Free Hallowe'en Party by Agatha Christie

her brother.
    “Yes,” said Mrs McKay. “Anyone may be wrong. It's like the old story of the boy who cried 'Wolf, wolf,' and he cried it once too often, when it was a real wolf, and nobody believed him, and so the wolf got him.”
    “So you'd sum it up -”
    “I'd still say the probabilities are that she wasn't speaking the truth. But I'm a fair woman. She may have been. She may have seen something. Not quite so much as she said she saw, but something.”
    “And so she got herself killed,” said Superintendent Spence. “You've got to mind that, Elspeth. She got herself killed.”
    “That's true enough,” said Mrs McKay. “And that's why I'm saying maybe I've misjudged her. And if so, I'm sorry. But ask anyone who knew her and they'll tell you that lies came natural to her. It was a party she was at, remember, and she was excited. She'd want to make an effect.”
    “Indeed, they didn't believe her,” said Poirot.
    Elspeth McKay shook her head doubtfully.
    “Who could she have seen murdered?” asked Poirot.
    He looked from brother to sister.
    “Nobody,” said Mrs McKay with decision.
    “There must have been deaths here, say, over the last three years.”
    “Oh that, naturally,” said Spence. “Just the usual old folks or invalids or what you'd expect or maybe a hit-and-run motorist -”
    “No unusual or unexpected deaths?” “Well!” Elspeth hesitated.
    “I mean -” Spence took over. “I've jotted a few names down here.” He pushed the paper over to Poirot. “Save you a bit of trouble, asking questions around.”
    “Are these suggested victims?”
    “Hardly as much as that. Say within the range of possibility.”
    Poirot read aloud.
    “Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe. Charlotte Benfield. Janet White. Lesley Ferrier -” He broke off, looked across the table and repeated the first name. Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe.
    “Could be,” said Mrs McKay.
    “Yes, you might have something there.” She added a word that sounded like “opera”.
    “Opera?” Poirot looked puzzled. He had heard of no opera.
    “Went off one night, she did,” said Elspeth, “was never heard of again.” “Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe?”
    “No, no. The opera girl. She could have put something in the medicine easily enough. And she came into all the money, didn't she - or so she thought at the time?”
    Poirot looked at Spence for enlightenment.
    “And never been heard of since,” said Mrs McKay. “These foreign girls are all the same.”
    The significance of the word “opera” came to Poirot. “An au pair girl,” he said.
    “That's right. Lived with the old lady, and a week or two after the old lady died, the au pair girl just disappeared.”
    “Went off with some man, I'd say,” said Spence.
    “Well, nobody knew of him if so,” said Elspeth. “And there's usually plenty of talk about here. Usually know just who's going with who.”
    “Did anybody think there had been anything wrong about Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe's death?” asked Poirot.
    “No. She'd got heart trouble. Doctor attended her regularly.” “But you headed your list of possible victims with her, my friend?”
    “Well, she was a rich woman, a very rich woman. Her death was not unexpected but it was sudden. I'd say offhand that Dr Ferguson was surprised, even if only slightly surprised. I think he expected her to live longer. But doctors do have these surprises. She wasn't one to do as the doctor ordered. She'd been told not to overdo things, but she did exactly as she liked. For one thing, she was a passionate gardener, and that doesn't do heart cases any good.”
    Elspeth McKay took up the tale. “She came here when her health failed. She was living abroad before. She came here to be near her nephew and niece, Mr and Mrs Drake, and she bought the Quarry House. A big Victorian house which included a disused quarry which attracted her as having possibilities. She spent thousands of pounds on turning that quarry into a sunk garden or whatever they call the thing. Had a