Agatha Christie - BBC 93-10-30 Hallowe'en Party

Summary

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Agatha Christie - BBC 93-10-30: Hallowe'en Party

Podcast: Harold's Old Time Radio
Host: Harold’s Old Time Radio
Airdate: September 28, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode features a full-cast dramatization of Agatha Christie's Hallowe'en Party, a classic Hercule Poirot mystery set in a small English village. The plot revolves around the murder of a young girl, Joyce Reynolds, at a Halloween party after she boasts she once witnessed a murder. Poirot is drawn into unraveling a web of secrets, lies, and interconnected deaths in the close-knit village.

Tone: Witty, suspenseful, atmospheric, true to Christie’s style with sly humor and psychological depth.

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Key Discussion and Story Points

The Hallowe'en Party Setup (01:00–05:55)

• Ariadne Oliver, Christie’s recurring mystery writer, is roped into helping with the local Halloween party at “Apple Trees,” the house of Mrs. Drake.
• The party prepares for traditional games: apple bobbing, snapdragon (burning raisins), fortune-telling, and a fancy dress competition.
• During the setup, Joyce Reynolds, a girl of 12 or 13, claims she once witnessed a murder. Adults and other children dismiss her as a notorious show-off.

Memorable Quote:

• Joyce: “I did see a murder. I did. I did. I did. Murder will out. That’s what they say.” (04:34)

The Murder and Poirot’s Involvement (05:55–13:00)

• After the party, Joyce is found drowned in the apple-bobbing bucket; the festive atmosphere turns tragic.
• Ariadne, distressed and feeling responsible for prompting murder talk, seeks help from Hercule Poirot.
• Poirot deduces that only someone feeling threatened by Joyce’s story would act hastily, implying her death is tied to an older, unsolved crime.

Memorable Quote:

• Poirot: “A girl was murdered. Murdered by someone who had strength enough to hold her head down in a bucket of water. An ugly murder. And a murder that was committed with no time to lose: somebody thought they were threatened and struck as soon as it was humanly possible.” (09:23)

Village Suspects and Past Crimes (13:00–32:00)

• Superintendent Spence, Poirot’s retired police acquaintance, helps compile a list of all those present before and during the party.
• Poirot learns more about Joyce. She was considered a compulsive liar and attention-seeker, leading most in the village to dismiss her claim.
• The main suspects are limited to those at the party. Possible connections are drawn to three mysterious deaths from previous years:
  • Mrs. Llewellyn Smythe: Left fortune to her foreign au pair, who then vanished after a forged codicil is discovered.
  • Leslie Ferrier: A lawyer’s clerk with a forgery record, stabbed near a local pub.
  • Janet White: A local teacher, strangled on footpath after receiving threats.

Notable Quote:

• Poirot: “People devoid of interest are unlikely to be murdered. People are murdered for gain, for fear, or for love. One takes one’s choice. But one has to have a starting point.” (39:16)

Investigation and Revelations (32:00–66:00)

• Poirot and Ariadne systematically interview party-goers, local teachers, and villagers. A focus emerges on:
  • The emotionally complex local relationships (e.g., Mrs. Drake is a controlling figure).
  • The two “outsiders”—the au pair (Olga Semenov) and mysterious gardener Michael Garfield.
• Witness testimony and circumstantial evidence tie the three past deaths to the current case.
• Class issues, inheritance motives, and jealousy emerge as key drivers behind the murders.
• Miranda Butler, a bright, perceptive girl and Joyce’s friend, gradually becomes central to the unraveling of the mystery.

Timestamps for Key Revelations:

• Mrs. Llewellyn Smythe’s will and forging scheme explained: (24:34–26:32)
• Discussion of the catalog of suspects and motive for each death: (27:00–29:30)
• Discovery that Miranda may be the true witness, not Joyce: (41:12–43:02)
• Leopold (Joyce’s brother) is killed in similar fashion—raising stakes: (73:33–74:07)

Climax and Solution (74:07–87:35)

• Poirot races against time as Miranda is kidnapped by Michael Garfield to be sacrificed in a pagan ritual at the stone circle (Kilterbury Ring).
• Garfield’s megalomania, artistic ambition, and desire for wealth drive the plot: he partnered with Rowena Drake (Mrs. Drake) for the series of murders and the will forgery.
• Poirot and the police intervene, saving Miranda at the last moment; Garfield poisons himself in a twisted act of self-sacrifice.
• Critical truths revealed:
  • Miranda was the actual witness (not Joyce) to an earlier killing of Olga, the au pair.
  • Garfield is Miranda’s biological father, and Rowena Drake, as his lover and accomplice, was financially motivated.

Memorable Exchanges:

• Michael Garfield (to Miranda): “You die that beauty should come into being.” (78:22)
• Poirot: “You want beauty, but for me it is truth that is important.” (71:50)
• Poirot (explaining the method): “If you hold down a vigorous child with its head in a full bucket of water, there will be struggling and splashing, and you are bound to get wet. And that is what happened to Mrs. Drake. So she had to account for getting so wet." (83:14)

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with timestamps)

• Joyce: “One murder is generally quite enough for most people.” (04:31)
• Mrs. Drake: “I am certain that someone just walked into the house… someone of a highly disturbed mentality, I suppose.” (14:35)
• Ariadne Oliver: “She is an astonishing child, Miranda.” (44:52)
• Poirot: “The past is the father of the present.” (46:01)
• Miranda: “I loved him very much, you see. I would have done anything he said.” (82:46)
• Poirot: “Rowena Drake was hopelessly infatuated with Michael Garfield. But there was a high price to pay for his Love. Nothing more or less than a Greek island purchased with her inheritance…” (87:39)

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Key Characters & Attributions

• Hercule Poirot: The Belgian detective. Intuitive, methodical, wryly humorous.
• Ariadne Oliver: Mystery writer, comic foil, and confidante to Poirot.
• Rowena Drake (Mrs. Drake): Village matriarch, ultimately revealed as co-conspirator and emotionally complex antagonist.
• Michael Garfield: Charismatic, manipulative landscape artist—murderer, Miranda’s father.
• Miranda Butler: Sensitive, observant, and the real witness to past crime.
• Joyce Reynolds: The first murder victim; known for fabrications.
• Superintendent Spence: Retired police contact; methodical, helpful.

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Key Takeaways

• The murders stem from a tangled web of past crimes involving greed, secrecy, and the manipulation of inheritance, with elements of occult and psychological control interwoven.
• The child Miranda, not Joyce, was the original witness, her knowledge suppressed by both her own naivete and the adults’ unwillingness to believe children's stories.
• Poirot’s approach emphasizes psychology and observation—his “little grey cells.”
• The conclusion draws on Greek myth and archetype—sacrifice, Eden, the dangers of idealism combined with ruthlessness.

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Important Segment Timestamps

• Joyce’s claim of witnessing a murder: 04:34–05:01
• Discovery of Joyce's body: 07:11–07:28
• Poirot’s initial theories: 09:23–11:22
• Suspects and past crimes discussion: 24:34–29:30
• Miranda’s witness account: 80:36–82:25
• Confrontation at the stone circle: 77:56–79:46
• Poirot’s final summary and wrap-up: 87:39–88:49

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Conclusion

This atmospheric radio drama presents Hallowe’en Party as a quintessential Christie puzzle: layered motives, missed clues, and the ultimate triumph of perception and logic. The episode’s pacing and dialogue beautifully capture the suspense and dark comedy of Christie's writing, with standout performances and memorable lines.
Perfect for fans of classic mystery and those new to Hercule Poirot alike.

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Transcript

[Narrator/Announcer]

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[Mrs. Drake]

Hey ho for Halloween, when all the witches can be seen, some in black and stunning green. Hail for Halloween.

[Hercule Poirot]

We present John Moffat as Echo Poirot and Stephanie Cole as Ariadne Oliver in Agatha Christie's Halloween Party.

[Ariadne Oliver]

Halloween party? I thought that sort of thing only happened in America.

[Mrs. Drake]

Goodness, no. You lead such a sheltered life, Ariadne. Haven't you seen all the witches hats in the shops? Anyway, I promised Rowena Drake that I'd lend a hand. And I did. Kind of hint that you might be going.

[Ariadne Oliver]

I hope you didn't make any rash promises on my behalf, Juliet. I don't want to find myself presenting the prize for the best pumpkin.

[Mrs. Drake]

I didn't promise anything. She knows your books, of course.

[Ariadne Oliver]

So many people do.

[Mrs. Drake]

I thought it might provide you with a story.

[Miranda Butler]

Mummy, I'm sure my temperature's gone down. There's nothing wrong with me at all. I'm sure she'll be fine by this evening. Can't I go?

[Mrs. Drake]

Half an hour ago it was 102. You can't have recovered just like that. Back to bed, Miranda.

[Miranda Butler]

But everyone else will be going.

[Mrs. Drake]

Well, they'll just have to do without you. Off you go. Mrs. Holt will bring you a cup of tea. Come on, ariadne. I promised Mrs. Drake we'd be there.

[Ariadne Oliver]

By three and I'm not expected to do anything.

[Mrs. Drake]

Nothing at all. Just think of it as the background for one of your murder stories. I'm so glad you were able to come, Mrs. Oliver. And it was so good of you to agree to judge the girls fancy dress competition. They'll be so thrilled.

[Ariadne Oliver]

Fancy dress? But I understood that I wasn't going to be asked.

[Mrs. Drake]

Are you going to have the snapdragon, Mrs. Drake? In the dining room. I best get something to cover up the table then. There's a green bay's cloth in the cupboard in the kitchen.

[Ariadne Oliver]

I thought we'd hang those fairy lights.

[Michael Garfield]

All the way around the landing, Mrs. Drake. Will that be all right?

[Mrs. Drake]

You're not going to hammer any nails in?

[Hercule Poirot]

Oh, no.

[Michael Garfield]

We'll just tie them up.

[Ariadne Oliver]

Is there anything I can do to help?

[Mrs. Drake]

Gracious, no, Mrs. Oliver. Why don't you find a chair? What are you hopping for? Apples. Going to be in the library. Mrs. Minden's gone off to find a really solid bucket. One that won't fall over. This is Ariadne Oliver, Miss Whittaker. How do you do? Miss Whittaker teaches at the Elms. That's the school most of the girls go to.

[Ariadne Oliver]

How do you do? You know, I've never understood what apple bobbing had to do with Halloween. It doesn't seem appropriate somehow.

[Mrs. Drake]

Apples were supposed to be associated with happy souls. You were given an apple to keep the evil spirits away. Evil spirits? Halloween was the night when the force of evil was at its most powerful. When witches were free to consort with the devil. And in this part of the world, they used to hold a Sabbath at the old stone circle at Kilterbury. Kilterbury ring. For on earth I must leave the night I shall ride and all our ninefold sweeping on by her side. Are you going to tell the girls fortunes this year, Mrs. Goodbody? Well, I don't do the telling exactly. I give them a mirror and they see the face of the man they're going to marry. Oh, that's what that ingenious contraption is that Nick is rigging up. It's to project pictures onto the mirrors. Are you the lady that writes the detective books?

[Ariadne Oliver]

Yes, that's right.

[Miranda Butler]

I read one of them once.

[Ariadne Oliver]

The Dying Goldfish.

[Mrs. Drake]

I thought it was quite good.

[Ariadne Oliver]

Thank you, dear.

[Mrs. Drake]

I thought it was a bit tame, really.

[Miranda Butler]

Only one murder.

[Ariadne Oliver]

One murder is generally quite enough for most people.

[Mrs. Drake]

I saw a murder once. Don't be silly, Joyce. Did you really? Did you really and truly see a murder? Of course she didn't, Anne. Don't say silly things, Joyce. I did see a murder. I did. I did. I did. Murder Will out. That's what they say. What kind of murder? Why didn't you go to the police? Because I didn't know it was a murder when I saw it. It really wasn't till a long time afterwards that I began to see it was a murder. Something that somebody said only a month or two ago suddenly made me think.

[Miranda Butler]

Of course it was a murder.

[Mrs. Drake]

And when did you see this, my dear? Years ago. I was quite young at the time. I don't believe it. You're making it up. Of course she's making it up. She's always making things up. I'm not making it up, Leopold. I swear it. That's quite enough, Joyce. Why don't you tell us about it? I brought the apples, Mrs. Drake. Where do you want them? In the library. Please, Mrs. Minden. Right. Just a minute.

[Ariadne Oliver]

I can never resist an apple they're.

