She considered the point thoughtfully, turning it over in her mind.

"Yes," she said at last, "I suppose I do.

I haven't thought it out. It seems to me that crimes are so often associated nowadays with the young. People who don't really know quite what they are doing, who want silly revenges, who have an instinct for destruction. Even the c people who wreck telephone boxes, or who slash the tyres of cars, do all sorts of things just to hurt people, just because they hate -not anyone in particular, but the whole world.

It's a sort of symptom of this age.

So I suppose when one comes across something like a child drowned at a party for no reason really, one does assume that it's someone who is not yet fully responsible for their actions. Don't you agree with me that-that-well, that that is certainly the most likely possibility here?"

"The police, I think, share your point of view-or did share it."

"Well, they should know. We have a very good class of policeman in this district. They've done well in several crimes. They are painstaking and they never give up. I think probably they will solve this murder, though I don't think it will happen very quickly. These things seem to take a long time. A long time of patient gathering of evidence."

"The evidence in this case will not be very easy to gather, Madame."

"No, I suppose it won't. When my husband was killed-He was a cripple, you know. He was crossing the road and a car ran over him and knocked him down.

They never found the person who was responsible. As you know, my husband-or perhaps you don't know-my husband was a polio victim. He was partially paralysed as a result of polio, six years ago.

His condition had improved, but he was still crippled, and it would be difficult for him to get out of the way if a car bore down upon him quickly. I almost felt that I had been to blame, though he always insisted on going out without me or without anyone with him, because he would have resented very much being in the care of a nurse, or a wife who took the part of a nurse, and he was always careful before crossing a road. Still, one does blame oneself when accidents happen."

"That came on top of the death of your aunt?"

"No. She died not long afterwards.

Everything seems to come at once, doesn't it?"

"That is very true," said Hercule Poirot. He went on: "The police were not able to trace the car that ran down your husband?"

"It was a Grasshopper Mark 7, I Hpi6 233 believe. Every third car you notice on the road is a Grasshopper Mark 7 or was then. It's the most popular car on the market, they tell me. They believe it was pinched from the Market Place in Medchester. A car park there. It belonged to a Mr. Waterhouse, an elderly seed merchant in Medchester. Mr.

Waterhouse was a slow and careful driver. It was certainly not he who caused the accident.

It was clearly one of those cases where irresponsible young men help themselves to cars. Such careless, or should I say such callous young men, should be treated, one sometimes feels, more severely than they are now."

"A long gaol sentence, perhaps. Merely to be fined, and the fine paid by indulgent relatives, makes little impression."

"One has to remember," said Rowena Drake, "that there are young people at an age when it is vital that they should continue with their studies if they are to have the chance of doing well in life."

"The sacred cow of eduction," said Hercule Poirot.

"That is a phrase I have heard uttered," he added quickly, "by people well, should I say people who ought to know. People who themselves hold academic posts of some seniority."

"They do not perhaps make enough allowances for youth, for a bad bringing up. Broken homes."

"So you think they need something other than gaol sentences?"

"Proper remedial treatment," said Rowena Drake firmly.

"And that will make (another oldfashioned proverb) a silk purse out of a sow's ear? You do not believe in the maxim 'the fate of every man have we bound about his neck'?"

Mrs. Drake looked extremely doubtful and slightly displeased.

"An Islamic saying, I believe," said Poirot.

Mrs. Drake looked unimpressed.

"I hope," she said, "we do not take our ideas or perhaps I should say our ideals from the Middle East."

"One must accept facts," said Poirot, "and a fact that is expressed by modern biologists Western biologists " he hastened to add, " seems to suggest very strongly that the root of a person's actions lies in his genetic make-up. That a murderer of twenty-four was a murderer in potential at two or three or four years old. Or of course a mathematician or a musical genius."

"We are not discussing murderers," said Mrs. Drake.

"My bu^and died as a result of an accident. An accident caused by a careless and badly adjusted personality.

Whoever the boy or yo^S man was' there is always the hope of eventual adjustment to a belief and acceptance that it is a duty to consider others, W be twA to feel an abhorrence if you have taken life unawares, simply out of what may be described as criminal carelessness that was not really criminal in intent.

"You are quite sure? therefore, that it was not criminal intent?

"I should doubt it very much." Mrs.

Drake looked slightly surprised.

"I do not think that the police ever seriously considered that possibility. I certainly did not. It was an accident. A very tragic accident which altered the pattern of many lives, including my o^11' "You say we re not discussing murderers," said Poirot.

"But in the case of Joyce that is just what we are discussing. There was no accident about that. Deliberate hands pushed that child's head down into water, holding her there till death occurred. Deliberate intent."

"I know. I know. It's terrible. I don't like to think of it, to be reminded of it."

She got up, moving about restlessly.

Poirot pushed on relentlessly.

"We are still presented with a choice there. We still have to find the motive involved."

"It seems to me that such a crime must have been quite motiveless."

"You mean committed by someone mentally disturbed to the extent of enjoying killing someone? Presumably killing someone young and immature."

"One does hear of such cases. What is the original cause of them is difficult to find out. Even psychiatrists do not agree."

"You refuse to accept a simpler explanation?"

She looked puzzled.

"Simpler?"

"Someone not mentally disturbed, not a possible case for psychiatrists to disagree over. Somebody perhaps who just wanted to be safe."

"Safe? Oh, you mean "

"The girl had boasted that same day, some hours previously, that she had seen someone commit a murder."

"Joyce," said Mrs. Drake, with calm certainty, "was really a very silly little girl.

Not, I am afraid, always very truthful."

"So everyone has told me," said Hercuk Poirot.

"I am beginning to believe, you know, that what everybody has told me must be right," he added with a sigh.

"It usually is."

He rose to his feet, adopting a different manner.

"I must apologise, Madame. I have talked of painful things to you, things that do not truly concern me here. But it seemed from what Miss Whittaker told me "Why don't you find out more from her?"

"You mean-?"

"She is a teacher. She knows, much better than I can, what potentialities (as you have called them) exist amongst the children she teacher."

She paused and then said:

"Miss Ernlyn, too."

"The head-mistress?" Poirot looked surprised.

"Yes. She knows things. I mean, she is a natural psychologist. You said I might have ideas-half-formed ones-as to who killed Joyce. I haven't-but I think Miss Ernlyn might."

"This is interesting…"

"I don't mean has evidence. I mean she just knows. She could tell you-but I don't think she will."