Went about looking ever so modest, but it tickled up the gentlemen, all right, it did.

"I lent Mrs. Drake my witch ball for the party. Bought that witch ball at a jumble sale somewhere. There it is hanging up there now by the chimney, you see? Nice bright dark blue. I keep it over my door."

"Do you tell fortunes?"

"Mustn't say I do, must I?" she chuckled.

"The police don't like that. Not that they mind the kind of fortunes I tell.

Nothing to it, as you might say. Place like this you always know who's going with who, and so that makes it easy."

"Can you look in your witch ball, look in there, see who killed that little girl, Joyce?"

"You got mixed up, you have," said Mrs. Goodbody.

"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. But lots of things go on that are against nature."

"You may have something there."

"This is a good place to live, on the whole. I mean, people are decent, most of them, but wherever you go, the devil's always got some of his own. Born and bred to it."

"You mean black magic?"

"No, I don't mean that." Mrs. Goodbody was scornful.

"That's nonsense, that is. That's for people who like to dress up and do a lot of tomfoolery. Sex and all that. No, I mean those that the devil has touched with his hand. They're born that way. The sons of Lucifer. They're born so that killing don't mean nothing to them, not if they profit by it. When they want a thing, they want it. And they're ruthless to get it. Beautiful as angels, they can look like.

Knew a little girl once. Seven years old. Killed her little brother and sister.

Twins they were. Five or six months old, no more. Stifled them in their prams."

"That took place here in Woodleigh Common?"

"No, no, it wasn't in Woodleigh Common. I came across that up in Yorkshire, far as I remember. Nasty case.

Beautiful little creature she was, too. You could have fastened a pair of wings on her, let her go on a platform and sing Christmas hymns, and she'd have looked right for the part. But she wasn't. She was rotten inside. You'll know what I mean.

You're not a young man. You know what wickedness there is about in the world."

"Alas!" said Poirot.

"You are right. I do know only too well. If Joyce really saw a murder committed " "Who says she did?" said Mrs.

Goodbody.

"She said so herself."

"That's no reason for believing. She's always been a little liar." She gave him a sharp glance.

"You won't believe that, I suppose?"

"Yes," said Poirot, "I do believe it. Too many people have told me so, for me to continue disbelieving it."

"Odd things crops up in families," said Mrs. Goodbody.

"You take the Reynolds, for example. There's Mr. Reynolds. In the estate business he is. Never cut much ice at it and never will. Never got on much, as you'd say. And Mrs. Reynolds, always getting worried and upset about things.

None of their three children take after their parents. There's Arm, now, she's got brains. She's going to do well with her schooling, she is. She'll go to college, I shouldn't wonder, maybe get herself trained as a teacher. Mind you, she's pleased with herself. She's so pleased with herself that nobody can stick her. None of the boys look at her twice. And then there was Joyce. She wasn't clever like Arm, nor as clever as her little brother Leopold, either, but she wanted to be. She wanted always to know more than other people and to have done better than other people and she'd say anything to make people sit up and take notice. But don't you believe any single word she ever said was true.

Because nine times out of ten it wasn't."

"And the boy?"

"Leopold? Well, he's only nine or ten, I think, but he's clever all right. Clever with his fingers and other ways, too. He wants to study things like physics. He's good at mathematics, too. Quite surprised about it they were, in school. Yes, he's clever. He'll be one of these scientists, I expect. If you ask me, the things he does when he's a scientist and the things he'll think of-they'll be nasty, like atom bombs! He's one of the kind that studies and are ever so clever and think up something that'll destroy half the globe, and all us poor folk with it. You beware of Leopold. He plays tricks on people, you know, and eavesdrops. Finds out all their secrets. Where he gets all his pocket money from I'd like to know. It isn't from his mother or his father. They can't afford to give him much. He's got lots of money always. Keeps it in a drawer under his socks. He buys things.

Quite a lot of expensive gadgets. Where does he get the money 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."

She paused for breath.

"Well, I can't help you, I'm afraid, in anyway."

"You have helped me a great deal," said Poirot.

"What happened to the foreign girl who is said to have run away?"

"Didn't go far, in my opinion.

"Ding dong dell, pussy's in the well.9 That's what I've always thought, anyway."

"I ^ XCUSE me, Ma'am, I wonder if r"^ I might speak to you a minute." * J Mrs. Oliver, who was standing on the verandah of her friend's house looking out to see if there were any signs of Hercule Poirot approaching he had notified her by telephone that he would be coming round to see her about now looked round.

A neatly attired woman of middle age was standing, twisting her hands nervously in their neat cotton gloves.

"Yes?" said Mrs. Oliver, adding an interrogation point by her intonation.

"I'm sorry to trouble you, I'm sure, Madam, but I thought well, I thought…"

Mrs. Oliver listened but did not attempt to prompt her. She wondered what was worrying the woman so much.

"I take it rightly as you're the lady who writes stories, don't I?

Stories about crimes and murders and things of that kind."

"Yes," said Mrs. Oliver, "I'm the one."

Her curiosity was now aroused. Was this a preface for a demand for an autograph or even a signed photograph? One never knew. The most unlikely things happened.

"I thought as you'd be the right one to tell me," said the woman.

"You'd better sit down," said Mrs.

Oliver.

She foresaw that Mrs. Whoever-it-was she was wearing a wedding ring so she was a Mrs. was the type who takes some time in getting to the point. The woman sat down and went on twisting her hands in their gloves.

"Something you're worried about?" said Mrs. Oliver, doing her best to start the flow.

"Well, I'd like advice, and it's true. It's about something that happened a good while ago and I Wasn't really worried at the time. But you know how it is. You think things over and you wish you knew someone you could go and ask about it."

"I see," said Mrs. Oliver, hoping to inspire confidence by this entirely meretricious statement.

"Seeing the things what have happened lately, you never do know, do you?"

"You mean-?"

"I mean what happened at the Hallowe'en party, or whatever they called it. I mean it shows you there's people who aren't dependable here, doesn't it? And it shows you things before that weren't as you thought they were. I mean, they mightn't have been what you thought they were, if you understand what I mean."

"Yes?" said Mrs. Oliver, adding an even greater tinge of interrogation to the monosyllable.

"I don't think I know your name," she added. lear nan Mrs. lear nan I go out and do cleaning to oblige ladies here. Ever since my husband died, and that was five years ago. I used to work for Mrs. LlewellynSmythe, the lady who lived up at the Quarry House, before Colonel and Mrs.

Weston came. I don't know if you ever knew her."

"No," said Mrs. Oliver, "I never knew her. This is the first time I have been down to Woodleigh Common."