[Mrs. Drake]

My besetting sin and they help to keep the evil spirits at bay. Delicious. I'd better go and see where the boys are going to hang the pumpkins. It's punky night tonight it's punky night tonight Give us a candle, give us a light it's punky night tonight it's punky night tonight it's punky night tonight Give us a candle, give us a light it's punky night tonight.

[Hercule Poirot]

Hercule Poirot speaks.

[Ariadne Oliver]

Oh, thank goodness for that. I felt sure you'd be bound to be out.

[Hercule Poirot]

No, my dear Ariadne, I am having a quiet evening all by myself.

[Ariadne Oliver]

Look, I'm in a terrible state.

[Hercule Poirot]

Yes, I can hear that. What is the matter?

[Ariadne Oliver]

It's too difficult to tell you on the phone. Can I come round and see you straight away? You're the only person who might know what to do.

[Hercule Poirot]

Now, come and sit yourself down. May I get you something to drink? A little cognac?

[Ariadne Oliver]

I don't drink. Surely you haven't forgotten.

[Hercule Poirot]

No, I have not forgotten, but I thought it might do you good.

[Ariadne Oliver]

I don't want anything. Really?

[Hercule Poirot]

Then calm yourself and tell me what it is that has upset you.

[Ariadne Oliver]

Well, it all began with a party. A Halloween party. Do you know what that is?

[Hercule Poirot]

I know what Halloween is. The last night in October when the witches ride on their broomsticks.

[Ariadne Oliver]

There was a witch. She was called Mrs. Goodbody, but I don't remember. A broomstick. It all started with the apples.

[Hercule Poirot]

Apples?

[Ariadne Oliver]

Bobbing for apples. It's one of the things you do at a Halloween party.

[Hercule Poirot]

Ah, yes, I think I have heard of that.

[Ariadne Oliver]

The party ended with a snapdragon.

[Hercule Poirot]

Snapdragon?

[Ariadne Oliver]

You know Burning raisins in a dish. I suppose that must have been when it happened.

[Hercule Poirot]

When what happened?

[Ariadne Oliver]

The murder. Everyone went home after the snapdragon, and that was when they couldn't find her.

[Hercule Poirot]

Find whom?

[Ariadne Oliver]

A girl called Joyce. Everyone went round the house calling for her. We found her in the end, in the library. That's where they'd been bobbing for apples.

[Hercule Poirot]

What had happened?

[Ariadne Oliver]

You know, I think I might take a little brandy after all.

[Hercule Poirot]

Just a little ami, Oui? Of course.

[Ariadne Oliver]

Someone had shoved her head down and held her there until she drowned in a galvanized iron bucket full of water. It was horrible. Not at all like the way murder happens in my books. I never want to see an apple again.

[Hercule Poirot]

Here. It will do you good.

[Ariadne Oliver]

Oh, thank you. Oh.

[Hercule Poirot]

Now, when did all this happen and where?

[Ariadne Oliver]

Last night. At a place called Woodley Common.

[Hercule Poirot]

Woodley Common. Now, why does that name seem familiar to me?

[Ariadne Oliver]

I was staying with a friend, Judith Butler. She's a widow. I went on an Hellenic cruise last year. She was there too. We got to know one another and she asked me to come and stay at her house. And I was invited to this Halloween party. It was for young teenagers, really. Sort of celebration for the girls who had passed their 11 plus.

[Hercule Poirot]

Did any of the people who were there know who you were?

[Ariadne Oliver]

Oh, yes. One of the children said something about my writing books, and they started talking about murder. And that's what led up to the thing. To the thing that made me come to you.

[Hercule Poirot]

And what is that?

[Ariadne Oliver]

Joyce said, I saw a murder once, and somebody said to be so silly. And one of the girls said she was making it up, but she insisted she'd seen it.

[Hercule Poirot]

Had she told anyone about it? Her parents. Did she go to the police? No.

[Ariadne Oliver]

No, the other girl asked her that and she said, because I didn't know at the time it was a murder.

[Hercule Poirot]

A very interesting reason. And do you yourself think that she really had seen a murder?

[Ariadne Oliver]

It's the only way that her death makes sense. That there was a murder and that she was a witness to it.

[Hercule Poirot]

But that would mean, would it not, that the murder was committed by one of the people at the party?

[Ariadne Oliver]

Yes, but it wasn't at the party that she said it. It was in the afternoon when everyone was getting it ready. You don't think I'm just imagining things, do you? What other reason could there have been?

[Hercule Poirot]

A girl was murdered. Murdered by someone who had strength enough to hold her head down in a bucket of water. An ugly murder. And a murder that was committed with no time to lose somebody thought they were threatened and struck as soon as it was humanly possible.

[Ariadne Oliver]

Joyce could not have known who it was that committed the murder. I mean, she wouldn't have said what she did if she knew the murderer was in the room with her.

[Hercule Poirot]

And how many people were there?

[Ariadne Oliver]

Oh, it's difficult to say. Everyone was rushing about, doing things. Fifteen, perhaps. Could have been more.

[Hercule Poirot]

And where did you say this was?

[Ariadne Oliver]

Woodley Common. It's not that far away. 30 or 40 miles from London.

[Mrs. Drake]

Ha.

[Hercule Poirot]

Now I remember why the name is familiar to me.

[Ariadne Oliver]

And why is that?

[Hercule Poirot]

A very old friend of mine, Superintendent Spence, went to live there when he retired from the force. How you think he might possibly be able to be of assistance to us?

[Superintendent Spence]

So you want me to find out exactly who were at the party and.

[Hercule Poirot]

At the preparation for it. And I want to know all about them. Anything you can tell me.

[Superintendent Spence]

I've only been down here a year. It's not a big community. My sister's been here longer. She might be able to help. I can guess pretty well already who would have been at the party itself. A preponderance of women. On the whole. Men don't turn up much at children's parties. Well, the doctor would have been there. And the vicar, I suppose. And young Nicholas Ransome and his friend from college, Desmond. You've absolutely ruled out any sexual motive for the killing. How old was the girl?

[Hercule Poirot]

12 or 13.

[Superintendent Spence]

It's just that this boy, Desmond was remanded for a psychiatrist report some time ago. May have been nothing in it otherwise. As I say, they'd be women, mothers, aunts, helpers. Oh, there'd be Miss Emlyn, who runs the village school, and her assistant, Ms. Whittaker. Rather a peculiar lady, I've always thought. But I don't see any of them as likely murderers.

[Hercule Poirot]

I suspect that what we are looking for is an unlikely murderer. Someone who would never be suspected. Someone to whom it would come as a terrible shock to discover that there had been a witness to the crime. And that is another matter on which I shall need your valuable assistance.

[Superintendent Spence]

How do you mean?

[Hercule Poirot]

We have to find out what was the original crime. Now, I want to know what unexplained deaths there have been at Woodley Common over the last few years. Something that this child could have witnessed, but not realized its true significance. A car accident where the driver might have gone directly for the victim. Tablets slipped into someone's tea. Someone who was pushed from a cliff.

[Superintendent Spence]

Well, there aren't any cliffs around here.

[Hercule Poirot]

No, no, no, no. No, no, I was merely giving example, Superintendent. There are hosts of possibilities.

[Superintendent Spence]

Well, I'll do what I can. And I'll rope in Elspeth. There's nothing much that goes on around here that she doesn't know about. Why don't you come back here this evening and have a bite to eat with us?

[Hercule Poirot]

That would be very kind. And now I must be on my way. Mrs. Oliver is to take me to the scene of the murder.

[Superintendent Spence]

Mrs. Drake's house. You'll find it's got an uncannily appropriate name.

[Hercule Poirot]

And what is that?

[Superintendent Spence]

It's called Apple Trees.

[Narrator/Announcer]

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[Mrs. Drake]

Yes, it has taken on a certain grim Significance.

[Ariadne Oliver]

Such a dreadful thing to happen in one's own house.

[Mrs. Drake]

The whole thing seems completely incredible. The party was going so well.

[Hercule Poirot]

Do you have any theories about why the poor girl was murdered, Mrs. Drake?

[Mrs. Drake]

I'm certain that someone just walked into the house. Not a difficult thing to do under the circumstances. Someone of a highly disturbed mentality, I suppose. Anyone peeping in through the window could see there was a children's party going on. And this poor wretch, if one can really feel any pity for these people, enticed the child away somehow and killed her.

[Hercule Poirot]

Perhaps if you would be so good as to show me where.

[Mrs. Drake]

Of course. It happened in the library.

[Ariadne Oliver]

I won't come with you, if you don't mind.

[Mrs. Drake]

There's nothing to see now. This way, Mr. Poirot. The police seem to think that the murder must have taken place while the snapdragon was going on. That was in the dining room over there. All the lights had been switched off. The only thing you could see was the blazing dish.

[Hercule Poirot]

So that anybody might have slipped out.

[Mrs. Drake]

Exactly. This is the library bucket in which the poor girl was drowned. Stood about here.

[Hercule Poirot]

Ah. Now, I suppose there was water. A good deal of water.

[Mrs. Drake]

There was water in the bucket, of course.

[Hercule Poirot]

I mean that if the child's head was pushed underwater, there would have been a lot of water splashed about.

[Mrs. Drake]

Oh, yes. Even while the apple bobbing was going on, the bucket had to be filled up once or twice.

[Hercule Poirot]

So the person who committed the crime would have got wet?

[Mrs. Drake]

Yes, I suppose so.

[Hercule Poirot]

That was not specially noticed.

[Mrs. Drake]

No. Inspector Raglan asked me about it quite specifically. You see, by the end of the evening, nearly everyone was a bit dishevelled or damp or covered in flour. The police didn't seem to think there was any useful clue there.

[Hercule Poirot]

No. I suppose the only clue was the child herself. I hope you will tell me all you know about her.

[Mrs. Drake]

About Joyce.

[Hercule Poirot]

The victim is always important. The murdered person, you see, is often the cause of the crime.

[Mrs. Drake]

I suppose. I see what you mean. Mrs. Oliver is right. There is something creepy about this room. Now, shall we go back and join her in the morning room?

[Ariadne Oliver]

I suppose it was all my fault, really. If I hadn't been here, there wouldn't have been any talk about murder, and none of this would have happened.

[Mrs. Drake]

Well, you are a very famous person, Ariadne.

[Hercule Poirot]

So now you will tell us all about Joyce.

[Mrs. Drake]

Mrs. Drake, I don't really know what you expect me to say. Surely it would be better to ask the poor girl's mother.

[Hercule Poirot]

Ah, but what I want is not a Mother's estimate of a dead daughter. But a clear, unbiased opinion from someone who has a great knowledge of human nature. Now, you have been an active worker in many social and welfare fields.

[Mrs. Drake]

Well, it is a little difficult. I mean, children of that age. She was 12 or 13, I think, are very much alike.

[Hercule Poirot]

Ah, surely there are very great differences in character and disposition. Did you like her?

[Mrs. Drake]

Well, of course I liked her. I like all children. Most people do.

[Hercule Poirot]

Mother, I do not agree with you. Some children I consider most unattractive. Was she a nice child or not? A nice child?

[Mrs. Drake]

You must realize, Monsieur Poirot, the poor child is dead.

[Hercule Poirot]

Dead or alive, it matters. Perhaps if she had been a nice child, nobody would have wanted to kill her.

[Mrs. Drake]

But surely it isn't a question of niceness.

[Hercule Poirot]

It could be. I understand that she claimed to have seen a murder committed.

[Mrs. Drake]

Oh, that.

[Hercule Poirot]

But you did not take it seriously?

[Mrs. Drake]

Of course not. She was just showing off because Mrs. Oliver was here.

[Ariadne Oliver]

But she did insist that it was true.

[Mrs. Drake]

I don't believe it for one minute. It's a sort of stupid thing Joyce would say.

[Hercule Poirot]

She was a stupid girl.

[Mrs. Drake]

Well, she was the kind who liked to show off. She always pretended to have seen more and done more than all the other girls.

[Hercule Poirot]

What did the other children have to say about it? Were they impressed?

[Mrs. Drake]

They laughed at her. So, of course, that made it worse.

[Hercule Poirot]

Well, madam, I am glad to have your personal assurance on that point.

[Mrs. Drake]

It was all put on to impress people.

[Ariadne Oliver]

Particularly me, I suppose.

[Hercule Poirot]

And now we must take our leaves. Thank you so much for allowing me to view the scene of this very unpleasant occurrence. Au revoir, madame.

[Ariadne Oliver]

Very unsuitable place for a murder, don't you think? No atmosphere, no haunting sense of tragedy. No character worth murdering.

[Hercule Poirot]

Hmm. I could not help feeling that just occasionally someone might feel like murdering Mrs. Drake.

[Ariadne Oliver]

She can be intensely irritating. So pleased with herself, so complacent.

