困惑的；逃避的 | |
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undue
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| adj.过分的；不适当的；未到期的 | |
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intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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rustic
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| adj.乡村的，有乡村特色的；n.乡下人，乡巴佬 | |
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remarkably
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| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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enchantment
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| n.迷惑，妖术，魅力 | |
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reverted
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| 恢复( revert的过去式和过去分词 )； 重提； 回到…上； 归还 | |
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lute
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| n.琵琶，鲁特琴 | |
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expressive
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| adj.表现的，表达…的，富于表情的 | |
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pageant
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| n.壮观的游行；露天历史剧 | |
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alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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trespassing
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| [法]非法入侵 | |
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deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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genes
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| n.基因( gene的名词复数 ) | |
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chromosomes
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| n.染色体( chromosome的名词复数 ) | |
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artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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wares
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| n. 货物, 商品 | |
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shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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devoid
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| adj.全无的，缺乏的 | |
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censure
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| v./n.责备；非难；责难 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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gravel
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| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
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strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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solicitous
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| adj.热切的，挂念的 | |
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components
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| （机器、设备等的）构成要素，零件，成分； 成分( component的名词复数 )； [物理化学]组分； [数学]分量； （混合物的）组成部分 | |
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beetle
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| n.甲虫，近视眼的人 | |
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maiden
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| n.少女，处女；adj.未婚的，纯洁的，无经验的 | |
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scones
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| n.烤饼，烤小圆面包( scone的名词复数 ) | |
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residential
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| adj.提供住宿的；居住的；住宅的 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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malice
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| n.恶意，怨恨，蓄意；[律]预谋 | |
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elegance
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| n.优雅；优美，雅致；精致，巧妙 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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envisaged
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| 想像，设想( envisage的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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patriotic
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| adj.爱国的，有爱国心的 | |
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apocrypha
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| n.伪经，伪书 | |
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ethical
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| adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的 | |
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irritation
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| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
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perturbed
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| adj.烦燥不安的v.使（某人）烦恼，不安( perturb的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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prosecution
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| n.起诉，告发，检举，执行，经营 | |
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forgery
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| n.伪造的文件等，赝品，伪造（行为） | |
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codicil
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| n.遗嘱的附录 | |
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