Hallowe'en Party - Agatha Christie [78]
The last letters received from Olga had been dated about a year and a half ago. In them there had been mention of a young man. There were hints that they were considering marriage, but the young man, whose name she did not mention, had, she said, his way to make, so nothing could be settled as yet. In her last letter she spoke happily of their prospects being good. When no more letters came, the elderly friend assumed that Olga had married her Englishman and changed her address. Such things happened frequently when girls went to England. If they were happily married they often never wrote again.
She had not worried.
It fitted, Poirot thought. Lesley had spoken of marriage, but might not have meant it. Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe had been spoken of as ‘generous’. Lesley had been given money by someone, Olga perhaps (money originally given her by her employers), to induce him to do forgery on her behalf.
Elspeth McKay came out on the terrace again. Poirot consulted her as to his surmises about a partnership between Olga and Lesley.
She considered a moment. Then the oracle spoke.
‘Kept very quiet about it, if so. Never any rumours about those two. There usually is in a place like this if there’s anything in it.’
‘Young Ferrier was tied up to a married woman. He might have warned the girl not to say anything about him to her employer.’
‘Likely enough. Mrs Smythe would probably know that Lesley Ferrier was a bad character, and would warn the girl to have nothing to do with him.’
Poirot folded up the letter and put it into his pocket.
‘I wish you’d let me get you a pot of tea.’
‘No, no—I must go back to my guest house and change my shoes. You do not know when your brother will be back?’
‘I’ve no idea. They didn’t say what they wanted him for.’
Poirot walked along the road to his guest house. It was only a few hundred yards. As he walked up to the front door it was opened and his landlady, a cheerful lady of thirty odd, came out to him.
‘There’s a lady here to see you,’ she said. ‘Been waiting some time. I told her I didn’t know where you’d gone exactly or when you’d be back, but she said she’d wait.’ She added, ‘It’s Mrs Drake. She’s in a state, I’d say. She’s usually so calm about everything, but really I think she’s had a shock of some kind. She’s in the sitting-room. Shall I bring you in some tea and something?’
‘No,’ said Poirot, ‘I think it will be better not. I will hear first what she has to say.’
He opened the door and went into the sitting-room. Rowena Drake had been standing by the window. It was not the window overlooking the front path so she had not seen his approach. She turned abruptly as she heard the sound of the door.
‘Monsieur Poirot. At last. It seemed so long.’
‘I am sorry, Madame. I have been in the Quarry Wood and also talking to my friend, Mrs Oliver. And then I have been talking to two boys. To Nicholas and Desmond.’
‘Nicholas and Desmond? Yes, I know. I wonder—oh! one thinks all sorts of things.’
‘You are upset,’ said Poirot gently.
It was not a thing he thought he would ever see. Rowena Drake upset, no longer mistress of events, no longer arranging everything, and enforcing her decisions on others.’
‘You’ve heard, haven’t you?’ she asked. ‘Oh well, perhaps you haven’t.’
‘What should I have heard?’
‘Something dreadful. He’s—he’s dead. Somebody killed him.’
‘Who is dead, Madame?’
‘Then you haven’t really heard. And he’s only a child, too, and I thought—oh, what a fool I’ve been. I should have told you. I should have told you when you asked me. It makes me feel terrible—terribly guilty for thinking I knew best and thinking—but I did mean it for the best, Monsieur Poirot, indeed I did.’
‘Sit down, Madame, sit down. Calm yourself and tell me. There is a child dead—another child?’
‘Her brother,’ said Mrs Drake. ‘Leopold.’
‘Leopold Reynolds?’
‘Yes. They found his body on one of the field paths. He must have been coming back from school and gone out of his way to play in the brook near here. Somebody held him down in