Free Hallowe'en Party by Agatha Christie Page A

don’t want to be nasty about Joyce, because she’s dead, and it wouldn’t be kind, but she really was the most awful liar, you know. I mean, I’m sorry to say things about my sister, but it’s quite true.”
    â€œAre we making any progress?” said Mrs. Oliver as they left the house.
    â€œNone whatever,” said Hercule Poirot. “That is interesting,” he said thoughtfully.
    Mrs. Oliver looked as though she didn’t agree with him.

Eight
    I t was six o’clock at Pine Crest. Hercule Poirot put a piece of sausage into his mouth and followed it up with a sip of tea. The tea was strong and to Poirot singularly unpalatable. The sausage, on the other hand, was delicious. Cooked to perfection. He looked with appreciation across the table to where Mrs. McKay presided over the large brown teapot.
    Elspeth McKay was as unlike her brother, Superintendent Spence, as she could be in every way. Where he was broad, she was angular. Her sharp, thin face looked out on the world with shrewd appraisal. She was thin as a thread, yet there was a certain likeness between them. Mainly the eyes and the strongly marked line of the jaw. Either of them, Poirot thought, could be relied upon for judgement and good sense. They would express themselves differently, but that was all. Superintendent Spence would express himself slowly and carefully as the result of due thoughtand deliberation. Mrs. McKay would pounce, quick and sharp, like a cat upon a mouse.
    â€œA lot depends,” said Poirot, “upon the character of this child. Joyce Reynolds. This is what puzzles me most.”
    He looked inquiringly at Spence.
    â€œYou can’t go by me,” said Spence, “I’ve not lived here long enough. Better ask Elspeth.”
    Poirot looked across the table, his eyebrows raised inquiringly. Mrs. McKay was sharp as usual in response.
    â€œI’d say she was a proper little liar,” she said.
    â€œNot a girl whom you’d trust and believe what she said?”
    Elspeth shook her head decidedly.
    â€œNo, indeed. Tell a tall tale, she would, and tell it well, mind you. But I’d never believe her.”
    â€œTell it with the object of showing off?”
    â€œThat’s right. They told you the Indian story, didn’t they? There’s many as believed that, you know. Been away for the holidays, the family had. Gone abroad somewhere. I don’t know if it was her father and mother or her uncle and aunt, but they went to India and she came back from those holidays with tall tales of how she’d been taken there with them. Made a good story of it, she did. A Maharajah and a tiger shoot and elephants—ah, it was fine hearing and a lot of those around her here believed it. But I said straight along, she’s telling more than ever happened. Could be, I thought at first, she was just exaggerating. But the story got added to every time. There were more tigers, if you know what I mean. Far more tigers than could possibly happen. And elephants, too, for that matter. I’d known her before, too, telling tall stories.”
    â€œAlways to get attention?”
    â€œAye, you’re right there. She was a great one for getting attention.”
    â€œBecause a child told a tall story about a travel trip she never took,” said Superintendent Spence, “you can’t say that every tall tale she told was a lie.”
    â€œIt might not be,” said Elspeth, “but I’d say the likelihood was that it usually would be.”
    â€œSo you think that if Joyce Reynolds came out with a tale that she’d seen a murder committed, you’d say she was probably lying and you wouldn’t believe the story was true?”
    â€œThat’s what I’d think,” said Mrs. McKay.
    â€œYou might be wrong,” said her brother.
    â€œYes,” said Mrs. McKay. “Anyone may be wrong. It’s like the old story of the boy who cried ‘Wolf,