Chapter 15 Chapter fifteen

Two pairs of eyes looked at Poirot anxiously. "I have nothing else to tell you. We have been questioned by the police, M. Poirot." Poirot's eyes moved from one boy to the other. They certainly did not think of themselves as boys; The club members were talking, Nicholas was only eighteen, Desmond was sixteen. "At the order of a friend, I called on all the people who were there, not at the party--but at the preparations for the party. You two are said to be active." "Yes, it is." "So far," said Poirot, "I have visited the cleaners, I have had the advice of the police, I have spoken to the coroner's doctor, I have seen a teacher who was present, I have seen the headmaster of the school, and I am in great distress. The family members of the deceased have heard a lot of gossip in the village—by the way, is there a witch in this place?"

The two young men looked at him and laughed. "You mean Mrs. Goodbody, yes, she came to the party dressed as a witch." "I am now calling on you, the younger generation," said Poirot. "You have sharp eyes, sharp ears, advanced scientific knowledge, and keen wit. I am eager to hear--very eager to hear your views on this matter. " Looking at the two boys in front of him, he thought to himself, eighteen years old, sixteen years old, the police call them youths, he thinks they are still children, and the newspaper reporter calls them teenagers.Call them anything.A product of the times, he flattered them for a long time in order to raise the topic, but even if they were not as smart as he boasted, they would not be so stupid.They went to the party.They had also helped Mrs. Drake at her house earlier in the day.

They climbed the ladders, placed the pumpkins in the chosen locations, and switched on the lights.Who knew who of them had also made a stack of photographs, which turned out well enough to trick the little girls into phantoms of their future husbands.They were just of that age, and it made Inspector Raglan and the old gardener suspicious.In recent years, the crime rate of this age group has increased greatly. Poirot himself did not really suspect the two of them, but either possibility exists.Even the perpetrator of the accident two or three years ago could have been a boy, or a teenager, twelve or fourteen, as the news reports abound these days.

Poirot always kept these possibilities in mind, but he didn't want to think about them for the time being. He just concentrated his energy on trying to evaluate the two young men, looking at their faces, clothes, and demeanor, listening to their voices, and using Hercule Poirot's characteristic The way of disguising himself as a foreigner who doesn't understand anything is like putting on a mask and flattering them all the time, so that they can disarm them and even look down on him a little bit. Although they try to hide their disdain, both of them are very friendly. Polite, eighteen-year-old Nicholas has long hair and a beard, and is dressed in black that looks like mourning.Not because of the tragedy of the previous few days, but obviously because of his personal preference for fashion. The younger one wore a rose-colored velvet jacket, lavender trousers, and a shirt with a silk border. Needless to say, the two were dressed A lot of money was spent on the Internet, and it can be seen that it was not bought locally, and it was probably not the parents or guardians who bought it themselves.

Desmond has ginger hair with a fair amount of down. "Did you help me make a lot of preparations in the morning or afternoon of the party?" "It was quite early that afternoon." Niklas corrected him. "What are you doing to help? I've heard it from several people, but I still haven't figured it out, and what they said is inconsistent." "One of them is a lot of lights." "If it's too high, climb up the ladder to fix it." "I heard that the photo effects are very good." Desmond put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a stack, from which he proudly pulled out a few cards.

"We set it up beforehand," he said, "pretending to be the girl's husband," he explained. "They're all alike, they're all like that, they're all trying to be stylish. That's not bad, is it?" He handed some to Poirot, who looked with interest at the blurred photographs of a young man with a yellow beard, another with a halo of hair, and a third with hair hanging almost to his knees. , and several with short mustaches and other ornaments on their faces. "Each one is different. How about it, is it okay?" "Maybe we hired a model?"

"Oh, it's just us, it's just a make-up, Nick and I did it together. Some of his shots of me and some of my shots of him, just using the hair to make a difference." "Smart," said Poirot. "We intentionally blurred the shot, thinking it would look more like an illusion." Another boy said: "Mrs. Drake was overjoyed, and congratulated us. Made her laugh too. We were there mainly to work on the lights, to put a bulb or two in place, and when the girl with the mirror was seated, we Just flash the picture across the screen, and the girl sees a face in the mirror, and hair, beard, stuff like that."

"Do they know it's you two?" "Ah, probably didn't know it at the time. They were kept in the dark at the party. They knew we were there to help, but they didn't know it was us in the mirror, and they weren't very bright. Besides, we both wore makeup, so we weren't very good at it." Look, first me, then Niklas, the girls were screaming, what a joke." "Who were there that afternoon? I don't think I asked you?" "There must have been thirty or so at the party, and I didn't pay much attention to it. In the afternoon there was Mrs. Drake (of course), Mrs. Butler, a primary school teacher who must have been named Whitaker, and one who might have been Fletcher. Mrs. Bart, the organist's wife or sister. Dr. Ferguson's pharmacist, Miss Lee, who came over to help that afternoon after her break, and a few children who tried to help. But I don't think they can do anything. No, the girls are hanging around, giggling."

