Hallowe'en Party / Вечеринка на Хэллоуин. Книга для чтения на английском языке

�No indeed,’ said Mrs Drake. �Really the kind that you have to be shutting up all the time.’

�What did the other children who were here have to say about it? Were they impressed?’

�They laughed at her,’ said Mrs Drake. �So, of course, that made her worse.’

�Well,’ said Poirot, as he rose, �I am glad to have your positive assurance on that point.’ He bowed politely over her hand. �Good-bye, Madame, thank you so much for allowing me to view the scene of this very unpleasant occurrence.

�Of course,’ said Mrs Drake, �it is very painful to recall anything of this kind. I had so hoped our little party would go off well. Indeed, it was going off well and everyone seemed to be enjoying it so much till this terrible thing happened. However, the only thing one can do is to try and forget it all. of course, it’s very unfortunate that Joyce should have made this silly remark about seeing a murder.

�Have you ever had a murder in Woodleigh Com mon?’

�Not that I can remember,’ said Mrs Drake firmly.

�In this age of increased crime that we live in,’ said Poirot, �that really seems somewhat unusual, does it not?’

�Well, I think there was a lorry driver who killed a pal of his—something like that—and a little girl whom they found buried in a gravel pit about fifteen miles from here, but that was years ago. They were both rather sordid and uninteresting crimes.

�In fact, the kind of murder unlikely to have been witnessed by a girl of twelve or thirteen.’

�Most unlikely, I should say. And I can assure you, Monsieur Poirot, this statement that the girl made was solely in order to impress friends and perhaps interest a famous character.’ She looked rather coldly across at Mrs Oliver.

�In fact,’ said Mrs Oliver, �it’s all my fault for being at the party, I suppose.

�Oh, of course not, my dear, of course I didn’t mean it that way.’

Poirot sighed as he departed from the house with Mrs Oliver by his side.

�A very unsuitable place for a murder,’ he said, as they walked down the path to the gate. �No atmosphere, no haunting sense of tragedy, no character worth murdering, though I couldn’t help thinking that just occasionally someone might feel like murdering Mrs Drake.’

�I know what you mean.