Free Hallowe'en Party by Agatha Christie

really did think so, would she?” said Mrs. Reynolds. “I think she must have got something mixed up really.”
    â€œYes, it seems possible. I wonder,” he asked, “if I might speak to your two children who were also at the party?”
    â€œWell, of course, though I don’t know what you can expect them to tell you. Ann’s doing her work for her ‘A’ levels upstairs and Leopold’s in the garden assembling a model aeroplane.”
    Leopold was a solid, pudgy-faced boy entirely absorbed, it seemed, in mechanical construction. It was some few moments before he could pay attention to the questions he was being asked.
    â€œYou were there, weren’t you, Leopold? You heard what your sister said. What did she say?”
    â€œOh, you mean about the murder?” He sounded bored.
    â€œYes, that’s what I mean,” said Poirot. “She said she saw a murder once. Did she really see such a thing?”
    â€œNo, of course she didn’t,” said Leopold. “Who on earth would she see murdered? It was just like Joyce, that.”
    â€œHow do you mean, it was just like her?”
    â€œShowing off,” said Leopold, winding round a piece of wire and breathing forcefully through his nose as he concentrated. “She was an awfully stupid sort of girl,” he added. “She’d say anything, you know, to make people sit up and take notice.”
    â€œSo you really think she invented the whole thing?”
    Leopold shifted his gaze to Mrs. Oliver.
    â€œI expect she wanted to impress you a bit,” he said. “You write detective stories, don’t you? I think she was just putting it on so that you should take more notice of her than you did of the others.”
    â€œThat would also be rather like her, would it?” said Poirot.
    â€œOh, she’d say anything,” said Leopold. “I bet nobody believed her though.”
    â€œWere you listening? Do you think anyone believed it?”
    â€œWell, I heard her say it, but I didn’t really listen. Beatricelaughed at her and so did Cathie. They said ‘that’s a tall story,’ or something.”
    There seemed little more to be got out of Leopold. They went upstairs to where Ann, looking rather more than her sixteen years, was bending over a table with various study books spread round her.
    â€œYes, I was at the party,” she said.
    â€œYou heard your sister say something about having seen a murder?”
    â€œOh yes, I heard her. I didn’t take any notice, though.”
    â€œYou didn’t think it was true?”
    â€œOf course it wasn’t true. There haven’t been any murders here for ages. I don’t think there’s been a proper murder for years.”
    â€œThen why do you think she said so?”
    â€œOh, she likes showing off. I mean she used to like showing off. She had a wonderful story once about having travelled to India. My uncle had been on a voyage there and she pretended she went with him. Lots of girls at school actually believed her.”
    â€œSo you don’t remember any what you call murders taking place here in the last three or four years?”
    â€œNo, only the usual kind,” said Ann. “I mean, the ones you read every day in the newspaper. And they weren’t actually here in Woodleigh Common. They were mostly in Medchester, I think.”
    â€œWho do you think killed your sister, Ann? You must have known her friends, you would know any people who didn’t like her.”
    â€œI can’t imagine who’d want to kill her. I suppose someone who was just batty. Nobody else would, would they?”
    â€œThere was no one who had—quarrelled with her or who did not get on with her?”
    â€œYou mean, did she have an enemy? I think that’s silly. People don’t have enemies really. There are just people you don’t like.”
    As they departed from the room, Ann said:
    â€œI