Hallowe'en Party

"We ought to have made you do something connected with murders. Have a murder at the party to-night and make people solve it."

"No, thank you," said Mrs. Oliver.

"Never again."

"What do you mean, never again?"

"Well, I did once, and it didn't turn out much of a success," said Mrs.

Oliver.

"But you've written lots of books," said Joyce, "you make a lot of money out of them, don't you?"

"In a way.," said Mrs. Oliver, her thoughts flying to the Inland Revenue.

"And you've got a detective who's a Finn."

Mrs. Oliver admitted the fact. A small stolid boy not yet, Mrs.

Oliver would have thought, arrived at the seniority of the eleven-plus, said sternly, "Why a Finn?"

"I've often wondered," said Mrs. Oliver truthfully.

Mrs. Hargreaves, the organist's wife, came into the room breathing heavily, and bearing a large green plastic pail.

"What about this," she said, "for the apple bobbing? Kind of gay, I thought."

Miss Lee, the doctor's dispenser, said, "Galvanised bucket's better.

Won't tip over so easily. Where are you going to have it, Mrs.

Drake?"

"I thought the bobbing for apples had better be in the library. The carpet's old there and a lot of water always gets spilt, anyway."

"All right. We'll take 'em along.

Rowena, here's another basket of apples."

"Let me help," said Mrs. Oliver.

She picked up the two apples at her feet.

Almost without noticing what she was doing, she sank her teeth into one of them and began to crunch it. Mrs. Drake abstracted the second apple from her firmly and restored it to the basket. A buzz of conversation broke out.

"Yes, but where are we going to have the Snapdragon?"

"You ought to have the Snapdragon in the library, it's much the darkest room."

"No, we're going to have that in the dining-room."

"We'll have to put something on the table first."

"There's a green baize cloth to put on that and then the rubber sheet over it."

"What about the looking-glasses? Shall we really see our husbands in them?"

Surreptitiously removing her shoes and still quietly champing at her apple, Mrs.

Oliver lowered herself once more on to the settee and surveyed the room full of people critically. She was thinking in her authoress's mind:

"Now, if I was going to make a book about all these people, how should I do it? They're nice people, I should think, on the whole, but who knows?"

In a way, she felt, it was rather fascinating not to know anything about them.

They all lived in Woodleigh Common, some of them had c faint tags attached to them in her memory because of what Judith had told her.

Miss Johnson-something to do with the church, not the vicar's sister.

Oh no, it was the organist's sister, of course. Rowena Drake, who seemed to run things in Woodleigh Common. The puffing woman who had brought in the pail, a particularly hideous plastic pail. But then Mrs. Oliver had never been fond of plastic things. And then the children, the teenage girls and boys.

So far they were really only names to Mrs. Oliver. There was a Nan and a Beatrice and a Cathie, a Diana and a Joyce, who was boastful and asked questions.

I don't like Joyce much, thought Mrs. Oliver. A girl called Arm, who looked tall and superior. There were two adolescent boys who appeared to have just got used to trying out different hair styles, with rather unfortunate results. ^ smallish boy^ entered in some condition of shynesss.

"Mummy sent these mirrors to see if they'd do," he said; in a slightly breathless voice, Ats. Drake took them from him. "^hank you so irouch. Eddy," she said.

"They're just ordinary looking hand"^"ors," said the Ain called Arm.

"Shall we r^ny see our fuflture husbands' faces in them "Some of you may and some may not," said Judith Butler.

"Aid you ever sese your husband's face whe^ you went to a party-I mean this kinA of a party?" ^Of course she diidn't," said Joyce. ^he might have," said the superior Beatdce.

"ESP. they call it. Extra sensory perception," she added in the tone ^ of one pleased with being thoroughly conversant with the; terms of the times. ^ read one of your books," said Arm to Mrs. Oliver.

"The JDying Goldfish. It was quit^ good," she said kindly. ^ didn't like titi at one," said Joyce. Aere wasn't enouigh blood in it. I like "^ders to have lotfs of blood."

Hr.

"A bit messy," said Mrs. Oliver, "don't you think?"

"But exciting," said Joyce.

"Not necessarily," said Mrs. Oliver.

"I saw a murder once," said Joyce.

"Don't be silly, Joyce," said Miss Whittaker, the schoolteacher.

"I did," said Joyce.

"Did you really," asked Cathie, gazing at Joyce with wide eyes, "really and truly see a murder?"

"Of course she didn't," said Mrs.

Drake.

"Don't say silly things, Joyce."

"I did see a murder," said Joyce.

"I did.

I did. I did."

A seventeen-year-old boy poised on a ladder looked down interestedly.

"What kind of a murder?" he asked.

"I don't believe it," said Beatrice.

"Of course not," said Cathie's mother.

"She's just making it up."

"I'm not. I saw it."

"Why didn't you go to the police about it?" asked Cathie.