'Everybody knows everything in a place like this. That authoress woman brought you down here as God's greatest detective to puzzle police officers. That's more or less right, isn't it?'
'In part,' said Poirot.
'I came here to visit an old friend, ex-Superintendent Spence, who lives with his sister here.'
'Spence? Hm. Good type, Spence. Bull-dog breed. Good honest police officer of the old type. No graft. No violence. Not stupid either. Straight as a die.'
'You appraise him correctly.'
'Well,' said Ferguson, 'what did you tell him and what did he tell you?'
'Both he and Inspector Raglan have been exceedingly kind to me. I hope you will likewise.'
'I've nothing to be kind about,' said Ferguson. 'I don't know what happened. Child gets her head shoved in a bucket and is drowned in the middle of a party. Nasty business. Mind you, doing in a child isn't anything to be startled about nowadays.
I've been called out to look at too many murdered children in the last seven to ten years far too many. A lot of people who ought to be under mental restraint aren't under mental restraint. No room in the asylums. They go about, nicely spoken, nicely got up and looking like everybody else, looking for somebody they can do in.
And enjoy themselves. Don't usually do it at a party, though. Too much chance of getting caught, I suppose, but novelty appeals even to a mentally disturbed killer.'
'Have you any idea who killed her?'
'Do you really suppose that's a question I can answer just like that?
I'd have to have some evidence, wouldn't I? I'd have to be sure.'
'You could guess,' said Poirot.
'Anyone can guess. If I'm called in to a case I have to guess whether the chap's going to have measles or whether it's a case of an allergy to shell-fish or to feather pillows. I have to ask questions to find out what they've been eating, or drinking, or sleeping on, or what other children they've been meeting. Whether they've been in a crowded bus with Mrs. Smith's or Mrs. Robinson's children who've all got the measles, and a few other things.
Then I advance a tentative opinion as to which it is of the various possibilities, and that, let me tell you, is what's called diagnosis.
You don't do it in a hurry and you make sure.'
'Did you know this child?'
'Of course. She was one of my patients.
There are two of us here. Myself and Worrall. I happen to be the Reynolds' doctor. She was quite a healthy child, Joyce. Had the usual small childish ailments. Nothing peculiar or out of the way. Ate too much, talked too much.
Talking too much hadn't done her any harm. Eating too much gave her what used to be called in the old days a bilious attack from time to time. She'd had mumps and chicken pox. Nothing else.'
'But she had perhaps talked too much on one occasion, as you suggest she might be liable to do.'
'So that's the tack you're on? I heard some rumour of that. On the lines of 'what the butler saw'-only tragedy instead of comedy. Is that it?'
'It could form a motive, a reason.'
'Oh yes. Grant you that. But there are other reasons. Mentally disturbed seems the usual answer nowadays. At any rate, it does always in the Magistrates' courts.
Nobody gained by her death, nobody hated her. But it seems to me with children nowadays you don't need to look for the reason. The reason's in another place.
The reason's in the killer's mind. His disturbed mind or his evil mind or his kinky mind. Any kind of mind you like to call it. I'm not a psychiatrist. There are times when I get tired of hearing those words:
'Remanded for a psychiatrist's report,' after a lad has broken in somewhere, smashed the looking-glasses, pinched bottles of whisky, stolen the silver, knocked an old woman on the head.
Doesn't much matter what it is now.
Remand them for the psychiatrists report.'
'And who would you favour, in this case, to remand for a psychiatrist's report?'
'You mean of those there at the other night?'
'Yes.'
'The murderer would have had to be there, wouldn't he? Otherwise there wouldn't have been a murder. Right? He was among the guests, he was among the helpers or he walked in through the window with malice aforethought. Probably he knew the fastenings of that house.
Might have been in there before, looking round. Take your man or boy.
He wants to kill someone. Not at all unusual. Over in Medchester we had a case of that. Came to light after about six or seven years. Boy of thirteen. Wanted to kill someone, so he killed a child of nine, pinched a car, drove it seven or eight miles into a copse, burned her there, went away, and as far as we know led a blameless life until he was twenty-one or two. Mind you, we have only his word for that, he may have gone on doing it. Probably did. Found he liked killing people. Don't suppose he's killed too many, or some police force would have been on to him before now. But every now and then he felt the urge. Psychiatrist's report. Committed murder while mentally disturbed. I'm trying to say myself that that's what happened here.
That sort of thing, anyway. I'm not a psychiatrist myself, thank goodness. I have a few psychiatrist friends. Some of them are sensible chaps. Some of them-well, I'll go as far as saying they ought to be remanded for a psychiatrist's report themselves.
This chap who killed Joyce probably had nice parents, ordinary manners, good appearance. Nobody'd dream anything was wrong with him. Ever had a bite at a nice red juicy apple and there, down by the core, something rather nasty rears itself up and wags its head at you?
Plenty of human beings about like that.
More than there used to be I'd say nowadays.'
'And you've no suspicion of your own?'
'I can't stick my neck out and diagnose a murderer without some evidence.'
'Still, you admit it must have been someone at the party. You cannot have a murder without a murderer.'
'You can easily in some detective stories that are written. Probably your pet authoress writes them like that. But in this case I agree.
The murderer must have been there. A guest, a domestic help, someone who walked in through the window. Easily done if he'd studied the catch of the window beforehand. It might have struck some crazy brain that it would be a novel idea and a bit of fun to have a murder at a Hallowe'en party. That's all you've got to start off with, isn't it?
Just someone who was at the party.'
Under bushy brows a pair of eyes twinkled at Poirot.
'I was there myself,' he said.
'Came in late, just to see what was doing.'
He nodded his head vigorously.
'Yes, that's the problem, isn't it? Like a social announcement in the papers:
'Amongst those present was A Murderer?'
POIROT looked up at The Elms and approved of it.
He was admitted and taken promptly by what he judged to be a secretary to the head-mistress's study.