[Hercule Poirot]

What is her husband like?

[Mrs. Drake]

Oh, she's a widow.

[Ariadne Oliver]

Her husband died a year or two ago. He got polio and had been disabled for years. He was a banker originally, I think.

[Hercule Poirot]

Do you like Mrs. Drake? Do you think she's a nice woman?

[Ariadne Oliver]

You do ask the most embarrassing questions. Seems the only thing you're interested in is whether people are nice or not. Rowena Drake is the bossy type. Likes running things and people. She runs the whole place, more or less.

[Hercule Poirot]

Now, tell me about the woman we are to see next. The mother of the unfortunate Joyce.

[Ariadne Oliver]

Mrs. Reynolds. I don't really know her. Pleasant enough. Rather stupid, I should think. I'm sorry. For her, though. It's awful to have your daughter murdered. Everyone round here seems to think it was a sex crime, which makes it worse.

[Hercule Poirot]

But there was no evidence of sexual assault.

[Mrs. Drake]

No.

[Ariadne Oliver]

People like to think these things happen.

[Miranda Butler]

I don't see how it could have been anyone living around here.

[Ariadne Oliver]

This is such a nice place. And the people living here are such nice people.

[Mrs. Drake]

It must have been a man who came in from the outside.

[Ariadne Oliver]

A drug addict, probably. What makes you so sure it was a man?

[Mrs. Drake]

It must have been a man. I mean, you don't find women doing things like that.

[Ariadne Oliver]

Joyce was only a child.

[Mrs. Drake]

13 years old.

[Hercule Poirot]

Now, I do not want to distress you by staying here too long, Mrs. Reynolds, or to ask you not difficult questions, but I am trying to follow up a remark that your daughter made at the party. You were there yourself, I think.

[Ariadne Oliver]

Well, no, I wasn't. I haven't been very well lately and these parties can be very tiring. I drove the children there and came back to fetch them. My son Leopold was there, of course, and my elder daughter, Anne. What was it Joyce said that you wanted to know about? She said that she had once seen a murder committed.

[Mrs. Drake]

Choice.

[Ariadne Oliver]

She couldn't have said a thing like that. She must have been joking. She was very positive. She kept on saying that it was true and that she'd seen it.

[Mrs. Drake]

But if anything like that had happened.

[Ariadne Oliver]

She'D have told me about it, wouldn't she?

[Hercule Poirot]

One would have thought so. She did not say anything about it. At some time during the past you might have forgotten. Especially if it was not really important. Not really important?

[Ariadne Oliver]

I thought you said it was a murder. She said she didn't know it was a murder at the time.

[Mrs. Drake]

When would this have been?

[Hercule Poirot]

Ah, this is one of our difficulties. It might have been three weeks ago or three years. She simply said she was quite young at the time. Now, can you think of anything that she might have seen?

[Mrs. Drake]

I can't imagine what she was talking about.

[Ariadne Oliver]

I mean, you do hear of things, women being attacked and things like that. But I can't think of anything that Joyce could have come across.

[Hercule Poirot]

You say her brother and sister were at the party. I wonder if we might speak to them.

[Miranda Butler]

Anne isn't here at the moment.

[Mrs. Drake]

She's still at the school.

[Miranda Butler]

But Leopold's upstairs in his room, second.

[Mrs. Drake]

Right at the top of the stairs.

[Miranda Butler]

Who on earth could she see murdered?

[Mrs. Drake]

It was just like Joyce, that.

[Hercule Poirot]

What do you mean?

[Mrs. Drake]

Showing off. She'd say anything to get people to notice her.

[Ariadne Oliver]

So you really think she invented the whole thing?

[Mrs. Drake]

I expect she just wanted to impress you a bit.

[Hercule Poirot]

Do you think anybody believed her?

[Miranda Butler]

Shouldn't think so.

[Mrs. Drake]

Miss Whittaker just told her not to be silly.

[Miranda Butler]

And Anne just laughed at her.

[Ariadne Oliver]

Did she often tell stories like that?

[Mrs. Drake]

She was an awful show off. She once told the girls at school she'd been to India with our uncle. Most of them actually believed her.

[Hercule Poirot]

Who do you think killed your sister, Leopold?

[Miranda Butler]

I can't imagine anyone wanting to kill her.

[Mrs. Drake]

I suppose someone who was just batty.

[Miranda Butler]

Who else would want to do it?

[Superintendent Spence]

Oh, yes, I remember about her Indian story. Wasn't it you who told me? Elspeth?

[Mrs. Drake]

She really let herself go. There was a maharaja and a tiger shoot and elephants. Every time she told anyone about it, she would add another tiger or another elephant. She was always telling tall stories.

[Hercule Poirot]

But that does not necessarily mean that every tale that she told was a lie.

[Mrs. Drake]

Well, I'd say the likelihood was it usually would be.

[Superintendent Spence]

And so she got herself killed.

[Mrs. Drake]

That's true enough.

[Hercule Poirot]

Who could she have seen murdered?

[Mrs. Drake]

Nobody.

[Hercule Poirot]

And have there been any unusual or unaccountable deaths?

[Superintendent Spence]

I've done what you asked for, Poirot. I've jotted down a few names.

[Hercule Poirot]

Unsolved murders?

[Superintendent Spence]

Hardly as much as that. Just a few possibilities. Here.

[Hercule Poirot]

Mrs. Llewellyn Smythe, Leslie Ferrier, Janet White. Tell me about Mrs. Llewellyn Smile.

[Mrs. Drake]

Oh, you might have something there. Her au pair girl went off one night and was never heard of again. She could have put something into her medicine easily enough. And she came into all the money, didn't she? Or that's what she thought.

[Hercule Poirot]

The au pair girl. Yes, but did anyone think at the time that there was anything suspicious about Mrs. Llewellyn Smile's death?

[Michael Garfield]

No.

[Superintendent Spence]

She got heart trouble. Doctor attended her regularly.

[Hercule Poirot]

Yet you put her on your list.

[Superintendent Spence]

Well, she was a very wealthy woman. And though her death wasn't unexpected, it was sudden. I think the doctor was surprised she.

[Mrs. Drake]

Came here when her health began to fail. She wanted to be near her niece and nephew. That's Mr. And Mrs. Drake. She bought Quarry House.

[Hercule Poirot]

Quarry House?

[Mrs. Drake]

After her death, it was bought by Colonel Weston and his wife. It's a big Victorian house with a disused quarry in the grounds. I think it was that which attracted it. She spent thousands of pounds turning the quarry into a sunken garden or whatever you call it. Had a landscape gardener come over from Wisley to design it. It's quite a showpiece, really.

[Hercule Poirot]

I shall go and look at it. But tell me, what makes you suspect that the old lady might have been murdered?

[Mrs. Drake]

Well, the au pair, for one thing.

[Hercule Poirot]

Why?

[Mrs. Drake]

Well, she must have forged the will. Who forged it if she didn't?

[Hercule Poirot]

What forged will? Tell me.

[Mrs. Drake]

Mrs. Llewellyn Smize. There was, what you call it, codicil.

[Superintendent Spence]

She'd made wills before. All much the same. Bequest to charities, legacies to old servants. But the bulk of her fortune always went to her nephew and his wife.

[Mrs. Drake]

And this particular codicil left everything to the au pair girl.

[Hercule Poirot]

How long had she been with the old lady?

[Mrs. Drake]

Oh, just over a year.

[Hercule Poirot]

Exactly how old was Mrs. Llewellyn? Smile?

[Superintendent Spence]

In her 60s, 65 or 6?

[Hercule Poirot]

That she's not so very old. But I suppose that the family claimed that the balance of her mind had been disturbed and that there had been undue influence.

[Superintendent Spence]

But it never came to that. The lawyers got onto the forgery pretty smartly. It seems it was not a very convincing affair.

[Mrs. Drake]

It would have been easy enough for the au pair to have done it. Mrs. Llewellyn Smyth was very concerned about traditional values. She believed that personal letters should also always be handwritten. But she suffered from severe arthritis, and so the au pair girl wrote a great many of her letters for her. Seems that the old lady told her to make the handwriting as much like hers as possible and even to sign it with her name. So when it came to forging the codicil, she must have thought she could get away with it. But the lawyers were too smart for her.

[Hercule Poirot]

These were Mrs. Duane and Smythe's own lawyers?

[Superintendent Spence]

Yes. Fullerton, Harrison and Ledbetter in the high street. They'd always done her legal business for her. Now, the girl was questioned about the will and she obviously got the wind up. Just walked out one day, leaving most of her things behind her.

[Mrs. Drake]

They were preparing to take proceedings against her. She didn't wait for that. She probably went back to her own country.

[Hercule Poirot]

A fascinating story, but I do not see what there was for Joyce to have seen. Now, what about this Leslie Ferrier?

[Superintendent Spence]

He was a lawyer's clerk. Worked for Fullerton, Harrison and Ledbetter. Mrs. Llewellyn Smythe, lawyers.

[Hercule Poirot]

And what happened to?

[Superintendent Spence]

He was stabbed in the back, not far from a pub called the Green Swan. He was supposed to be having an affair with the wife of the landlord, five or six years older than he was, but she liked them young.

[Mrs. Drake]

They said he'd broken with her and gone off with some other girl. But who she was, no one ever discovered.

[Hercule Poirot]

And so who was the suspect? The husband or the wife?

[Superintendent Spence]

Might have been either. The wife seemed the more likely she was a very temperamental piece.

[Mrs. Drake]

But there were other possibilities. Leslie Ferrier had got into trouble when he was in his early twenties. Forgery and falsifying accounts. He went to prison for it.

[Superintendent Spence]

Fullerton, Harrison and Ledbetter took him on when he came out of prison.

[Mrs. Drake]

Ah.

[Hercule Poirot]

Most commendable of them. And did he lead a blameless life after that?

[Superintendent Spence]

Well, nothing was ever proved, but he.

[Mrs. Drake]

Had a lot of money in his bank account, paid in in cash. Nothing to show where it had come from.

[Hercule Poirot]

Again, he does not sound like the murder we are looking for. Now, what about Janet White?

[Superintendent Spence]

Found strangled on a footpath which was a shortcut from the school where she taught to her home. A friend of hers said she was very nervous about some man she'd broken off from a month or so before. He'd been sending her threatening letters, apparently, but no one found any trace of them. Or of him, for that matter.

[Hercule Poirot]

I like this case better.

[Mrs. Drake]

For what reason?

[Hercule Poirot]

It is a more likely murder for a girl Joyce's witnessed. She could have recognized the victim, a school teacher whom she knew and who perhaps taught her. When was this mother?

[Mrs. Drake]

Two and a half years ago.

[Hercule Poirot]

That could be about the right time. She might have seen this man with his arms about Janet White without realizing that he was strangling her. It was only much later that the true explanation came to her. Yes, yes, yes, it is quite possible. What did you say was the name of the hypnosis?

[Mrs. Drake]

Ms. Emlyn.

[Hercule Poirot]

And she was also at the Halloween party?

[Superintendent Spence]

I believe so.

[Hercule Poirot]

Then I shall pay her a visit. I shall, as you say, be killing the two birds with the one stone.

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[Mrs. Drake]

There is no room for unnecessary sentiment about Joyce. It only clouds the mental faculties. To speak plainly, she was rather a mediocre child. Neither stupid nor particularly intelligent. Her only outstanding characteristic was that she was a compulsive liar.

[Hercule Poirot]

She was deceitful.

[Miranda Butler]

Oh, no.

[Mrs. Drake]

She didn't lie to avoid being found out or anything conventional like that. She boasted. She boasted of things that had not happened but that would impress her friends. As a result, of course, no one was inclined to believe her.

[Hercule Poirot]

So you do not think that Joyce saw a murder committed at all?

[Mrs. Drake]

I should doubt it very much. She might have witnessed perhaps a car accident or someone who was hit by a ball on the golf course. Something she could work up into an impressive happening that could just conceivably pass as an attempted murder.

[Hercule Poirot]

I believe that one of your own teachers, a year or so ago, was strangled by an unknown killer.

[Mrs. Drake]

Are you referring to Janet White?

[Hercule Poirot]

That is so.

[Mrs. Drake]

A strange emotional girl. As far as is known, she was out walking alone. She may, of course, have arranged to meet some young man. She was a girl who was quite attractive to men in a modest sort of way. Her killer was never discovered. The police questioned various young men or asked them to assist them in their inquiries, as they put it. But they were not able to find sufficient evidence to bring a case against anyone. Well, unsatisfactory business from their point of view. And I may say, from mine.

[Hercule Poirot]

Did you know her well?

