“But it was rather remarkable, seeing so many pumpkins or vegetable marrows, whatever they are. They were everywhere, in the shops, and in people’s houses, with candles or nightlights inside them or strung up. Very interesting really. But it wasn’t for a Hallowe’en party, it was Thanksgiving. Now I’ve always associated pumpkins with Hallowe’en and that’s the end of October. Thanksgiving comes much later, doesn’t it? Isn’t it November, about the third week in November? Anyway, here, Hallowe’en is definitely the 31st of October, isn’t it? First Hallowe’en and then, what comes next? All Souls’ Day?”
Despite what seems like the ramblings of someone desperately in need of ADD medicine, the speaker here is actually a successful writer of mystery novels. She is acting a bit scatterbrained because she has inadvertently found her way into a Halloween party being thrown for older children. She is distinctly out of place and for a reason. The murder at the center of this mystery will also prove to be out of place. The victim is a thirteen-year-old girl who is found drowned in the bucket being used to bob for apples. Ariadne just so happens to be close friends with the famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot and she calls him in to investigate. The subtle connection that is made between pumpkins and marrow carries an unexpectedly morbid tone. Her recounting of having seen such an abundance of pumpkins introduces the surprising twist that she is not even describing Halloween but American Thanksgiving. Everything about this little monologue by Ariadne—which, importantly, is being completely ignored by everyone around here—seems just a little off. This sets the mood for a mystery in which everything seems a little off, especially the fact that the victim is a young girl.
“Many of the evenings were dull now, Hercule Poirot thought. His mind, magnificent as it was (for he had never doubted that fact) required stimulation from outside sources. He had never been of a philosophic cast of mind. There were times when he almost regretted that he had not taken to the study of theology instead of going into the police force in his early days. The number of angels who could dance on the point of a needle; it would be interesting to feel that that mattered and to argue passionately on the point with one’s colleagues.”
This murder mystery is occurring at a late point in the long career of the Belgian detective. He has proven himself to be a uniquely gifted detective, but times are changing, and he is growing older. Ariadne approaches him with news of the murder of a young girl at a moment of reflection and quiet contemplation. His response to hearing that the murder took place during a Halloween party reveals that he is not entirely familiar with this custom. And so enters the story with a sense of not quite fitting in with the mood and atmosphere of the time and event. He is also very much out of place. This ponderous moment of solitude in which he has time to long for philosophical engagement also feels out of sync with the murder at a kids’ party. This passage starkly delineates Poirot as needing to be engaged as an outsider. He is presented with a case that exists just far enough outside his element to introduce a somewhat new experience capable of challenging his mind.
“He saw now it was a young man who stood on the other side of the hollow, framed by golden red leaves and a young man, so Poirot now recognized, of unusual beauty. One didn’t think of young men that way nowadays. You said of a young man that he was sexy or madly attractive, and this evidence of praise is often quite justly made…You didn’t say a young man was beautiful. If you did say it, you said it apologetically as though you were praising some quality that had been long dead. The sexy girls didn’t want Orpheus with his lute, they wanted a pop singer with a raucous voice, expressive eyes, and large masses of unruly hair.”
The narrative contains more than one passage which enters into the mind of Poirot as he is contemplating the beauty of a male character. One could, of course, be forgiven for immediately assigning some sort of underlying homosexual subtext to this somewhat offbeat obsession of the detective. The subtext goes deeper, and this particular example is especially illustrative. The reference to Orpheus acts as subtle foreshadowing about a prime suspect in the case. The notable beauty of the young man in question and the resistance to such a description is another bit of foreshadowing. Several crimes are committed or planned across the breadth of the narrative. These crimes are of such a singular nature that many people immediately leap to the conclusion that only a madman with a wild appearance could be responsible. Poirot’s preoccupation with male beauty comes into play as social commentary on the disconnect between beauty and ugliness and how those opposites sometimes blur expectations of the capacity for evil.
