'Getting up on steps for things that had to be put high up.'
'I understand there were some very good photographic results too.'
Desmond immediately dipped into his pocket and took out a folder from which he proudly brought certain cards.
'We faked up these beforehand,' he said. 'Husbands for the girls,' he explained.
'They're all alike, birds are. They all want something up-to-date. Not a bad assortment, are they?'
He handed a few specimens to Poirot who looked with interest at a rather fuzzy reproduction of a ginger-bearded young man and another young man with an aureole of hair, a third one whose hair came to his knees almost, and there were a few assorted whiskers, and other facial adornments.
'Made 'em pretty well all different. It wasn't bad, was it?'
'You had models, I suppose?'
'Oh, they're all ourselves. Just make-up, you know. Nick and I got 'em done. Some Nick took of me and some I took of him. Just varied what you might call the hair motif.'
'Very clever,' said Poirot.
'We kept 'em a bit out of focus, you know, so that they'd look more like spirit pictures, as you might say.'
The other boy said, 'Mrs. Drake was very pleased with them.
She congratulated us. They made her laugh too. It was mostly electrical work we did at the house. You know, fitting up a light or two so that when the girls sat with the mirror one or other of us could take up a position, you'd only to bob up over a screen and the girl would see a face in the mirror with, mind you, the right kind of hair.
Beard or whiskers or something or other.'
'Did they know it was you and your friend?'
'Oh, I don't think so for a moment. Not at the party, they didn't.
They knew we had been helping at the house with some things, but I don't think they recognised us in the mirrors. Weren't smart enough, I should say. Besides, we'd got sort of an instant make-up to change the image. First me, then Nicholas. The girls squeaked and shrieked.
Damned funny.'
'And the people who were there in the afternoon? I do not ask you to remember who was at the party.'
'At the party, there must have been about thirty, I suppose, knocking about.
In the afternoon there was Mrs. Drake, of course, and Mrs. Butler.
One of the school-teachers, Whittaker I think her name is. Mrs. Flatterbut or some name like that. She's the organist's sister or wife.
Dr. Ferguson's dispenser. Miss Lee; it's her afternoon off and she came along and helped too and some of the kids came to make themselves useful if they could. Not that I think they were very useful. The girls just hung about and giggled.'
'Ah yes. Do you remember what girls there were there?'
'Well, the Reynolds were there. Poor, old Joyce, of course. The one who got done in, and her elder sister Ann.
Frightful girl. Puts no end of side on., Thinks she's terribly clever. Quite sure she's going to pass all her 'A' levels. And the small kid, Leopold, he's awful,' said Desmond.
'He's a sneak. He eavesdrops.
Tells tales. Real nasty bit of goods. And there was Beatrice Ardley and Cathie Grant, who is dim as they make and a couple of useful women, of course.
Cleaning women, I mean. And the authoress woman the one who brought you down here.'
'Any men?'
'Oh, the vicar looked in if you count him. Nice old boy, rather dim.
And the new curate. He stammers when he's nervous. Hasn't been here long. That's all I can think of now.'
'And then I understand you heard this girl Joyce Reynolds saying something about having seen a murder committed.'
'I never heard that,' said Desmond. 'Did she?'
'Oh, they're saying so,' said Nicholas. 'I didn't hear her. I suppose I wasn't in the room when she said it.
Where was she when she said that, I mean?'
'In the drawing-room.'
'Yes, well, most of the people were in there unless they were doing something special. Of course Nick and I,' said Desmond, 'were mostly in the room where the girls were going to look for their true loves in mirrors. Fixing up wires and various things like that. Or else we were out on the stairs fixing fairy lights. We were in the drawing-room once or twice putting the pumpkins up and hanging up one or two that had been hollowed out to hold lights in them. But I didn't hear anything of that kind when we were there.
What about you. Nick?'
'I didn't,' said Nick. He added with some interest, 'Did Joyce really say that she'd seen a murder committed? Jolly interesting, you know, if she did, isn't it?'
'Why is it so interesting?' asked Desmond. 'Well, it's ESP, isn't it? I mean there you are. She saw a murder committed and within an hour or two she herself was murdered. I suppose she had a sort of vision of it. Makes you think a bit. You know these last experiments they've been having seems as though there is something you can do to help it by getting an electrode, or something of that kind, fixed up to your jugular vein. I've read about it somewhere.'
'They've never got very far with this ESP stuff,' said Nicholas, scornfully. 'People sit in different rooms looking at cards in a pack or words with squares and geometrical figures on them. But they never see the right things, or hardly ever.'
'Well, you've got to be pretty young to do it. Adolescents are much better than older people.'
Hercule Poirot, who had no wish to listen to this high-level scientific discussion, broke in.
'As far as you can remember, nothing occurred during your presence in the house which seemed to you sinister or significant in any way.
Something which probably nobody else would have noticed, but which might have come to your attention.'
Nicholas and Desmond frowned hard, obviously racking their brains to produce some incident of importance.
'No, it was just a lot of clacking and arranging and doing things.'
'Have you any theories yourself?'
Poirot addressed himself to Nicholas.
'What, theories as to who did Joyce in?'
'Yes. I mean something that you might have noticed that could lead you to a suspicion on perhaps purely psychological grounds.'
'Yes. I can see what you mean. There might be something in that.'
'Whittaker for my money,' said Desmond, breaking into Nicholas's absorption in thought.
'The school-mistress?' asked Poirot.
'Yes. Real old spinster, you know. Sex starved. And all that teaching, bottled up among a lot of women. You remember, one of the teachers got strangled a year or two ago. She was a bit queer, they say.'