[Mrs. Drake]

Not particularly well. Not outside her work at the school. She wouldn't have confided in me, if that is what you mean.

[Hercule Poirot]

Is there anyone on your staff who would be able to help me?

[Mrs. Drake]

Her great friend here was Nora Ambrose, but she is no longer here. I think perhaps that you should talk to Ms. Whitaker. She should be free in a few minutes. I presume that this is about the death of Joyce Reynolds, but I can't see exactly how you come into it through the police.

[Hercule Poirot]

No, not through the police. Through a friend.

[Mrs. Drake]

So what do you want to know?

[Hercule Poirot]

I don't think there is any need to tell you. I want to know about the Halloween party. You were there, I believe.

[Mrs. Drake]

Yes, I was there. It was a very good party. Well, at least it started out that way.

[Hercule Poirot]

Did you help out with the arrangements beforehand?

[Mrs. Drake]

I was there, but there was really very little to do. Mrs. Drake had seen to everything.

[Hercule Poirot]

And then you came back to the party as one of the guests.

[Mrs. Drake]

That is right.

[Hercule Poirot]

And was there anything particular about the party which caught your attention? Anything that might have had a certain significance?

[Mrs. Drake]

There was one thing. Yes. At the end they had a snapdragon. Do you know what I mean?

[Hercule Poirot]

Yes, I know. And what happened at the snapdragon?

[Mrs. Drake]

Oh, nothing. Happened there. But it was very hot in the room where it was happening, and I couldn't stand all the shrieking and the laughter, so I went out into the hall. It was then that I saw Mrs. Drake coming out of the lavatory on the first floor landing. She was carrying a large vase of flowers. She stopped and looked over the well of the staircase towards the other end of the hall, where there is a door leading to the library.

[Hercule Poirot]

The library. Go on.

[Mrs. Drake]

She made a sudden movement as if something had startled her. So much so that she lost hold of the vase and it fell, crashed down into the hall below. Broke into smithereens.

[Hercule Poirot]

And what do you think of that? Happen to startle her?

[Mrs. Drake]

I thought she had seen something.

[Hercule Poirot]

Such as?

[Mrs. Drake]

Well, it seems to me that she may have seen the door of the library opening from the inside.

[Hercule Poirot]

Nothing more than that she may have.

[Mrs. Drake]

Seen someone she did not expect to see.

[Hercule Poirot]

Did you see anyone?

[Mrs. Drake]

No, I was not looking that way. Oh, but everything happened so quickly. I tried to help Mrs. Drake mop up the water and sweep up the broken glass, but then the children started to come out of the snapdragon. And then shortly after that, the party came to an end.

[Hercule Poirot]

Did you ask Mrs. Drake what it was that had startled her?

[Mrs. Drake]

I had no earthly reason to do so. If your hostess has been so unfortunate as to smash one of her best glass vases, it's hardly the part of the guest to ask what on earth made you do that?

[Hercule Poirot]

Ah, quite so. And you could not have known at the time that behind the library door Joyce was dead. So whoever it was that may have been in the library could have made their exit while the hall was full of people putting on their coats and saying goodbye. It was not until after the body had been found. I presume, Ms. Whittaker, that you had time to reflect on what you had seen.

[Mrs. Drake]

That is so. And that, I'm afraid, is all I can tell you. And it may be a very foolish little matter.

[Hercule Poirot]

A moment. Before you go, mademoiselle, there is one little question I should like to ask you.

[Mrs. Drake]

What is it?

[Hercule Poirot]

How long have you been a teacher here?

[Mrs. Drake]

Just six years.

[Hercule Poirot]

Do you remember a girl who was a teacher here two years ago? Janet White?

[Mrs. Drake]

Janet White. But that has nothing to do with all this, surely?

[Hercule Poirot]

It could have. Did you know her well?

[Mrs. Drake]

She wasn't a close friend, if that's what you mean. But. But I still don't see how this concerns George Reynolds.

[Hercule Poirot]

She claimed to have seen a murder committed some years ago.

[Mrs. Drake]

Oh, that was just nonsense. I told Her. So she. She was just showing off in front of Ariadne Oliver?

[Hercule Poirot]

I am not so sure. You do not think it could possibly have been the murder of Janet White which she witnessed? How did Janet White die?

[Mrs. Drake]

She was strangled walking home from school one night.

[Hercule Poirot]

Alone?

[Mrs. Drake]

Probably not alone.

[Hercule Poirot]

But not with Nora Ambrose.

[Mrs. Drake]

What do you know about Nora Ambrose?

[Hercule Poirot]

Nothing as yet. But I should like to know, what were they like? Janet White and Nora Ambrose?

[Mrs. Drake]

Over sexed. But in different ways. Janet. Janet seemed to become an utterly different person whenever there was a likely man around. But how could. How could Joyce have possibly seen the murder? It took place in a lane near Quarry woods. And she can't be more than 10 or 11.

[Hercule Poirot]

And where is Nora Ambrose now?

[Mrs. Drake]

She left the school, took another post in the north of England. She was naturally very upset.

[Hercule Poirot]

The police never solved the crime?

[Mrs. Drake]

No. Look, I shall be late if I stay here any longer. I must go.

[Hercule Poirot]

Of course. There is just one thing I need to ask you.

[Mrs. Drake]

Yes, what is it?

[Hercule Poirot]

I would be grateful if you could tell me how to get to Quarry house.

[Mrs. Drake]

If it's Colonel or Mrs. Weston you're after, they're away. Won't be back till next week.

[Hercule Poirot]

It is of no great importance. I simply wanted to know whether they would permit me to see the gardens.

[Mrs. Drake]

The gardens? Oh, did you mean Quarry Woods?

[Hercule Poirot]

Yes, Quarry Woods. Is it possible to visit them?

[Mrs. Drake]

Oh, yes. They're open to the public without charge. You'll find the entrance along there. On the left hand side there's an iron gate.

[Hercule Poirot]

Thank you. You are very kind.

[Mrs. Drake]

Are you really going to walk around there in those shoes?

[Hercule Poirot]

Of course you'll get wet feet. Quarry Woods. What an ugly name for such beautiful dance. An enchanted place. Like something out of an ancient Greek legend. And as in all the best legends, there is something sinister about the place. In the midst of so much loveliness, there is fear.

[Michael Garfield]

Are you looking for something?

[Hercule Poirot]

Looking for something? No, no. I simply wanted to look at the gardens. Am I trespassing?

[Michael Garfield]

I don't think one could call it trespassing. Colonel Weston doesn't mind people walking around the place, so long as they don't do any damage.

[Hercule Poirot]

It doesn't look as if anyone comes here very much. You would think there would be children playing, or lovers walking.

[Michael Garfield]

Lovers don't come here. It's supposed to be unlucky for some reason.

[Hercule Poirot]

Are you by any chance the man who designed this garden?

[Michael Garfield]

I am. My name is Michael Garfield.

[Hercule Poirot]

You look somehow as if you were part of the place. You must be very satisfied with what.

[Michael Garfield]

You have achieved Here is one ever satisfied.

[Hercule Poirot]

You made it. I believe for Mrs. Llewellyn Smythe.

[Michael Garfield]

You seem to be remarkably well informed.

[Hercule Poirot]

Mm. Was she satisfied with this thing of beauty?

[Michael Garfield]

Up to a point. I carried out my own ideas and convinced her that they were her own. It's not a very difficult art to learn. I have to sell my wares, as you, I presume, have to sell yours.

[Hercule Poirot]

Sell my wares?

[Michael Garfield]

Investigation, detection, whatever you call it.

[Hercule Poirot]

Ah. You know who I am, then.

[Michael Garfield]

News travels fast in a small community like this, and you don't exactly blend with a landscape. You're trying to find out what happened at the Halloween party.

[Hercule Poirot]

Were you there?

[Michael Garfield]

No.

[Hercule Poirot]

You are fortunate.

[Michael Garfield]

Fortunate?

[Hercule Poirot]

To have been one of the guests at a party where a murder is committed is not a pleasant experience. People ask you times, dates, impertinent questions. You knew the child, Joyce?

[Michael Garfield]

Oh, yes. I know most of the people living around here.

[Hercule Poirot]

What was she like?

[Michael Garfield]

How can I put it? She was not important. She had rather an ugly voice. Shrill, really. That's all I can remember about her. I'm not particularly fond of children. Mostly they bore me. Joyce bought me.

[Hercule Poirot]

She was not interesting.

[Michael Garfield]

I shouldn't think so. Does she have to be?

[Hercule Poirot]

It is my view that people devoid of interest are unlikely to be murdered. People are murdered for gain, for fear or for love. One takes one's choice. But one has to have a starting point. But I have an engagement to find, and I am already late. Can you tell me how you get to Mrs. Butler's house from here?

[Michael Garfield]

Mrs. Butler? That's quite simple. You follow that path and just keep going.

[Hercule Poirot]

Thank you. Goodbye. And once again, my felicitations.

[Miranda Butler]

Mr. Poirot. You are Mr. Poirot, aren't you?

[Hercule Poirot]

That is my name.

[Miranda Butler]

I came to meet you. You are coming to tea with us.

[Hercule Poirot]

With Mrs. Butler? Yes.

[Miranda Butler]

You're rather late.

[Hercule Poirot]

I'm sorry. I stopped to speak to someone.

[Miranda Butler]

Yes, I saw you. You were talking to Michael.

[Hercule Poirot]

You know him?

[Miranda Butler]

Of course. We've lived here quite a long time. I know everybody.

[Hercule Poirot]

Forgive me asking, but how old are you?

[Miranda Butler]

I'm 12. I'm going to boarding school next year.

[Superintendent Spence]

Oh.

[Hercule Poirot]

Will you be sorry or glad?

[Miranda Butler]

I don't really know until I get there. I don't think I like this place very much. Not as much as I did.

[Hercule Poirot]

I presume that you are Mrs. Butler's daughter.

[Miranda Butler]

That's right.

[Hercule Poirot]

What is your name?

[Miranda Butler]

Miranda.

[Hercule Poirot]

I think it suits you.

[Miranda Butler]

Are you thinking of Shakespeare?

[Hercule Poirot]

Yes. Are you studying the Tempest at school?

[Miranda Butler]

Miss Whitaker read some of it to us. I liked it. Oh, Brave New World. There isn't anything really like that, is there?

[Hercule Poirot]

You don't believe in it, do you? There is always a brave new world, but only, you know, for very special people. The lucky ones. The ones who carry the making of that world within themselves.

[Miranda Butler]

I see. We go this way. You can go through the hedge of our garden.

[Hercule Poirot]

Huh? Through the hedgehog?

[Miranda Butler]

Oh, yes. That's where the fountain was. Just over there.

[Hercule Poirot]

A fountain?

[Miranda Butler]

Oh, years ago, I suppose. It's still there, underneath the shrubs and azaleas and things. It was all broken up, you see.

[Hercule Poirot]

Seems a pity. You know this place very well. Do you often come here?

[Miranda Butler]

Oh, yes. It's one of my favorite places. Nobody knows where I am. You see, when I come here, I sit up in the trees and watch things. I like that.

[Hercule Poirot]

What sort of things?

[Miranda Butler]

Mostly birds and squirrels. Birds are very quarrelsome, aren't they?

[Hercule Poirot]

And do you watch people?

[Miranda Butler]

Sometimes. But there aren't many people who come here.

[Hercule Poirot]

Why not, I wonder?

[Miranda Butler]

I suppose they are afraid.

[Hercule Poirot]

Why should they be afraid?

[Miranda Butler]

Because someone was killed here long ago. Before it was a garden, I mean. It was a quarry once. And then there was a gravel pile. That's where they found her. Do you think the old saying is true about you? Born to be hanged or born to be drowned?

[Hercule Poirot]

Nobody is born to be hanged nowadays. You do not hang people any longer in this country.

[Miranda Butler]

Joyce was drowned. Mummy didn't want me to know. But that was rather silly, I think, don't you? I mean, I'm 12 years old.

[Hercule Poirot]

Was Joyce a friend of yours?

[Miranda Butler]

Yes, she was. She'd tell me very interesting things sometimes. She'd been to India once. I wish I'd been to India. Joyce and I used to tell each other all our secrets.

[Hercule Poirot]

Who told you about Joyce?

[Miranda Butler]

Mrs. Perry. That's our cook. Someone held Joyce's head down in a bucket of water.

[Hercule Poirot]

Have you any idea who that someone was?

[Miranda Butler]

I wasn't there. I had a sore throat and a temperature. But I think I could know who it was because she was drowned. That's why I asked you if you thought people were born to be drowned. We go through the hedge here. Be careful of your clothes.

