Closed Casket: The New Hercule Poirot Mystery (Hercule Poirot Mystery 2) Read online

  He was the junior officer, however. The man in charge, Inspector Arthur Conree, was a trickier customer. In his middle fifties, with hair that did not move but loomed over his forehead like a large grey outcrop of rock, he had the peculiar habit of pressing the underside of his chin against the top of his chest when he listened, and raising it only slightly when speaking.

  The first thing Conree did upon arrival at Lillieoak was deliver a small lecture that I think he intended as an introduction of sorts, but which came across more as a stern ticking-off. ‘I did not ask to be sent here,’ he told us. ‘All of the asking that took place was on the other side. “It has to be you, Arthur,” they said. “No one else would be quite suitable. This is an important case—none more so.” So I spoke to my wife. I can tell you that she did not want me to come all the way to Clonakilty any more than I wanted to take on the journey or the responsibility myself, at my age, and holding in consideration the various other burdens placed upon me.’

  ‘Strange, then, that you have ended up here, Inspector,’ Poirot remarked mildly.

  Sergeant O’Dwyer nodded at this and said, ‘It is strange—you’re right there, Mr Poirot.’

  The inspector was not finished. ‘But my wife said, “Arthur, they want it to be you, and if that’s what they want, well, they must have their reasons. And let’s face facts, now—who would do a better job? Why, there’s not a man who could!” I have never made any such claim upon my own account, you understand, being a modest man; I am merely relating my wife’s opinion. So we put it to our three lads—grown up as they all are now …’

  The story of what happened after Inspector Conree’s sons joined the fray was conveyed at length and with a solemnity befitting a speech at a king’s funeral. In summary: the junior Conrees, like Mrs Conree, were worried that the esteemed head of their family might collapse under the strain of having to do his job, but all were agreed that without his expert leadership, there could be no resolution or justice.

  ‘So,’ Conree concluded at long last. ‘Here I am. I shall be here until this distasteful matter is resolved, and I must insist that everyone in this house remains here too. Anyone who has work obligations must consider them cancelled! You will all remain under this roof for as long as is necessary. I insist upon it. And I must insist upon something else before we go any further.’ He raised his right hand, which he had arranged into the shape of a gun—index finger pointing upwards, thumb pointing back. He was in the habit of using the gesture for emphasis, we soon discovered.

  ‘I must insist that the arrangements are as follows: I will be in charge of this investigation. I am the one who will assign duties and tasks—the only one.’

  Sergeant O’Dwyer’s nodding had accelerated.

  ‘Nothing will happen that I am not informed about,’ Conree went on. ‘Nothing will happen without my express permission. No one will go off to pursue any investigations without my say-so, based upon little bright ideas of their own.’ As he said ‘bright ideas’, he made a most bizarre gesture with his hands near his head—as if he were trying to sprinkle imaginary confetti into his ears. ‘Your reputation goes before you, Mr Poirot, and I will be glad of your cooperation in this matter, but you must follow my instructions to the letter. Is that clear?’

  ‘Of course, Inspector.’ Poirot’s presentation of his most charming and compliant façade in the face of Conree’s provocation (I called it provocation, though I suppose it might simply have been his personality) made me suspicious. What was he up to?

  ‘Good. As I say, I have no desire to be here. If there had been anyone else who could have handled this unpleasant business … Regrettably, there was not.’

  ‘Am I permitted to ask a question, Inspector?’ Poirot asked, his every word and gesture oozing unconvincing deference. I tried not to laugh at his performance. ‘I am? Thank you. I should like to know if you intend to start by arresting Mademoiselle Claudia Playford? You have been informed, I believe, that the nurse Sophie Bourlet—’

  The inspector waved Poirot’s words away as if they were an unpleasant odour. ‘I have no intention of arresting the daughter of Viscount Guy Playford simply because a nurse of no particular distinction has made a wild accusation against her,’ he said.

  Poirot acknowledged the response to his question without commenting upon it.

  Conree wasted no time in telling us all what to do. O’Dwyer was to stay at Lillieoak and supervise the local gardaí, who were on their way to comb the house for fingerprints and anything else they could find by way of evidence. The medical examiner would also be along to have a look at Scotcher’s body.

  My role—for I too was to remain at Lillieoak—was to keep the Playford family and their guests and servants out of the way of the police and, at the same time, get as much information from them as I could.

  I found myself nodding as these instructions were barked at me. Then I wondered what kind of a chap Sergeant Daniel O’Dwyer had been when he had arrived for his first day at work. Proximity to Conree could make an ardent nodder out of anyone, I feared.

  ‘Mr Poirot, you and I will take this nurse, this Sophie person, to the garda station at Ballygurteen, where you will ask her questions and do your best to get to the bottom of her tale about seeing Claudia Playford taking a club to Scotcher’s head. We must find out what is behind it.’

  ‘The nurse Sophie telling the truth might be behind it,’ said Poirot, wearing his most innocent face. ‘We must at least consider the possibility, despite her not being of the nobility. If I may say, Inspector … Mademoiselle Claudia denies the charge against her most emphatically, as she would if she were guilty or innocent, but what bothers me is the precise … what is the word? Ah, yes: the precise flavour of her denial. She is not afraid, or enraged. She shows no sign of confusion. She merely says with a mischievous smile, “I did not do it.” She speaks as if she is confident of getting away with murder—yet here is the puzzle! I do not think she is guilty of that crime. No, I do not think so. She has the confidence, bien sûr, but …’ Poirot shook his head.

