'Lesbian?' asked Nicholas, in a man of the world voice.
'I shouldn't wonder. D'you remember Nora Ambrose, the girl she lived with?
She wasn't a bad looker. She had a boy friend or two, so they said, and the girl she lived with got mad with her about it.
Someone said she was an unmarried mother. She was away for two terms with some illness and then came back. They'd say anything in this nest of gossip.'
'Well, anyway, Whittaker was in the drawing-room most of the morning.
She probably heard what Joyce said. Might have put it into her head, mightn't it?'
'Look here,' said Nicholas, 'supposing Whittaker what age is she, do you think?
Forty odd? Getting on for fifty Women do go a bit queer at that age.'
They both looked at Poirot with the air of contented dogs who have retrieved something useful which master has asked for.
'I bet Miss Ernlyn knows if it is so.
There's not much she doesn't know, about what goes on in her school.'
'Wouldn't she say?'
'Perhaps she feels she has to be loyal and shield her.'
'Oh, I don't think she'd do that. If she thought Elizabeth Whittaker was going off her head, well then, I mean, a lot of the pupils at the school might get done in.'
'What about the curate?' said Desmond hopefully.
'He might be a bit off his nut. You know, original sin perhaps, and all that, and the water and the apples and the things and then look here, I've got a good idea now. Suppose he is a bit barmy. Not been here very long. Nobody knows much about him.
Supposing it's the Snapdragon put it into his head. Hell fire! All those flames going up! Then, you see, he took hold of Joyce and he said 'come along with me and I'll show you something,' and he took her to the apple room and he said 'kneel down'.
He said 'this is baptism', and pushed her head in. See? It would all fit. Adam and Eve and the apple and hell fire and the Snapdragon and being baptised again to cure you of sin.'
'Perhaps he exposed himself to her first,' said Nicholas hopefully.
'I mean, there's always got to be a sex background to all these things.'
They both looked with satisfied faces to Poirot.
'Well,' said Poirot, 'you've certainly given me something to think about.'
HERCULE POIROT looked with interest at Mrs. Goodbody's face.
It was indeed perfect as a model for a witch. The fact that it almost undoubtedly went with extreme amiability of character did not dispel the illusion. She talked with relish and pleasure.
'Yes, I was up there right enough, I was. I always does the witches round here.
Vicar he complimented me last year and he said as I'd done such a good job in the pageant as he'd give me a new steeple hat.
A witch's hat wears out just like anything else does. Yes, I was right up there that day. I does the rhymes, you know. I mean the rhymes for the girls, using their own Christian name. One for Beatrice, one for Ann and all the rest of it. And I gives them to whoever is doing the spirit voice and they recite it out to the girl in the mirror, and the boys. Master Nicholas and young Desmond, they send the phoney photographs floating down. Make me die of laughing, some of it does.
See those boys sticking hair all over their faces and photographing each other. And what they dress up in! I saw Master Desmond the other day, and what he was wearing you'd hardly believe. Rose-coloured coat and fawn breeches. Beat the girls hollow, they do. All the girls can think of is to push their skirts higher and higher, and that's not much good to them because they've got to put on more underneath. I mean what with the things they call body stockings and tights, which used to be for chorus girls in my day and none other-they spend all their money on that. But the boys-my word, they look like kingfishers and peacocks or birds of paradise.
Well, I like to see a bit of colour and I always think it must have been fun in those old historical days as you see on the pictures. You know, everybody with lace and curls and cavalier hats and all the rest of it. Gave the girls something to look at, they did. And doublet and hose. All the girls could think of in historical times, as far as I can see, was to put great balloon skirts on, crinolines they called them later, and great ruffles round their necks! My grandmother, she used to tell me that her young ladies she was in service, you know, in a good Victorian family and her young ladies (before the time of Victoria I think it was) it was the time the King what had a head like a pear was on the throne Silly Billy, wasn't it, William IVth well then, her young ladies, I mean my grandmother's young ladies, they used to have muslin gowns very long down to their ankles, very prim but they used to damp their muslins with water so they stuck to them. You know, stuck to them so it showed everything there was to show.
Went about looking ever so modest, but it tickled up the gentlemen, all right, it did.
'I lent Mrs. Drake my witch ball for the party. Bought that witch ball at a jumble sale somewhere. There it is hanging up there now by the chimney, you see? Nice bright dark blue. I keep it over my door.'
'Do you tell fortunes?'
'Mustn't say I do, must I?' she chuckled. 'The police don't like that. Not that they mind the kind of fortunes I tell.
Nothing to it, as you might say. Place like this you always know who's going with who, and so that makes it easy.'
'Can you look in your witch ball, look in there, see who killed that little girl, Joyce?'
'You got mixed up, you have,' said Mrs. Goodbody. 'It's a crystal ball you look in to see things, not a witch ball. If I told you who I thought it was did it, you wouldn't like it. Say it was against nature, you would. But lots of things go on that are against nature.'
'You may have something there.'
'This is a good place to live, on the whole. I mean, people are decent, most of them, but wherever you go, the devil's always got some of his own. Born and bred to it.'
'You mean black magic?'
'No, I don't mean that.' Mrs. Goodbody was scornful. 'That's nonsense, that is. That's for people who like to dress up and do a lot of tomfoolery. Sex and all that. No, I mean those that the devil has touched with his hand. They're born that way. The sons of Lucifer. They're born so that killing don't mean nothing to them, not if they profit by it. When they want a thing, they want it. And they're ruthless to get it. Beautiful as angels, they can look like.
Knew a little girl once. Seven years old. Killed her little brother and sister.
Twins they were. Five or six months old, no more. Stifled them in their prams.'
'That took place here in Woodleigh Common?'
'No, no, it wasn't in Woodleigh Common. I came across that up in Yorkshire, far as I remember. Nasty case.
Beautiful little creature she was, too. You could have fastened a pair of wings on her, let her go on a platform and sing Christmas hymns, and she'd have looked right for the part. But she wasn't. She was rotten inside. You'll know what I mean.
You're not a young man. You know what wickedness there is about in the world.'
'Alas!' said Poirot. 'You are right. I do know only too well. If Joyce really saw a murder committed '