[Hercule Poirot]

Oh, la la.

[Miranda Butler]

Here's Mr. Poirot.

[Mrs. Drake]

I got him all right, Miranda. You didn't bring him through the hedge, did you? You ought to have gone by the path at the side gate.

[Miranda Butler]

This is a better way, isn't it, Mr. Powell?

[Hercule Poirot]

And it is certainly more direct.

[Mrs. Drake]

And more painful, I imagine.

[Ariadne Oliver]

I did introduce you, didn't I?

[Hercule Poirot]

Oh, to Mrs. Butler. Of course.

[Mrs. Drake]

Please sit down, Monsieur Parhoe. I see Ariadne and I met in Greece.

[Ariadne Oliver]

Yes. I fell into the sea when we were coming back from one of the islands. It had got rather rough. Judith helped fish me out and it made a kind of bond between us, didn't it?

[Mrs. Drake]

Besides, I liked your name. It seemed very appropriate somehow.

[Ariadne Oliver]

Nothing very Ariadne like ever happened to me, I'm afraid. I've never been abandoned on a Greek island by a man I love.

[Mrs. Drake]

We can't all live up to our names.

[Ariadne Oliver]

Oh, indeed. I can't see you in the role of cutting off your lover's head. What was his name?

[Miranda Butler]

Holofernes. She thought it was her patriotic duty. She popped the head into a bag and carried it back to Bethulia.

[Ariadne Oliver]

Now, where on earth did you learn that from?

[Mrs. Drake]

Don't look at me. I didn't introduce Miranda to the gorier bits of the apocrypha. It was Ms. Whittaker. Mind you, it's not the sort of thing I'd do. Cut someone's head off while they were asleep.

[Hercule Poirot]

How would you dispose of your enemies, Miranda?

[Miranda Butler]

I should be very kind. I'd use the sort of drug that gives people euthanasia. They would go to sleep and have beautiful dreams and never wake up again.

[Mrs. Drake]

Why don't you go and put the kettle on, Miranda, and see how the scones are doing?

[Miranda Butler]

You just want to get me out of the way.

[Ariadne Oliver]

She is an astonishing child, Miranda.

[Hercule Poirot]

You have a very beautiful daughter, Madame. Just like a wood nymph. One does not wonder that she spends so much time in the lovely gardens which adjoin your house.

[Mrs. Drake]

I wish she wasn't so fond of it. Sometimes I'm frightened of her being there on her own, even if it is so close. That's why you've got to find out why this dreadful thing happened to Joyce, Monsieur Poirot. But I better see about tea. Why don't you both take a stroll around the garden? It's lovely now. Quite a St. Martin's summer.

[Hercule Poirot]

She is a very lovely woman, your friend, Judith. If Miranda is a wood nymph, she is a water spirit. But something is giving her great concern. What do you know about her?

[Ariadne Oliver]

Not very much, really. Her husband died a good many years ago in an air crash. I think she was very broken up about it.

[Hercule Poirot]

Is Miranda her only child?

[Ariadne Oliver]

Yes. Judith does some part time secretarial work, but she doesn't have a fixed job. But it isn't Judith we should be talking about. How are you getting on?

[Hercule Poirot]

I am following up a number of past deaths.

[Ariadne Oliver]

Why past deaths?

[Hercule Poirot]

The past is the father of the present. I have written the names down here in my notebook.

[Ariadne Oliver]

Mrs. Llewellyn Smythe, wealth au pair girl, disappeared. What's an au pair girl got to do with it? Why did she disappear?

[Hercule Poirot]

Because she was about to get into some form of trouble.

[Ariadne Oliver]

What sort of trouble? The kind au pair girls usually get into.

[Hercule Poirot]

No, no, no, no, not at all. It was to do with a forged will. Or rather a codicil in the au pair's favour.

[Ariadne Oliver]

I don't see what that's got to do with the murder of poor Joyce.

[Hercule Poirot]

Neither do I. But it is interesting.

[Ariadne Oliver]

Janet White. Who is she?

[Hercule Poirot]

She was a schoolteacher. A friend of Miranda's. English teacher, Miss Whittaker.

[Ariadne Oliver]

The one who taught her about chopping off Holofernes Head.

[Mrs. Drake]

Yes.

[Hercule Poirot]

But Janet White was strangled.

[Ariadne Oliver]

And this next one, Leslie Ferrier. Who was he?

[Hercule Poirot]

A lawyer's clerk. He was stabbed to death and he had a prosecution for foe. Forgery.

[Ariadne Oliver]

Forgery again. So where do we go from here?

[Hercule Poirot]

To take tea with Judith Butler.

[Ariadne Oliver]

I mean, in your investigation.

[Hercule Poirot]

I have an appointment with various former employers. Fullerton, Harrison and Ledbetter. They also happen to have been solicitors to Mrs. Llewellyn Smythe. Leslie Ferrier. You know, I'd nearly forgotten his name. It seems so long ago. The chap who got himself knifed. Yes, Mr. Fullerton. That is the man I mean. Well, I don't really know that I can tell you very much about him. It was some years ago. Killed near the Green Swan one night. No arrest was ever made, but I fancy the police had made up their minds about it. Cream Passionelle.

[Superintendent Spence]

That was the theory of the time.

[Hercule Poirot]

Jealousy. He'd been going out with a married woman. Her husband was the pub landlord. Quite a one for the girls. Young Ferry. I was. Most of them seemed to be considerably beneath him in station.

[Superintendent Spence]

But then, I'm old fashioned.

[Hercule Poirot]

Was one of the girls responsible for his death, do you think? Or was it Mrs. Greenswan? I wouldn't like to say. Either way, I can't even be certain that it was jealousy. You mean? It could have been something quite different. Ferry was a very unstable character. He had a criminal record, I believe. You found that out, have you?

[Superintendent Spence]

Yes, he had.

[Ariadne Oliver]

But he was still young.

[Hercule Poirot]

I thought he deserved a second chance. Very admirable. He got mixed up with rather a doubtful crowd. Too closely connected with fiddling transactions outside the law. I gave him a warning or two, which I hope might do the trick. But There's a lot of corruption about these days. And you think that his death may have been connected with these illegal dealings? Quite possibly. These associations, gangs is rather too melodramatic a term. But this is all supposition. There were no witnesses, yet somebody might have seen it happen. Somebody quite unlikely. A child, for instance, late at night in the neighborhood of the Green Swan. It seems to be most unlikely. It does not seem unlikely to me. However, let us move on. There was a foreign girl who disappeared. Her name was Olga, I think. Olga Semenoff. Not a very reliable character, I believe. No, she was not. I understand that she was companion or nurse attendant to Mrs. Llewellyn Smythe, who was a client of yours. Yes, she was. Mrs. Llewellyn Smythe had several girls in their position, most of them unsatisfactory. She was not one to suffer fools gladly. But Olga Semenoff seems to have suited her rather well. Mrs. Llewellyn Smythe became very much attached to her. Unwisely, as it seems to have turned out. But doubtless you know all about that. I understand that Mrs. Llewellyn Smythe left quite a large sum to the girl. A most surprising thing to happen. And the whole thing was done without consulting or involving our firm, as she'd always done before. It was a codicil written in her own handwriting. The whole residue of her fortune was left to Olga Seminov in gratitude for the devoted service and affection she had shown her. I understand that the will was contested. Scarcely any need for that. From the evidence of handwriting experts, it became clear almost immediately that the codicil was a complete forgery. Now, do you think that there is any possibility that Leslie Ferrier might have been involved? Ferrier? How do you meet? I understand that he had been convicted for forgery. Oh, I see. Yes, it crossed my mind. But there was nothing to link him with the girl. And the codicil was declared invalid? Oh, yes. The money went to the Drakes, as it was always intended it should.

[Mrs. Drake]

I'm sorry to have kept you waiting, Monsieur Poirot. The Church Christmas Fate Committee. I'm afraid these things always take much longer than they ought to. What can I do for you?

[Hercule Poirot]

You?

[Mrs. Drake]

Something more about that dreadful party?

[Hercule Poirot]

I'm afraid that it is.

[Mrs. Drake]

I wish I'd never had it here. Is Mrs. Oliver still staying with Judith Butler?

[Hercule Poirot]

She is, I believe, returning to London in a day or two.

[Mrs. Drake]

She's such a good writer. Has she any ideas herself, I mean, about who might have done this dreadful thing?

[Hercule Poirot]

I think not.

[Mrs. Drake]

And you Madame, I've told you already, I've no idea whatever.

[Hercule Poirot]

You are sure that you did not see something? Something quite small and unimportant, but which, on reflection, might seem more significant than it did at first.

[Mrs. Drake]

You seem to have something specific in mind, Monsieur Poirot. Some definite incident.

[Hercule Poirot]

You are quite right, madame. It is because of what someone said to me.

[Mrs. Drake]

Really? And who was that?

[Hercule Poirot]

A Miss Whitaker.

[Mrs. Drake]

You mean the woman who teaches at the Elms? Did she see something then?

[Hercule Poirot]

It was not that she saw something. She had an idea that you might have.

[Mrs. Drake]

I can't think of anything I can have seen.

[Hercule Poirot]

It has to do with a vase. A vase of flowers.

[Mrs. Drake]

A vase of flowers?

[Miranda Butler]

Oh, of course.

[Mrs. Drake]

I remember. There was a big vase of chrysanthemums on the table at the angle of the stairs. Some of the flowers seemed to be drooping. And when I looked, there was scarcely any water in it at all. So I took it into the bathroom to fill it up. But there was no one in there? No one at all?

[Hercule Poirot]

No, no, no. I did not mean the bathroom. There was an accident. I understand the vase slipped out of your hands and fell into the hall below.

[Mrs. Drake]

Smashed to smithereens. I was rather upset because it had been a wedding present. It was very stupid of me. My fingers just slipped. Miss Whittaker was standing there in the hall below. Is that the incident she was referring to?

[Hercule Poirot]

Yes. Miss Whitaker wondered, I think, how you had come to drop the vase. She thought that something had startled you.

[Mrs. Drake]

Startled me? No, I don't think so. It just slipped out of my hands. I was pretty tired by then. The party seemed to have been going on forever.

[Hercule Poirot]

You are certain that you saw nothing? Nothing unexpected?

[Mrs. Drake]

I didn't see anything. Everyone was in at the Snapdragon, except for Miss Whittaker, of course.

[Hercule Poirot]

Did you see someone, perhaps, opening the library door?

[Mrs. Drake]

The library door? Yes, I see what you mean. I could have seen that. No, I didn't see anyone coming out of the library.

[Ariadne Oliver]

Nobody at all.

[Hercule Poirot]

I see.

[Mrs. Drake]

You don't think it's possible that Miss Whittaker might have seen someone go into the library?

[Hercule Poirot]

That had not occurred to me.

[Mrs. Drake]

It's just a thought. She might have caught sight of someone going in through the library door, say, perhaps five minutes or so earlier. And it might have suggested to her that I could have caught a glimpse of the same person, some young man who might have strayed in from the outside.

[Hercule Poirot]

You still think that it might have been a young adolescent who committed the crime?

[Mrs. Drake]

I suppose I do. Though I haven't really thought it out. It's too terrible to think about. Who would kill a child like that?

[Hercule Poirot]

Someone, perhaps, who wanted to be safe.

[Mrs. Drake]

You mean because Joyce said she'd seen someone commit a murder?

[Hercule Poirot]

Yes.

[Mrs. Drake]

Joyce was really a very silly little girl. Not, I'm afraid. Always very truthful.

[Hercule Poirot]

So everyone has told me. Forgive me for reviving this painful business, madame, but it seemed from what Ms. Whittaker told me.

[Mrs. Drake]

Have you asked her if she knows anything?

[Hercule Poirot]

What do you mean, madam?

[Mrs. Drake]

I mean that if anyone knows about children around here, she does.

[Hercule Poirot]

She did not volunteer any information when I spoke to her.

[Mrs. Drake]

Perhaps people do not always tell you everything they know.

[Hercule Poirot]

It is possible.

[Mrs. Drake]

Have you spoken to Nick and Desmond? They were both at the party.

[Hercule Poirot]

Now, that would be Nicholas Ransom and Desmond Holland.

[Mrs. Drake]

Charming boys. Always so eager to help out. They're studying at Medchester Technical College. They're bored with Mrs. Brands. Just past the church on the left.

[Michael Garfield]

I don't see what else we can tell you. We've been over it all pretty thoroughly with the police.

[Mrs. Drake]

They seem determined to find some way.

[Michael Garfield]

Of pinning the murder on one of us.

