Hallowe'en Party by Agatha Christie

Didn't encourage girl friends. Kept him as close to her apron-strings as she could. He had a job in a stationer's. Nothing criminal known against him, but a possibility psychologically, so it seems. The girl played him up a good deal. Jealousy a possible motive, but no evidence that we could prosecute on. Both of them had alibis. Hudd's was his mother's. She would have sworn to kingdom come that he was indoors with her all that evening, and nobody can say he wasn't or had seen him elsewhere or in the neighbourhood of the murder. Young Gordon was given an alibi by some of his less reputable friends. Not worth much, but you couldn't disprove it.”
    “This happened when?”
    “Eighteen months ago.”
    “And where?”
    “In a footpath in a field not far from Woodleigh Common.”
    “Three quarters of a mile,” said Elspeth."
    “Near Joyce's house - the Reynolds' house?”
    “No, it was on the other side of the village.”
    “It seems unlikely to have been the murder Joyce was talking about,” said Poirot thoughtfully. “If you see a girl being bashed on the head by a young man you'd be likely to think of murder straight away. Not to wait for a year before you began to think it was murder.”
    Poirot read another name. “Lesley Ferrier.”
    Spence spoke again.
    “Lawyer's clerk, twenty-eight, employed by Messrs. Fullerton, Harrison and Leadbetter of Market Street, Medchester.”
    “Those were Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe's solicitors, I think you said.”
    “Yes. Same ones.”
    “And what happened to Lesley Ferrier?”
    “He was stabbed in the back. Not far from the Green Swan Pub. He was said to have been having an affair with the wife of the landlord, Harry Griffin. Handsome piece, she was, indeed still is. Getting perhaps a bit long in the tooth. Five or six years older than he was, but she liked them young.”
    “The weapon?”
    “The knife wasn't found. Les was said to have broken with her and taken up with some other girl, but what girl was never satisfactorily discovered.”
    “Ah. And who was suspected in this case? The landlord or the wife?”
    “Quite right,” said Spence. “Might have been either. The wife seemed the more likely. She was half gypsy and a temperamental piece. But there were other possibilities. Our Lesley hadn't led a blameless life. Got into trouble in his early twenties, falsifying his accounts somewhere. With a spot of forgery. Was said to have come from a broken home and all the rest of it. Employers spoke up for him. He got a short sentence and was taken on by Fullerton, Harrison and Leadbetter when he came out of prison.”
    “And after that he'd gone straight?”
    “Well, nothing proved. He appeared to do so as far as his employers were concerned, but he had been mixed up in a few questionable transactions with his friends. He's what you might call a wrong 'un but a careful one.”
    “So the alternative was?”
    “That he might have been stabbed by one of his less reputable associates. When you're in with a nasty crowd you've got it coming to you with a knife if you let them down.”
    “Anything else?”
    “Well, he had a good lot of money in his bank account. Paid in in cash, it had been. Nothing to show where it came from. That was suspicious in itself.”
    “Possibly pinched from Fullerton, Harrison and Leadbetter?” suggested Poirot.
    “They say not. They had a chartered accountant to work on it and look into things.”
    “And the police had no idea where else it might have come from?”
    “No.”
    “Again,” said Poirot, “not Joyce's murder, I should think.”
    He read the last name, “Janet White.”
    “Found strangled on a footpath which was a short cut from the schoolhouse to her home. She shared a flat there with another teacher, Nora Ambrose. According to Nora Ambrose, Janet White had occasionally spoken of being nervous about some man with whom she'd broken off relations a year ago, but who had frequently sent her threatening letters. Nothing was ever