Hallowe'en Party

"And Rowena Drake?"

"She was infatuated. Her husband had been for many years a crippled invalid.

She was middle-aged but she was a passionate woman, and into her orbit came a young man of unusual beauty. Women fell for him easily-but he wanted-not the beauty of women-but the exercise of his own creative urge to make beauty. For that he wanted money-a lot of money. As for love-he loved only himself. He was Narcissus. There is an old French song I heard many years ago-" He hummed softly.

"Regarde, Narcisse Regarde, clans Feau…

Regarde, Narcisse, que to est beau II ny au monde Que la Beaute Et la Jeunesse, Helas! Et la Jeunesse…

Regarde, Narcisse…

Regarde clans 1'eau…"

"I can't believe-I simply can't believe that anyone would do murder just to make a garden on a Greek island," said Mrs.

Oliver unbelievingly.

"Can't you? Can't you visualise how he held it in his mind? Bare rock, perhaps, but so shaped as to hold possibilities. Earth, cargoes of fertile earth to clothe the bare bones of the rocks-and then plants, seeds, shrubs, trees. Perhaps he read in the paper of a shipping millionaire who had created an island garden for the woman he loved. And so it came to him -he would make a garden, not for a woman, but-for himself."

"It still seems to me quite mad."

"Yes. That happens. I doubt if he even thought of his motive as sordid. He thought of it only as necessary for the creation of more beauty. He'd gone mad on creation. The beauty of the Quarry Wood, the beauty of other gardens he'd laid out and made-and now he envisaged even more-a whole island of beauty. And there was Rowena Drake, infatuated with him. What did she mean to him but the source of money with which he could create beauty. Yes-he had become mad, perhaps. Whom tine gods destroy, they first drive mad."

"He really wanted his island so much?

Even with Rowena Drake tied round his neck as well? Bos;sing him the whole time?"

"Accidents can happen. I think one might possibly have happened to Mrs.

Drake in due course."

"One more murder?"

"Yes. It started simply. Olga had to be removed because she knew about the codicil-and she was also to be the scapegoat, branded as a forger. Mrs.

Llewellyn-Smythe had hidden the original document, so I think that young Ferrier was given money to produce a similar forged document. So obviously forged that it would arouse suspicion at once. That sealed his death warrant. Lesley Ferrier, I soon decided, had had no arrangement or love affair with Olga. That was a suggestion made to me by Michael Garfield, but I think it was Michael who paid money to Lesley. It was Michael Garfield who was laying seige to the au pair girl's affections, warning her to keep quiet about this and not tell her employer, speaking of possible marriage in the future but at the same time marking her down coldbloodedly as the victim whom he and Rowena Drake would need if the money was to come to them.

It was not necessary for Olga Seminoff to be accused of forgery, or prosecuted. She needed only to be suspected of it. The forgery appeared to benefit her. It could have been done by her very easily, there was evidence to the effect that she did copy her employer's handwriting and if she was suddenly to disappear, it would be assumed that she had been not only a forger, but quite possibly might have assisted her employer to die suddenly. So on a suitable occasion Olga Seminoff died.

Lesley Ferrier was killed in what is purported to have been a gang knifing or a knifing by a jealous woman. But the knife that was found in the well corresponds very closely with the knife wounds that he suffered. I knew that Olga's body must be hidden somewhere in this neighbourhood, but I had no idea where until I heard Miranda one day inquiring about a wishing well, urging Michael Garfield to take her there. And he was refusing.