Hallowe'en Party by Agatha Christie Read Free Book Online Page A

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.” “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 that, but yes, those are the lines along which I have been thinking.”
    “And after that?”
    “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 ofhousethere'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 Spence is making an appointment for me to talk with the local inspector at a suitable hour. I should also like a talk with the doctor here. And possibly the headmistress at the school. At six o'clock I drink tea and eat sausages with my friend Spence and his sister again in their house and we discuss.”
    “What more do you think he'll be able to tell you?”
    “I want to meet his sister. She has lived here longer than he has. He came here to join her when her husband died. She will know, perhaps, the people here fairly well.”
    “Do you know what you sound like?” said Mrs Oliver. “A computer. You know. You're programming yourself. That's what they call it, isn't it? I mean you're feeding all these things into yourself all day and then you're going to see what comes out.”
    “It is certainly an idea you have there,” said Poirot, with some interest. “Yes, yes, I play the part of the computer. One feeds in the information -”
    “And supposing you come up with all the wrong answers?” said Mrs Oliver.
    “That would be impossible,” said Hercule Poirot. “Computers do not do that sort of a thing.”
    “They're not supposed to,” said Mrs Oliver, “but you'd be surprised at the things that happen sometimes. My last electric light bill, for instance. I know there's a proverb which says 'To err is human', but a human error is nothing to what a computer can do if it tries. Come on in and meet Mrs Drake.”
    Mrs Drake was certainly something, Poirot thought. She was a tall, handsome woman of forty-odd, her golden hair was lightly tinged with grey, her eyes were brilliantly blue, she oozed competence from the fingertips downwards. Any party she had arranged would have been a successful one. In the drawing-room a tray of morning coffee with two sugared biscuits was awaiting them.
    Apple Trees, he saw, was a