[Hercule Poirot]

It didn't get them very far. But I am not the police. I want to find out about something that happened at the preparations for the party. You Both were helping Mrs. Drake, I understand. Yes, we were. So far I have interviewed cleaning women and helpers. I have heard the views of the police and the doctor. I have talked to the headmistress and to a school mistress who was present. Miss Whittaker? Yes. Miss Whittaker? Why do you ask?

[Mrs. Drake]

Nothing, really.

[Hercule Poirot]

Sorry to interrupt, but now I want to hear the views of a younger generation. You have sharp eyesight and acute hearing. Your minds are not clouded by prejudice.

[Mrs. Drake]

You know I've got a police record.

[Hercule Poirot]

I know that. Yes, but it is of no importance. The police seem to think it is. It does not interest me. What were you doing to help Mrs. Drake?

[Michael Garfield]

The lighting, mostly. Getting up ladders, hanging up fairy lights and pumpkins.

[Hercule Poirot]

And you did some photography, I understand.

[Michael Garfield]

Yes, we did that beforehand so that we could project the pictures for the girls to see in their mirrors.

[Hercule Poirot]

And who did you use for these photographs?

[Mrs. Drake]

Just ourselves.

[Michael Garfield]

With a lot of makeup, wigs and.

[Hercule Poirot]

Beards and mustaches and all that.

[Michael Garfield]

We kept them a bit out of focus so they'd look more like spirit pictures.

[Hercule Poirot]

And the girls did not recognize you?

[Mrs. Drake]

Of course they didn't.

[Michael Garfield]

They squealed and shrieked and thought they were really seeing the men they were going to marry.

[Hercule Poirot]

Can you tell me who else was there? When you were getting ready for the party?

[Mrs. Drake]

Well, there was Mrs. Drake, of course.

[Michael Garfield]

And Mrs. Butler and Ms. Whittaker and a lot of girls who giggled like mad but did nothing.

[Hercule Poirot]

Can you remember which girls? Well, Ann Walters and poor Joyce and.

[Michael Garfield]

Her horrible brother Leopold. He's a sneak. He eavesdrops and tells tales. A really nasty little customer.

[Hercule Poirot]

I understand that you heard Joyce Reynolds saying something about having seen a murder committed. I never heard that. Did she really?

[Ariadne Oliver]

Didn't you know?

[Mrs. Drake]

That's what they're saying.

[Michael Garfield]

I don't think we were around at the time. Where was she when she was supposed.

[Hercule Poirot]

To have said it? In the drawing room, I believe.

[Michael Garfield]

We were probably out on the stairs fixing the fairy lights.

[Hercule Poirot]

Now, as far as you can remember, did anything occur while you were in the house that struck you as sinister or significant in some way? Something which probably nobody else would have noticed? No, nothing.

[Mrs. Drake]

Just a lot of people rushing about.

[Hercule Poirot]

And getting in one another's way. Do either of you have any theories? How do you mean?

[Michael Garfield]

About who might have murdered Joyce?

[Hercule Poirot]

Yes, I mean something that you might have noticed that could lead you to a suspicion on perhaps people. Purely psychological grounds. At the party at any time.

[Mrs. Drake]

Well, there is Miss Whitaker.

[Hercule Poirot]

Why, Miss Whittaker? It's difficult to say exactly.

[Mrs. Drake]

She always looks as if she's trying to bottle up her feelings.

[Michael Garfield]

And she behaved very strangely when that teacher was killed.

[Hercule Poirot]

Do you mean Janet White? Yeah.

[Michael Garfield]

They used to be very close.

[Mrs. Drake]

You know what I mean.

[Hercule Poirot]

I thought that Nora Ambrose was her real friend. Oh, no. They just shared the house.

[Michael Garfield]

But Miss Whitaker was always hanging around her.

[Hercule Poirot]

Then they had a row.

[Michael Garfield]

Something to do with the boyfriend of Janet White's.

[Mrs. Drake]

Apparently Ms. Whittaker got jealous amid a dreadful scene.

[Michael Garfield]

Oh, come on. That doesn't make her a killer.

[Hercule Poirot]

No, but it was pretty peculiar. She's really weird. She goes in for all that ritual magic stuff. Ley lines and stone circles and all that. Hmm. That is very interesting, Attorney. I have heard there was a witch at the party. Oh, Mrs. Goodbody.

[Michael Garfield]

She was telling fortunes. And she did dress up as a witch.

[Hercule Poirot]

But she's perfectly harmless, really.

[Michael Garfield]

I can't imagine her killing anybody.

[Mrs. Drake]

Oh, yes, I was there right enough. It wouldn't have been Halloween without me.

[Narrator/Announcer]

Oh, do move, piewhackit off your lap.

[Mrs. Drake]

If you don't like cats. She'll be all over you.

[Hercule Poirot]

Yeah. No, no, no. It is quite all right.

[Mrs. Drake]

I always does the witches round here. I lent Mrs. Drake my ball for the party.

[Hercule Poirot]

Your ball?

[Mrs. Drake]

My witch ball. Bought it At a jumble sale. It's hanging up there by the chimney.

[Hercule Poirot]

Ah, now I understand you told fortunes at the party.

[Mrs. Drake]

Nothing to it. In a place like this, where you always know who's going with who, not much call for tall, dark strangers, can.

[Hercule Poirot]

You look in your witch ball? And you can't tell me who killed Joyce Reynolds.

[Mrs. Drake]

You've got it all mixed up. It's a crystal ball you look in to see things. Not a witch ball. If I told you who I thought it was did it, you wouldn't like it. Say it was against nature. You would. Lots of things go on that are against nature.

[Hercule Poirot]

What kind of things?

[Mrs. Drake]

Wherever you go, the devil's always got some of his own. Born and bred to it. You're not a young man. You know what goes on in the world.

[Hercule Poirot]

You're right. I know only too well. Now, if Joyce really saw America, who says she did? She said so herself.

[Mrs. Drake]

There's no reason for believing she's always.

[Hercule Poirot]

Been a little liar, so everyone insists on telling me.

[Mrs. Drake]

She always wanted to make people believe she was cleverer than she was. She'd say anything to make folks sit up and take notice. They're a funny family at the Reynoldses. Take Leopold, for instance.

[Hercule Poirot]

Joyce's brother.

[Mrs. Drake]

He's clever, all right. You beware of Leopold. He finds out everybody's secrets. He's always got lots of money. Where does he get it from? That's what I'd like to know. Finds people's secrets out, I'd say, and makes them pay him for holding his tongue. None of this is of any help to you?

[Hercule Poirot]

I dare say you have helped me a great deal. Now, can you tell me what happened to the foreign girl who is said to have run away?

[Mrs. Drake]

Didn't go far, in my opinion. Ding Dong Dell Puss is in the well. That's what I've always thought. Excuse me, ma'. Am. I wonder if I might speak to you for a moment.

[Ariadne Oliver]

Are you sure I'm the person you want? Mrs. Butler is out, I'm afraid. I was just looking out for a friend of mine.

[Mrs. Drake]

Oh, no, ma'. Am. It's you I want. I saw you at the party. You're the lady who writes the stories about crimes and murders. Yes, I'm the one. I need your advice. You see, it's about Mrs. Llewellyn Smythe's will and the foreign girl who's supposed to have done the forgery and.

[Ariadne Oliver]

I see. I think you'd better come in, Mrs. Lehman.

[Mrs. Drake]

Mrs. Lehman.

[Ariadne Oliver]

Come on in. Then we can talk in the drawing room.

[Mrs. Drake]

I used to do the cleaning for Mrs. Llewellyn Smythe, ever since my poor husband died. Yes, well, one day she calls me in, along with young Jim, who does the odd jobs about the house. And she's got papers in front of her on the desk. The foreign girl's there as well, but Mrs. Llewellyn Smythe sends her out of the room. Then she tells us to come up close and she says, this is my will, this is. She got a bit of blotting paper over the top part of it. Im writing something here on this piece of paper, she says, and I want you two to be witnesses to it. And she signs a name and gets us to sign, too, and give our addresses.

[Ariadne Oliver]

And then.

[Mrs. Drake]

That was all. She sent us away then. But as we were going out, I happened to turn my head and saw her putting the piece of paper into one of the books in the bookcase. And that made me curious, you see.

[Ariadne Oliver]

So what did you do?

[Mrs. Drake]

Well, one day, when she'd been driven down into Medchester, I thought I'd take a look at what I'd signed. I felt I had a right to know.

[Ariadne Oliver]

So you took the paper out and read it?

[Mrs. Drake]

That's right, ma'.

[Hercule Poirot]

Am.

[Ariadne Oliver]

And what did it say?

[Mrs. Drake]

Well, I can't remember every word of it, but what it all boiled down to was she was giving her entire fortune to that girl, Olga, whatever her name was. And I thought, well, leaving all that money away from her own family. Then I thought she might have had a tiff with them. And that as like as not, she'd tear it all up some day. And then when all the fuss came up about the will and the talk about the girl having forged it, what did you do? That's just it. I didn't do anything. Not at the time. I didn't rightly see what it mattered.

[Ariadne Oliver]

But now you feel differently.

[Mrs. Drake]

It's that nasty death. The child that was pushed into the bucket of apples, saying that she'd known something about a murder.

[Ariadne Oliver]

It made you think.

[Mrs. Drake]

I wondered whether Olga might have murdered Mrs. Llewellyn Smythe because she knew about the money that was coming to her. And I thought I ought to tell somebody. Somebody who'd know what to do about it.

[Ariadne Oliver]

You look exhausted. Have you had a bad morning?

[Hercule Poirot]

Oh, simply a very trying one.

[Ariadne Oliver]

Why don't you take your shoes off.

[Mrs. Drake]

And rest your feet?

[Hercule Poirot]

No, no, no. I could not do that.

[Ariadne Oliver]

Why ever not? You know, you ought not to wear those patent leather shoes in the country. Why don't you get yourself a nice pair of suede ones.

[Hercule Poirot]

Suede?

[Ariadne Oliver]

Well, all the kind you just slip on and never have to clean them. All sorts of people wear them nowadays.

[Hercule Poirot]

Hercule Poirot does not wear them. I would not care for that at all.

[Ariadne Oliver]

The trouble with you is that you mind more about your clothes and your moustache than about being comfortable.

[Hercule Poirot]

And what is wrong with that? But I have not come here to discuss my personal appearance.

[Ariadne Oliver]

I never thought you had. Are you making any progress?

[Hercule Poirot]

Oh, there are too many people who might have been in a position to commit the crime. No one seems to have the least notion who was present at the snapdragon or not.

[Ariadne Oliver]

Do you know anyone who was positively not there?

[Hercule Poirot]

Mrs. Drake was not there there. Nor was Miss Whittaker, the school teacher, who may have had some sort of emotional involvement with her colleague, Janet White, whose murder may have been witnessed by Joyce Reynolds. But there we have a little difficulty.

[Ariadne Oliver]

What kind of little difficulty?

[Hercule Poirot]

Not a single person with whom I have spoken believes in the veracity of Joyce Reynolds. And yet I am certain that that is why she was murdered.

[Ariadne Oliver]

Because she had witnessed the murder of Janet White.

[Hercule Poirot]

If that was the murder in question, if it was not Leslie Ferrier whose death she saw.

[Ariadne Oliver]

Leslie Ferrier?

[Hercule Poirot]

Yes, you know, the solicitor's clerk who practiced forgery and who was killed in what everybody believed was a fit of jealous passion. But I am beginning to have the idea that a lot of separate incidents might tie up more closely than anyone has thought.

[Ariadne Oliver]

You said that this man was a forger?

[Hercule Poirot]

Yes. Everyone thinks that the au pair girl forged the will.

[Ariadne Oliver]

I've got something to tell you about that. About an hour ago.

[Hercule Poirot]

Wait.

[Mrs. Drake]

Wait for what?

[Hercule Poirot]

Are you returning to London or are you making a long stay here?

[Ariadne Oliver]

I was planning to leave the day after tomorrow.

[Hercule Poirot]

Tell me, in your flat, is there room for you to have guests?

[Ariadne Oliver]

I have a spare room, if that's what you mean. Who do you want me to put up?

[Hercule Poirot]

It is just that it might be a wise precaution to take.

[Ariadne Oliver]

What do you mean? Do you think that somebody else is going to be killed?

[Hercule Poirot]

I trust and pray not, but it might be within the bounds of possibility.

[Mrs. Drake]

But who?

[Hercule Poirot]

Tell me, how well do you really know your friend, Judith Butler?

[Ariadne Oliver]

Not all that well. It's just that we hit it off during the Greek cruise. There's something rather mysterious about her. Her and Miranda. As if they were mixed up in some interesting drama. Do you think they're in some kind of danger, then?

