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

I should think perhaps twelve or thirteen.’

�Small for her age?’

�No, no, I should think rather mature, perhaps. Lumpy,’ said Mrs Oliver.

�Well developed? You mean sexy-looking?’

�Yes, that is what I mean. But I don’t think that was the kind of crime it was—I mean that would have been more simple, wouldn’t it?’

�It is the kind of crime,’ said Poirot, �of which one reads every day in the paper. A girl who is attacked, a school child who is assaulted—yes, every day. This happened in a private house which makes it different, but perhaps not so different as all that.

But all the same, I’m not sure yet that you’ve told me everything.’

�No, I don’t suppose I have,’ said Mrs Oliver. �I haven’t told you the reason, I mean, why I came to you.’

�You knew this Joyce, you knew her well?’

�I didn’t know her at all. I’d better explain to you, I think, just how I came to be there.’

�There is where?’

�Oh, a place called Woodleigh Common.

’

�Woodleigh Common,’ said Poirot thoughtfully. �Now where lately—’ he broke off.

�It’s not very far from London. About—oh, thirty to forty miles, I think. It’s near Medchester. It’s one of those places where there are a few nice houses, but where a certain amount of new building has been done. Residential. A good school nearby, and people can commute from there to London or into Medchester. It’s quite an ordinary sort of place where people with what you might call everyday reasonable incomes[35 - people with … everyday reasonable income – люди с приличным доходом] live.

’

�Woodleigh Common,’ said Poirot again, thought fully.

�I was staying with a friend there. Judith Butler. She’s a widow. I went on a Hellenic cruise[36 - Hellenic (= Greek) cruise – круиз по Греции] this year and Judith was on the cruise and we became friends. She’s got a daughter. A girl called Miranda who is twelve or thirteen.

Anyway, she asked me to come and stay and she said friends of hers were giving this party for children, and it was to be a Hallowe’en party. She said perhaps I had some interesting ideas.’

�Ah,’ said Poirot, �she did not suggest this time that you should arrange a murder hunt or anything of that kind?’

�Good gracious, no,’ said Mrs Oliver. �Do you think I should ever consider such a thing again?’

�I should think it unlikely.