"Hey, do you remember any girls?" "Oh, there's the Reynolds kid, poor Joyce, of course, the one who was murdered, and her sister Ann. Ann is terrible, very proud, thinks she's the smartest, the best of the best, no Problem. Her little brother, Leopold, is disgusting," said Desmond. "He's furtive, eavesdropping, and lying. And Beatrice Adams, Adrie and Cassie, Grant. There are a few others who really help, I mean the cleaners, and the writer—the one who asked you to come." "Are there any men?" "Yes, the pastor came to see. A good old man who is confused. And the new curate. He stutters when he is nervous. He has only been here for a few days and can't remember anything else."

"I heard you heard Joyce Reynolds mention witnessing a murder?" "I didn't hear that," said Desmond. "Did she really say it?" "Yes, that's what they say," said Nichlos. "I didn't hear her either. I probably wasn't in the room. Where and when did she say it?" "in living room." "Oh, yes, most people are in the living room, with a few exceptions," said Desmond. "Nick and I were, of course, mainly in the room where the girls played mirror games to see their future lovers. We were winding, That kind of work. Or we'd put up lights on the stairs, and we've been in the living room once or twice, and set up the pumpkins, and hung up a few hollowed out ones, and put lights in them, but we're in I never heard her say any of that, Nick, and you?"

"Me neither," Nick replied.He found it amused, and added: "Did Joyce really say she saw a murder? It would be amazing if she did!" "Why so amazing?" Desmond asked. "Hey, it's the sixth sense, isn't it? I think it's just that she saw a murder and was murdered herself an hour or two later, I'm afraid she's hallucinating. Quite thought-provoking. Recent Some experiments seem to show that it can be avoided, repairing the carotid artery with electrodes or something, I saw it in the magazine." "The sixth sense has never been able to do anything well," said Nicholas sarcastically. "People sit in the room and look at a stack of cards, or a few sentences, with geometric figures next to them, but no one ever actually looks at it." That's right, or in other words, it's very small." "Only for very young people. Teens are better than old people." Hercule Poirot, not wishing to continue the high-tech conversation, interrupted. "Do you remember, did something scary or special happen at that time? Maybe no one else noticed but you noticed?" Both Nicholas and Desmond frowned vigorously, needless to say they were racking their brains to find some important clues. "No, just chirping, moving things, and doing work." "Have you any surmises of your own?" said Poirot to Niklas. "What, about who killed Joyce?" "Yes. I mean maybe you noticed something that made you suspicious from a purely psychological point of view." "Oh, I see, maybe there really are." "I bet Whitaker did it." Desmond interrupted Nicholas's meditation. "Primary teacher?" asked Poirot. "Yes. A real spinster, perverted, taught all her life, and surrounded by women. Do you remember a teacher who was strangled to death a year or two ago. People said she was weird." "Gay?" Nicholas' voice sounded sophisticated. "Nevertheless, do you remember Nora, Ambrose, who lived with her? She's not a bad looking girl, and they say she has a boyfriend or two, and the girl who lives with her is happy She's mad. Someone said she had an illegitimate child. She had some kind of illness and took two semesters off before she came back. There's all sorts of gossip." "Yes, no, Whittaker was in the living room almost that day. She probably heard Joyce's words. It must be firmly imprinted in her mind, don't you think?" "Look," said Nicholas, "if Whitaker—how old is she? Early forties? Nearing fifty—there's something weird about women that age." They both looked at Poirot with the expression on their faces that resembles that of a dog claiming credit for something it has done for its master. "If it's true, I bet Miss Emlyn knows that she can't hide anything about her school from her." "Then why didn't she say anything?" "Maybe I think she should be protected." "No, I don't think she will, and if she thought of Elizabeth Whittaker's madness and what must happen to many students, she wouldn't keep silent." "And what about the curate?" Desmond asked hopefully. "Maybe he's a little bit crazy. You see, water, apples, and so on, original sin—I've got a good idea. Suppose he's not very smart." Sober, suppose the game of chestnut-in-the-fire stimulated him, Hellfire! The flames are rising! Then he took Joyce by the hand and said: Come with me, I have something to show you, and then take her to the place where there are apples. In the room, he said, kneel down, and he said, I baptized you, and put her head in, and it was all alike. Adam, Eve, apples, hellfire, chestnuts from the fire, and then baptized again to come Get rid of sin." "Maybe he took off his clothes first." The more Nichlos thought about it, the more he felt that it was true. "This kind of thing is usually related to sex." They both looked at Poirot triumphantly. "Well," said Poirot, "you have given me a new line of thought."