[Hercule Poirot]

I cannot be certain until I know whether or not one. One of my little ideas might be right.

[Ariadne Oliver]

You and your little ideas. Now, I've got a piece of news for you about your forgery.

[Hercule Poirot]

And what is that, madam?

[Ariadne Oliver]

If you promise not to have any more of your little ideas for five minutes, I'll tell you.

[Hercule Poirot]

You are certain of that May Doherty, I see. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Fullerton. You have been most helpful. The codicil, the forged codicil that was declared invalid was not witnessed by your friend Harriet Lehman, but by a May Doherty, now deceased, who had been in service with Mrs. Llewellyn Smythe.

[Ariadne Oliver]

So there was a forged codicil. And there seems to have been a real one as well. Isn't this all getting a little too complicated? Or was that Lehman woman simply telling me a pack of lies?

[Hercule Poirot]

It's always possible.

[Ariadne Oliver]

Or did someone tell her to tell me a pack of lies?

[Hercule Poirot]

An interesting thought.

[Ariadne Oliver]

I'd like to know a bit more about this Olga Seminoff. She certainly seems to have been very good at the Lady Vanishes Act.

[Hercule Poirot]

I hope to know more about that shortly.

[Ariadne Oliver]

Or from her own country. Will you find out whether she ever arrived back there?

[Hercule Poirot]

I might learn that. But I also hope to find letters written home while she was in this country mentioning French she may have made here.

[Ariadne Oliver]

What about the school teacher?

[Hercule Poirot]

Which one do you mean?

[Ariadne Oliver]

The one who was strangled.

[Hercule Poirot]

Janet White.

[Ariadne Oliver]

Didn't you say she was a friend of Miss Whitaker? Now, she struck me as being a very strange woman. Very knowledgeable about the occult and that sort of thing. I wouldn't put it past her to have thought up a murder.

[Hercule Poirot]

Is that what you think?

[Ariadne Oliver]

It has to exhaust all the possibilities.

[Hercule Poirot]

Quite so. But I must be on my way.

[Ariadne Oliver]

Where are you off to now?

[Hercule Poirot]

I am going to visit my friend Superintendent Spence. But I shall take a shortcut through the quarry garden.

[Ariadne Oliver]

In those shoes, what do you expect to find there?

[Hercule Poirot]

Something an old witch told me about. And do not concern yourself about my shoes.

[Michael Garfield]

Miranda. Turn your head a little more to the left.

[Miranda Butler]

Like this?

[Michael Garfield]

No, no, no, no.

[Hercule Poirot]

Not so far.

[Michael Garfield]

Look over towards the beech tree.

[Hercule Poirot]

Yes, that's better.

[Michael Garfield]

No, not that way. What's the matter with you?

[Miranda Butler]

Monsieur Poirot's here. Hello, Monsieur Poirot.

[Hercule Poirot]

Do not let me disturb you. I did not expect to find you sitting for your portrait.

[Miranda Butler]

I didn't expect it either.

[Hercule Poirot]

It just happened while you were walking in your favourite garden.

[Miranda Butler]

I was looking for the well. Really?

[Hercule Poirot]

Were you?

[Miranda Butler]

It was supposed to be a wishing well. Michael knows where it is, but he won't tell me.

[Michael Garfield]

It'll be much more fun for you to go on looking for. Especially when you're not at all sure that it really exists.

[Miranda Butler]

Oh, Mrs. Goodbody knows all about it. She said it was sealed up because it was supposed to be dangerous. A child fell into it years ago.

[Michael Garfield]

You mustn't believe stories told to you by witches. I don't believe any child ever fell into it. It was probably just a cat.

[Miranda Butler]

Ding dong Dale pussies in the well. I must go now. Mum'll be wondering where I've got to.

[Mrs. Drake]

I have worm as well.

[Hercule Poirot]

Or a whammy. Randa. Ding dong Dell. Is she right about there being a well somewhere there, Mr. Garfield? Oh, yes.

[Michael Garfield]

There's a well here all right. She says it was sealed up years ago. I don't think it was ever a wishing well, though. I think that was Mrs. Goodbody's invention.

[Hercule Poirot]

May I look at your drawing?

[Mrs. Drake]

Of course.

[Michael Garfield]

It's only a sketch.

[Hercule Poirot]

Exquisite. So delicate. What made you draw it?

[Michael Garfield]

Do I have to have a reason?

[Hercule Poirot]

You might have.

[Michael Garfield]

Well, you're right, as it happens. If I go away from here, there are one or two things I want to remember. Miranda's one of them.

[Hercule Poirot]

Would you forget her so easily?

[Michael Garfield]

Very easily. I like that.

[Hercule Poirot]

Are you really going away from here?

[Michael Garfield]

I've thought of it, yes. After all, there's no reason why I should stay. I can find some other cause of the world.

[Hercule Poirot]

Some quiet island somewhere where you can transform nature. Where you can play at being Adam.

[Michael Garfield]

I don't ask for much. A hillside with cypresses, Barren rock.

[Hercule Poirot]

You have been to Greece?

[Michael Garfield]

You're quite a mind reader. Yes, Greece was in my mind. Are you reaching the end of your investigation?

[Hercule Poirot]

I only wish I were. There are still many things I need to.

[Michael Garfield]

What kind of things?

[Hercule Poirot]

You have lived here sometime, Mr. Garfield. Did you know a young man named Leslie Ferrier?

[Michael Garfield]

Yes, I knew him.

[Hercule Poirot]

He came to a sudden end, did he not?

[Michael Garfield]

Yes. Somebody stuck a knife into him. The general opinion was that he was a woman. He was a great one for the girl.

[Hercule Poirot]

Were they? All the English girls shouldn't think he.

[Michael Garfield]

Cared very much so long as they could speak enough English to understand what he wanted.

[Hercule Poirot]

Was Olga Semenov one of his girlfriends?

[Michael Garfield]

Yes, I think she was. I don't know what he saw in her. She wasn't very beautiful. Why do you want to know about that?

[Hercule Poirot]

I will tell you, my friend. Because Olga Semenov was accused of forgery and because Leslie Ferrier was a known.

[Michael Garfield]

Forger, you're suggesting that Mrs. Llewellyn Smyth's will was forged by Leslie Ferrier.

[Hercule Poirot]

It seems a possibility, does it not?

[Michael Garfield]

I suppose that could have been why the forgery was found out so easily. We can't have been very good at it in the first place if he was sent to prison for it. But why are you telling me all this? Why are you disturbing the peace and quiet of this place?

[Hercule Poirot]

Because there were things I wish to find out. And you have told me what I wanted to know.

[Michael Garfield]

It's sometimes better not to know things, Monsieur Poirot. Better to leave them as they are.

[Hercule Poirot]

You want beauty, but for me it is truth that is important.

[Michael Garfield]

Keep the truth for your friends and the police and leave me to my beauty. Get thee behind me, Satan. Goodbye to you, Monsieur Poirot.

[Mrs. Drake]

You're out of luck, I'm afraid. My brother's gone down to the police station. Something's happened, I believe.

[Hercule Poirot]

So soon? What has happened? Tell me.

[Mrs. Drake]

I don't really know. The inspector rang up and asked him to go over. He didn't say what it was about. And there's a letter come for you. Foreign stamps on it.

[Miranda Butler]

Here.

[Hercule Poirot]

Thank you. Forgive me. It may be important.

[Mrs. Drake]

Why don't you sit down? I'll get you a cup of tea.

[Hercule Poirot]

No, no, no, no, thank you.

[Mrs. Drake]

You look fagged out. There's mud all over your shoes. Was it the letter you expected?

[Hercule Poirot]

It is about the au pair girl, this Semenov. It seems that she never returned to her hometown. And there have been no letters for her.

[Mrs. Drake]

Oh, excuse me. 2141. Yes? He's here. It's for you. The guest house.

[Hercule Poirot]

Ah, thank you. Yes? Mrs. Hackney is there. Who is it? I see. Well, perhaps if you could give her a cup of tea and tell her I will return straight away. I will be as quick as I can. It seems that Mrs. Drake has come to see me in a state of some agitation. Forgive me, but I think I must go and find out what is the matter. She is normally such a self possessed woman.

[Mrs. Drake]

You've heard what's happened?

[Hercule Poirot]

I have heard nothing, Madame. What is it? What is the matter?

[Mrs. Drake]

He's dead. Murdered.

[Hercule Poirot]

He who is dead?

[Ariadne Oliver]

Madame, I have a terrible fear that it is all my fault. I thought I was acting for the best, and now he's dead.

[Mrs. Drake]

And he was only a child.

[Hercule Poirot]

Now calm yourself, Madame, and tell me, who is the child that is dead?

[Mrs. Drake]

Leopold Joyce Reynolds, brother.

[Hercule Poirot]

How did it happen?

[Ariadne Oliver]

They found him by the side of the brook. He must have been on his way home from school. Somebody had drowned him, held his head down in the water.

[Hercule Poirot]

The way his sister was killed?

[Ariadne Oliver]

Yes. And I thought I was doing the right thing.

[Hercule Poirot]

What thing, madame?

[Mrs. Drake]

In not telling you what I saw.

[Ariadne Oliver]

From the staircase when I dropped the bars.

[Hercule Poirot]

And what did you see, Mrs. Drake?

[Ariadne Oliver]

I saw the door of the library open.

[Mrs. Drake]

He was starting to come out. And then he pulled the door too quickly and went back in.

[Hercule Poirot]

This was Leopold.

[Mrs. Drake]

And you see, I thought that was why I couldn't tell anyone.

[Hercule Poirot]

You thought what? That Leopold had killed his sister.

[Mrs. Drake]

Not then, of course.

[Ariadne Oliver]

I didn't know she was dead. But afterwards he had such a strange look on his face. I see now that he must have gone in there and found her dead.

[Hercule Poirot]

And yet you said nothing, even after Joyce's death was discovered.

[Mrs. Drake]

Don't you see? I couldn't. I thought he. He's so young. He can't have known what he was doing.

[Ariadne Oliver]

I thought the best thing I could do was to say nothing.

[Mrs. Drake]

If only I'd spoken out, he might still be alive.

[Hercule Poirot]

Only today I was told that Leopold had somehow got hold of a large sum of money. Somebody must have been paying him to keep silent.

[Ariadne Oliver]

But who could it have been?

[Hercule Poirot]

I shall find out. It cannot be long now.

[Ariadne Oliver]

We've got to leave for London at once. I've just had a call from Monsieur Poirot.

[Mrs. Drake]

What do you mean, we? What's going on?

[Ariadne Oliver]

You, me and Miranda. Miranda especially. Monsieur Poirot says we've got to get her away from here immediately. Why on earth should we do that? She's in serious danger. Particularly since what happened yesterday. Yesterday?

[Mrs. Drake]

You mean Leopold's murder? What was white to tell her?

[Ariadne Oliver]

You needn't tell her anything. Just say we're going up to London to stay at my flat. We'll take her to a theater or to the ballet or something of that kind.

[Mrs. Drake]

Do you seriously believe that she's in danger?

[Ariadne Oliver]

Poirot has thought so for some time, but now he's certain of it.

[Miranda Butler]

Have you heard what's going on in Quarry Woods?

[Ariadne Oliver]

No.

[Mrs. Drake]

What's happening?

[Miranda Butler]

The police have been digging around there since early this morning. They're looking for something.

[Mrs. Drake]

Has this got anything to do with it? Arianny?

[Ariadne Oliver]

I shouldn't be at all supported.

[Mrs. Drake]

Miranda. We're going to London.

[Miranda Butler]

Going to London? When?

[Ariadne Oliver]

As soon as possible. Practically at once.

[Mrs. Drake]

Harry Abney will run us up there in her car. We can stay in her flat. Perhaps we might go to the ballet. Would you like that?

[Miranda Butler]

I'd love it.

[Mrs. Drake]

Then we'll pack a few things and go straight away.

[Miranda Butler]

Aren't we going to have lunch first?

[Ariadne Oliver]

For such an ethereal creature, Miranda, you're remarkably preoccupied with food. We can have lunch on the way.

[Mrs. Drake]

We can stop at the Black Dog. It's just. Just outside Mechester.

[Miranda Butler]

I must ring up one of my friends before we go, just to explain what's happening.

[Mrs. Drake]

All right, but be quick about it. I know your phone calls.

[Miranda Butler]

Where did you say we'd be having lunch?

[Mrs. Drake]

The Black Dog.

[Hercule Poirot]

May I take your order, ladies?

[Mrs. Drake]

Could you come back in a minute or two? We're waiting for my daughter.

