Hallowe’en Party (Poirot)

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Ariadne Oliver, the well-known crime novelist, was at the party and highly distraught about poor little Joyce. She calls upon her good friend Hercule Poirot to investigate and discover who's responsible for this murder in a quiet English village... Christie often stayed at Abney Hall in Cheshire, which was owned by her brother-in-law, James Watts. She based at least two of her stories on the hall: the short story The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding, and the novel After the Funeral. Abney Hall became Agatha's greatest inspiration for country-house life, with all the servants and grandeur which have been woven into her plots.

Hallowe’en Party, Hercule Poirot #36, the second to last Poirot novel, published in 1969, and the second to last written, since Curtain was written in the forties, ready to publish when the end would finally come about (which didn’t happen for more than a quarter of a century later!). To say this is better than you’d expect is no compliment, of course, but it ust is. I had little expectations except to be happily surprised at the cleverness of some aspects of the ending, as I always am, and in that respect was not disappointed. Superintendent Spence brought to Poirot the case solved in Mrs McGinty's Dead and which they discuss in Chapter 5. The case is recollected by Poirot in Chapter 3 when Poirot recalls Mrs. Oliver getting out of a car and "a bag of apples breaking". This is a reference to her second appearance in Mrs McGinty's Dead, Chapter 10. The story starts out inside Rowena Drake's house, which is called " Apple Trees". There, Ariadne Oliver and others are preparing a Hallowe'en party for children. Those in charge of the party are Judith Butler, Mrs. Oliver's friend; Leopold, Joyce and Anne Reynolds, Desmond Holland, Nicholas Ransom, Cathie Johnson, Elizabeth Whittaker, Beatrice Ardley, and others. While they are preparing, thirteen-year old Joyce Reynolds says that she once saw a murder. Everyone, including Mrs. Oliver, thinks she is lying.John Cooper and B.A. Pyke. Detective Fiction – the collector's guide: Second Edition (pp. 82, 87) Scholar Press. 1994. ISBN 0-85967-991-8 A Haunting in Venice is inspired by an Agatha Christie bool, but the differences are too big to call it an adaptation.

Agatha Christie dedicated the story "To P.G. Wodehouse - whose books and stories have brightened up my life for many years. Also, to show my pleasure in his having been kind enough to tell me he enjoyed my books." Wodehouse was himself a big Agatha Christie fan.Hercule Poirot continues his investigation by interviewing Dr. Ferguson, who tells Poirot that Joyce was once his patient. When Poirot goes to the Elms School, he is greeted by the headmistress, Miss Emlyn. Meanwhile, a mathematics teacher named Elizabeth Whittaker, who was also present at the party, gives Hercule Poirot an important piece of evidence when she reveals that while the party-goers were playing Snapdragon, Elizabeth went out to hall and saw Rowena Drake coming out of the lavatory on the first floor landing. Rowena stood for a moment before coming downstairs, looking startled by something or someone she may have seen in the open door of the library, and then dropped the flower vase she was holding. Other suggestive pieces of evidence include the fact that Lesley Ferrier had previously been suspected of forgery. Were Lesley and Olga working together to secure Mrs. Llewellyn-Smythe's inheritance? Poirot persuades the police to dig up an abandoned well in the Quarry Garden. Within its depths are discovered the remains of Olga, who had been stabbed, like Ferrier. Poirot sends Mrs. Oliver to get Mrs. Butler and Miranda safely away from the village as soon as possible, but when they stop for lunch, Miranda is abducted by Michael Garfield, who takes her to a pagan sacrificial altar and tries to kill her. He is prevented from doing so by Nicholas Ransom and Desmond Holland, two teenagers who had been at the Hallowe'en party and whom Poirot had persuaded to trail Miranda. Michael Garfield commits suicide by swallowing the poison that he had intended Miranda to drink. Ding dong dell, A pussy in the well”— quoting a nursery rhyme [and can a reference to pussies in the pussy hat Women’s March generation ever again be only a reference to cats? It IS here! And in my house with three actual cats!]