things that are no concern of hers.'
'Yes, yes,' said Poirot, 'deplorable, I think. They do not learn very much, I have noticed, from Mrs. Oliver. They learn only that she is fond of apples. That has now been known for twenty years at least, I should think, but she still repeats it with a pleasant smile. Although now, I fear, she no longer likes apples.'
'It was apples that brought you here, was it not?'
'Apples at a Hallowe'en party,' said Poirot. 'You were at that party?'
'No.'
'You were fortunate.'
'Fortunate?' Michael Garfield repeated the word, something that sounded faintly like surprise in his voice.
'To have been one of the guests at a party where murder is committed is not a pleasant experience. Perhaps you have not experienced it, but I tell you, you are fortunate because' Poirot became a little more foreign ' il ya a des ennuis, vous comprenez. People ask you times, dates, impertinent questions.' He went on, 'You knew the child?'
'Oh yes. The Reynolds are well known here. I know most of the people living round here. We all know each other in Woodleigh Common, though in varying degrees. There is some intimacy, some friendships, some people remain merest acquaintances, and so on.'
'What was she like, the child Joyce?'
'She was how can I put it? not important. She had rather an ugly voice.
Shrill. Really, that's about all I remember about her. I'm not particularly fond of children. Mostly they bore me. Joyce bored me.
When she talked, she talked about herself.'
'She was not interesting?'
Michael Garfield looked slightly surprised.
'I shouldn't think so,' he said.
'Does she have to be?'
'It is my view that people devoid of interest are unlikely to be murdered.
People are murdered for gain, for fear or for love. One takes one's choice, but one has to have a starting point-' He broke off and glanced at his watch.
'I must proceed. I have an engagement to fulfill. Once more, my felicitations.'
He went on down, following the path and picking his way carefully. He was glad that for once he was not wearing his tight patent leather shoes.
Michael Garfield was not the only person he was to meet in the sunk garden that day. As he reached the bottom he noted that three paths led from here in slightly different directions. At the entrance of the middle path, sitting on a fallen trunk of a tree, a child was awaiting him. She made this clear at once.
'I expect you are Mr. Hercule Poirot, aren't you?' she said.
Her voice was clear, almost bell-like in tone. She was a fragile creature. Something about her matched the sunk garden.
A dryad or some elf-like being.
'That is my name,' said Poirot.
'I came to meet you,' said the child. 'You are coming to tea with us, aren't you?'
'With Mrs. Butler and Mrs. Oliver? Yes.'
'That's right. That's Mummy and Aunt Ariadne.' She added with a note of censure: 'You're rather late.'
'I am sorry. I stopped to speak to someone.'
'Yes, I saw you. You were talking to Michael, weren't you?'
'You know him?'
'Of course. We've lived here quite a long time. I know everybody.'
Poirot wondered how old she was. He asked her. She said, 'I'm twelve years old. I'm going to boarding-school next year.'
'Will you be sorry or glad?'
'I don't really know till I get there. I don't think I like this place very much, not as much as I did.' She added, 'I think you'd better come with me, now, please.'
'But certainly. But certainly. I apologise for being late.'
'Oh, it doesn't really matter.'
'What's your name?'
'Miranda.'
'I think it suits you,' said Poirot.
'Are you thinking of Shakespeare?'
'Yes. Do you have it in lessons?'
'Yes. Miss Ernlyn read us some of it. I asked Mummy to read some more. I liked it. It has a wonderful sound. A brave new world. There isn't anything really like that, is there?'
'You don't believe in it?'
'Do you?'
'There is always a brave new world,' said Poirot, 'but only, you know, for very special people. The lucky ones. The ones who carry the making of that world within themselves.'
'Oh, I see,' said Miranda, with an air of apparently seeing with the utmost ease, though what she saw Poirot rather wondered.
She turned, started along the path and said, 'We go this way. It's not very far. You can go through the hedge of our garden.'
Then she looked back over her shoulder and pointed, saying:
'In the middle there, that's where the fountain was.'
'A fountain?'
'Oh, years ago. I suppose it's still there, underneath the shrubs and the azaleas and the other things. It was all broken up, you see.
People took bits of it away but nobody has put a new one there.'
'It seems a pity.'
'I don't know. I'm not sure. Do you like fountains very much?'
'Ca depend,' said Poirot.
'I know some French,' said Miranda. 'That's it depends, isn't it?'
'You are quite right. You seem very well educated.'
'Everyone says Miss Ernlyn is a very fine teacher. She's our head-mistress. She's awfully strict and a bit stern, but she's terribly interesting sometimes in the things she tells us.'
'Then she is certainly a good teacher,' said Hercule Poirot. 'You know this place very well you seem to know all the paths. Do you come here often?'
'Oh yes, it's one of my favourite walks. Nobody knows where I am, you see, when I come here. I sit in trees-on the branches, and watch things. I like that.
Watching things lhappen.'
'What sort of tthings?'
'Mostly birds and squirrels. Birds are very quarrelsome, aren't they? Not like in the bit of poetry that says 'birds in their little nests agree'. They don't really, do they? And I watch squirrels.'
'And you watch people?'
'Sometimes. But there aren't many people who come here.'
'Why not, I wonder?'
'I suppose they are afraid.'