[Hercule Poirot]

Of course, madam.

[Ariadne Oliver]

Miranda's certainly taking her time. Where's she got to?

[Mrs. Drake]

She said she was going to the ladies.

[Ariadne Oliver]

You're sure she knows where the dining room is?

[Mrs. Drake]

Yes, of course she knows. Anyway, she can always ask. I'll go and hurry her up.

[Ariadne Oliver]

We've lost Miranda.

[Hercule Poirot]

What do you mean, lost her?

[Ariadne Oliver]

We stopped at the Black Dog for lunch. She went to the loo. She hasn't come back. We can't find her anywhere.

[Hercule Poirot]

Somebody should have stayed with her. Neither of you ought to have lost her out of your sight. I told you there was danger.

[Ariadne Oliver]

Judith is frantic. She thinks we ought to ring the police.

[Hercule Poirot]

Of course you should. I will ring them as well. Call me as soon as you know where she has gone.

[Mrs. Drake]

Ariadne. I've just been talking to Nicholas Ransom. He and Desmond saw her getting into a car. Who was with her? Somebody with long hair. That was all they could see. Did they see which way she went? They're not very certain. But they think the car went down the road that leads to Kilterbury Ring.

[Miranda Butler]

I've never been here before. It's so beautiful. Like something out of a dream. But it's frightening as well. What are these strange stones?

[Michael Garfield]

They're the remains of an old stone circle. Kilterbury Ring.

[Miranda Butler]

What were they put here for?

[Michael Garfield]

To mark the passage of the seasons. For ritual worship. And for ritual sacrifice.

[Miranda Butler]

The sacrifice? Is that why you have brought me here?

[Michael Garfield]

You understand about sacrifice, don't you, Miranda?

[Miranda Butler]

I think so. It is a kind of punishment.

[Michael Garfield]

Not just a punishment. A way of cleansing guilt and of making a gift to the gods. You die that others should live. You die that beauty should come into being.

[Miranda Butler]

Is it because I told Joyce about the murder? Is that why I have to die?

[Michael Garfield]

If she hadn't repeated what you told her, she'd still be alive.

[Miranda Butler]

Is it my fault that she died? And I suppose I deserve to die as well.

[Michael Garfield]

You will die where men have sacrificed to their gods for thousands of years, Miranda. You will feel no pain. Hold the golden cup while I pour into it, wine of sacrifice. Now drink deeply and become one with the past and the future. Through your sacrifice, a new beauty will be born.

[Miranda Butler]

Smells of peaches. It's such a beautiful color.

[Michael Garfield]

Raise the cup to your lips and drink.

[Mrs. Drake]

Don't touch it, you silly little idiot. It's got nothing to do with you. Miranda. Go away. I must drink it. You'll do no such thing.

[Michael Garfield]

Give it to me. Miranda. The police are out looking for you, Garfield. They found the girl's body in the.

[Mrs. Drake]

Well in Quarry Wood. And they found your knife.

[Ariadne Oliver]

Come away from him, Miranda.

[Mrs. Drake]

The man's a dangerous lunatic.

[Hercule Poirot]

Give yourself up, Garfield.

[Michael Garfield]

They've already arrested your partner in crime. Then it is I that must be the sacrifice. My child shall live and dwell among the gods.

[Mrs. Drake]

Michael, don't accept my sacrifice. Don't let him drink it. Don't let him drink.

[Hercule Poirot]

What exactly did you tell Joyce, Miranda?

[Miranda Butler]

That had seen a murder.

[Hercule Poirot]

And did you tell anyone else?

[Miranda Butler]

No. But I think Leopold might have overheard what we were saying. He was always listening at doors. He liked to know other people's secrets.

[Hercule Poirot]

But Joyce did not see the murder herself?

[Miranda Butler]

Oh, no. She was just repeating what I told her.

[Hercule Poirot]

So what was the murder that you saw?

[Miranda Butler]

I didn't know at first that it was a murder. I thought there'd been an accident.

[Hercule Poirot]

Where was this?

[Miranda Butler]

In the quarry garden. I was up in the branches of a tree. I was looking for squirrels. I was trying to keep very quiet and very still.

[Hercule Poirot]

And what did you see, Miranda?

[Miranda Butler]

A man and a woman carrying this girl up the path. I thought they were taking her to hospital or to the quarry house. Then the woman stopped suddenly and said, there's someone watching us. And she stared up at my tree. I kept very still and the man said, nonsense. And they went on. And then I saw there was blood on the girl's scarf. I thought she must have tried to kill herself.

[Hercule Poirot]

Why did you want to tell your mother?

[Miranda Butler]

I thought perhaps I oughtn't to have been there watching. And then the next day, nobody said anything about an accident. So I tried not to think any more about it.

[Hercule Poirot]

But what made you realize it was a murder?

[Miranda Butler]

It was as though everything was happening all over again. This time I was trying to persuade a green woodpecker to come out from behind some bushes. And the two of them came by. They were talking about a Greek island. She said, we can go there as soon as we like. It's all ours. And he said something about not rushing things or it might make people suspicious.

[Hercule Poirot]

And then?

[Miranda Butler]

And then the woodpecker Flew away. And she said, there's somebody watching us. And she had just the same look on her face. And somehow I knew. I knew that it had been a dead body they were carrying away to hide somewhere.

[Hercule Poirot]

And can you say who these people were? Did you recognize them?

[Miranda Butler]

Of course I did.

[Hercule Poirot]

And who were they?

[Miranda Butler]

Mrs. Drake and Michael Garfield.

[Hercule Poirot]

And you still did not tell anyone?

[Miranda Butler]

I thought. I thought it might have been a sacrifice.

[Hercule Poirot]

Why did you think that?

[Miranda Butler]

Michael had been talking to me about sacrifices.

[Hercule Poirot]

But weren't you frightened of him? Weren't you afraid to be with him?

[Miranda Butler]

Oh, no.

[Hercule Poirot]

Why not?

[Miranda Butler]

I loved him very much, you see. I would have done anything he said.

[Hercule Poirot]

Thank you, Miranda. And now I think we had better tell all this to Inspector Raglan.

[Ariadne Oliver]

But as I understand it, the police had already arrested Rowena Drake while Garfield was with Miranda at Kilterbury Ring. Was that your doing?

[Hercule Poirot]

Of course.

[Mrs. Drake]

But how could you be so certain, Monsieur Poirot?

[Hercule Poirot]

Because I used my little gray cells. Twas really quite simple. If you hold down a vigorous child with its head in a full bucket of water, there will be struggling and splashing, and you are bound to get wet. And that is what happened to Mrs. Drake. So she had to account for getting so wet. And she had to have a witness. She waited on the landing with an enormous vase of flowers filled with water. She knew she would not have long to wait. And in due course, Ms. Whittaker came out of the room where they were playing snapdragon. It could have been anybody. And Mrs. Drake let go of the vows so that the water cascaded over her dress before falling into the hall below.

[Mrs. Drake]

And all the time, poor Joyce had never seen the murder committed at all.

[Hercule Poirot]

Mrs. Drake did not know that. But she always suspected that someone had been there in Quarry woods when they were hiding Olga Seminole's body.

[Ariadne Oliver]

Rowena Drake and Michael Garfield. They seem an unlikely pair. Was he in love with her, do you think?

[Hercule Poirot]

She had money and would have more. When Mrs. Llewellyn Smythe died. And Michael Garfield was very interested in money, money would buy him the means of creating his earthly paradise, his enchanted island.

[Mrs. Drake]

But I don't see why the seminar.

[Ariadne Oliver]

Girls had to be murdered in the first place. And where does the forged codicil come in? Who did it?

[Hercule Poirot]

Mrs. Rowan Smythe had very strict notions of morality. She found out that Rowena Drake was having a love affair with Garfield while her husband was still alive. In a fit of anger, she changed her will and left everything to the Opair girl. After the old lady died, the courtesy had to be proved to be a forgery. The real codicil was suppressed. There had to be an obviously forged document to take its place. And Leslie Ferrier was just the man to do it. He was always in need of money. After that, he had to be eliminated. He was knifed later night on his way home from the Green Swan, when. With the same knife that was used to kill Olga Sevinoff.

[Ariadne Oliver]

By Michael Garfield.

[Hercule Poirot]

By Michael Garfield.

[Ariadne Oliver]

But how on earth did he discover that it was Miranda who had seen them in Quarry woods and not Joyce Reynolds?

[Hercule Poirot]

She told him.

[Mrs. Drake]

What?

[Hercule Poirot]

She was completely under his spell, even.

[Ariadne Oliver]

Though she knew he was a murderer.

[Hercule Poirot]

Perhaps that only added to his assassination. I don't know. I think she fascinated him as well, in his way. I believe he loved her. But he was ready to sacrifice her to save himself. And she was prepared to be sacrificed. There was a very close bond between them, was there not, Mrs. Butler?

[Mrs. Drake]

I don't understand you.

[Hercule Poirot]

I think you understand me very well. One had only to look at them together. He was her father, was he not?

[Mrs. Drake]

Yes, he was her father.

[Hercule Poirot]

But she did not know that.

[Mrs. Drake]

No. She had no idea. I knew him when I was a young girl. I fell wildly in love with him. And then I grew afraid.

[Hercule Poirot]

Afraid?

[Mrs. Drake]

Yes. I can't really tell you why. Perhaps it was his gentleness. I always felt that there was a coldness and a ruthlessness lurking behind it. I was afraid of his passion for beauty. Of his desire to create a world of his own. He wanted to be a kind of God. I didn't tell him I was going to have his child. I left him. I went away and the baby was born. I invented the story of a pilot husband who was killed in an air crash. I came to Woodley Common more or less by chance. Meeting him here again was pure coincidence.

[Ariadne Oliver]

But he realized that Miranda was his child.

[Mrs. Drake]

Oh, yes. He knew.

[Ariadne Oliver]

And yet he was prepared to murder her.

[Hercule Poirot]

Let me show you something. This is a drawing he made of her by the stream in Quarry Woods. He told me he did it because he did not wish to forget her. See what he wrote on it?

[Ariadne Oliver]

Iphigenia, the daughter of Agamemnon.

[Hercule Poirot]

And Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter so that the gods would give him a wind to take his ships to Troy. Michael Garfield would have sacrificed his daughter so that he could create his Garden of Eden.

[Ariadne Oliver]

I must confess, you've lost me over all this Garden of Eden business.

[Hercule Poirot]

Rowena Drake was hopelessly infatuated with Michael Garfield. But there was a high price to pay for his Love. Nothing more or less than a Greek island purchased with her inheritance from Mrs. Llewellyn Smythe. Once he realized that it could really be his, nothing, not even Miranda, was allowed to come between him and his ambition.

[Mrs. Drake]

Did he suddenly realize the full horror of what he was doing, do you think? Was that why he seized the cup from Miranda and drank the poison himself?

[Hercule Poirot]

It was a fitting death, as he said. A sacrifice was needed. And on that sombre knot, I shall take my leave of you both. Goodbye, Mrs. Butler. And remember me to your daughter.

[Mrs. Drake]

She ought to remember you always for what she owes you.

[Hercule Poirot]

I think not. Some things are better forgotten. Au revoir, Ariadne. You belong in a different myth.

[Ariadne Oliver]

A myth in a maze.

[Hercule Poirot]

It has been a most interesting case. Thank you for drawing me into this particular mess.

[Ariadne Oliver]

That's right, blame it all on me. As usual.

[Michael Garfield]

In Halloween Party by Agatha Christie, Echo Poirot was played by John Moffat and.

[Hercule Poirot]

Ariadne Oliver by Stephanie Cole Judith Butler.

[Michael Garfield]

Alexandra Bastido Miranda Butler Sean Jenkins Rowena Drake June Barry Michael Garfield Gareth Armstrong Spence James Taylor ELSPETH Oriel Smith Ms. Whittaker, Amanda Murray, Ms. Emlyn, Petra Davis.

[Hercule Poirot]

Mrs. Lehman Paula Jacobs, Mrs. Goodbody Lala.

[Michael Garfield]

Lloyd Mrs. Minden Catherine Parr Fullerton, Colin.

[Hercule Poirot]

Pinney, Mrs. Reynolds, Rachel Atkins, Leopold Reynolds.

[Michael Garfield]

Sam Crane, Joyce Reynolds, Sophia Nemeth, Ann Reynolds, Vivian Rochester, Nicholas Nicholas Bolton and Desmond Peter Kenny.

[Hercule Poirot]

Halloween Party was dramatized for radio by.

[Michael Garfield]

Michael Bakewell and directed by Ennard Williams.