Hallowe'en Party

The cemetery in question did not take him long to reach. It was at most ten minutes' walk. It was obviously a cemetery that had been made in the last ten years, presumably to cope with the rising importance of Woodleigh as a residential entity. The church, a church of reasonable size dating from some two or three centuries back, had had a very small enclosure round it already well filled. So the new cemetery had come into being with a footpath connecting it across two fields. It was, Poirot, thought, a businesslike, modern cemetery with appropriate sentiments on marble or granite slabs; it had urns, chippings, small plantations of bushes or flowers. No interesting old epitaphs or inscriptions. Nothing much for an antiquarian. Cleaned, neat, tidy and with suitable sentiments expressed.

He came to a halt to read a tablet erected on a grave contemporary with several others near it, all dating within two or three years back. It bore a simple inscription, "Sacred to the Memory of Hugo Edmund Drake, beloved husband of Rowena Arabella Drake, who departed this life March the 20th 19-" He giveth his beloved sleep.

It occurred to Poirot, fresh from the impact of the dynamic Rowena Drake, that perhaps sleep might have come in welcome guise to the late Mr. Drake.

An alabaster urn had been fixed in position there and contained the remains of flowers. An elderly gardener, obviously employed to tend the graves of good citizens departed this life, approached Poirot in the pleasurable hopes of a few minutes' conversation while he laid his hoe and his broom aside.

"Stranger in these parts, I think," he said, "aren't you, sir?"

"It is very true," said Poirot.

"I am a stranger with you as were my fathers before me."

"Ah, aye. We've got that text somewhere or sum mat very like it. Over down the other corner, it is." He went on, "He was a nice gentleman, he were, Mr.

Drake. A cripple, you know. He had that infant paralysis, as they call it, though as often as not it isn't infants as suffer from it.

It's grown-ups. Men and women too.

My wife, she had an aunt, who caught it in Spain, she did. Went there with a tour, she did, and bathed somewhere in some river. And they said afterwards as it was the water infection, but I don't think they know much. Doctors don't, if you ask me. Still, it's made a lot of difference nowadays. All this inoculation they give the children, and that. Not nearly as many cases as there were. Yes, he were a nice gentleman and didn't complain, though he took it hard, being a cripple, I mean. He'd been a good sportsman, he had, in his time. Used to bat for us here in the village team. Many a six he's hit to the boundary.

Yes, he were a nice gentleman."

"He died of an accident, did he not?"

"That's right. Crossing the road, towards twilight this was. One of these cars come along, a couple of these young thugs in it with beards growing up to their ears. That's what they say. Didn't stop either.

Went on. Never looked to see.

Abandoned the car somewhere in a car park twenty miles away. Wasn't their own car either. Pinched from a car park somewhere.

Ah, it's terrible, a lot of those accidents nowadays. And the police often can't do anything about them. Very devoted to him, his wife was.

Took it very hard, she did. She comes here, nearly every week, brings flowers and puts them here. Yes, they were a very devoted couple. If you ask me, she won't stay here much longer."

"Really? But she has a very nice house here."

"Yes, oh yes. And she does a lot in the village, you know. All these things women's institutes and teas and various societies and all the rest of it. Runs a lot of things, she does. Runs a bit too many for some people. Bossy, you know. Bossy and interfering, some people say.

But the vicar relies on her. She starts things.

Women's activities and all the rest of it.

Gets up tours and outings. Ah yes. Often thought myself, though I wouldn't like to say it to my wife, that all these good works as ladies does, doesn't make you any fonder of the ladies themselves. Always know best, they do. Always telling you what you should do and what you shouldn't do. No freedom. Not much freedom anywhere nowadays."

"Yet you think Mrs. Drake may leave here?"

"I shouldn't wonder if she didn't go away and live somewhere abroad.

They liked being abroad, used to go there for holidays."

"Why do you think she wants to leave here?"

A sudden rather roguish smile appeared on the old man's face.

"Well, I'd say, you know, that's she's done all she can do here. To put it scriptural, she needs another vineyard to work in. She needs more good works. Aren't no more good works to be done round here.

She's done all there is, and even more than there need be, so some think. Yes."

"She needs a new field in which to labour?" suggested Poirot.

"You've hit it. Better settle somewhere else where she can put a lot of things right and bully a lot of other people. She's got us where she wants us here and there's not much more for her to do."

"It may be," said Poirot.