Hallowe'en Party - Agatha Christie [63]
‘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 crop 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 Ann, 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 Ann, 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 eavesdops. Finds out all their