  ‘We must not speculate in this way,’ said Conree fiercely. ‘It achieves nothing. Let us see what the nurse has to say. I shall allow you to ask whatever questions you see fit, Poirot. I will do no more than listen.’

  So speculation was banned, I thought glumly. That was unfortunate, for there was rather a lot to puzzle over. Since pointing a shaking finger at Claudia, Sophie had spoken not a word, declining to repeat or withdraw her accusation of murder. Tears seemed to be all the young nurse could produce, and plenty of them.

  Poirot, I should say—if I am allowed to jump ahead a little—returned from Ballygurteen garda station in quite a bate. ‘The inspector asked nothing, Catchpool,’ he told me later that evening. ‘He made no contribution. It was I who asked all the questions.’

  ‘Did that not suit you?’ I dared to say. ‘You normally want to ask all the questions. Besides, you knew that was the plan.’

  ‘I did not mind asking the questions. I objected only afterwards, when Conree told me that the listening was the most important part. His part! The words, sometimes, are neither here nor there, he said. What stupidity! The words, they are here and there! He does not recognize the illogic! To what does one listen if not the words? If one matters, then so must the other! Also, I too have ears! Does he imagine that Hercule Poirot does not listen adequately because he also speaks?’

  ‘Oh dear, Poirot!’

  ‘What oh dear?’

  ‘However infuriating and pompous he is, we’re stuck with him, so you might as well calm down. Learn to nod, like O’Dwyer and me. Now, stop griping and tell me what happened at Ballygurteen.’

  Poirot had started, he told me, by asking Sophie a series of questions at which she was unlikely to take fright:

  ‘Do you think, mademoiselle, that you will stay on as private secretary to Lady Playford?’

  Sophie had looked surprised at this. ‘I … I do not know.’ She, Poirot and Conree were in a smal
l low-ceilinged room with windows that rattled when the wind blew. (‘There was the illusion of being inside a building rather than outside, but that is all it was—an illusion,’ Poirot complained bitterly later. ‘The weather was in that room with us.’)

  ‘It is only that I notice you have been doing tasks that are … clerical, secretarial, for Lady Playford. Oh! I mean that you performed these tasks before the death of Mr Scotcher. Of course, you have done no work since, and nobody would expect it.’

  Sophie said almost inaudibly, ‘I understood what you meant.’ Her tears had stopped as soon as the car had departed for Ballygurteen, since when she had been as a ghost trapped among the living, devoid of hope and vitality, but resigned to her fate. Her clothes looked as if she had slept in them, and her hair hung untidily around her face. She was the only one whose outward appearance was dramatically altered.

  ‘Am I right in surmising that you did the work that Mr Scotcher was supposed to do for Lady Playford, once his illness advanced beyond a certain point?’ Poirot asked her.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And, at the same time, you nursed Mr Scotcher? You were nurse and secretary combined?’

  ‘I was able to manage it all.’

  ‘Has Lady Playford spoken to you, then, about staying on as her secretary?’

  ‘No.’ Sophie produced the word after nearly half a minute and apparently with great effort. ‘Nor will she. I have accused her daughter of murder.’

  ‘Do you stand by the accusation you made against Mademoiselle Claudia?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Please describe exactly what you observed.’

  ‘What is the point? They will all say I did not see it, that it never happened. I must have murdered Joseph myself, they will tell you—even Athie will say it, because she is Claudia’s mother and, compared with a daughter, I am nothing to her.’

  ‘I should still like to hear your account,’ Poirot assured her. ‘What, may I ask, was Claudia wearing?’

  ‘Wearing? Her … her nightdress and dressing gown. You saw her, didn’t you?’

  ‘I did. That is why I ask. The last time I saw her before you started to scream was around twenty or twenty-five minutes after nine. Then, she was wearing the green evening gown she had worn all evening. Your screams did not summon us all to the parlour until ten minutes after ten. So, Claudia would have had time to change, of course—ample time. But the dressing gown she was wearing when we all gathered downstairs after hearing you scream was white. Plain white. I saw no blood on it—not a tiny splash or drop. If a person wearing white attacks with a club the head of a man, causing blood to flow all over the rug beneath him, there would also, I am certain, be blood on the attacker’s clothing.’

  ‘I cannot explain everything that does not make sense,’ said Sophie quietly. ‘I have told you what I saw.’

  ‘Did Mademoiselle Claudia wear gloves?’

  ‘No. Her hands were bare.’

  ‘To whom did the club belong?’

  ‘It was Guy’s—Lady Playford’s late husband. He brought it back from one of his trips to Africa. It’s been in the cabinet in the parlour since I first came to Lillieoak.’

  ‘Let us go back,’ said Poirot. ‘I would like to hear what happened after dinner. Start from when you and Mr Scotcher were left alone in the dining room. Please include any detail you can remember. We must try to put together the complete sequence of events.’

  ‘Joseph and I talked. It was strange to find ourselves alone, after his public proposal of marriage. He was eager to have my answer.’

  ‘Did you give it to him?’

  ‘Yes. I accepted without hesitation. But then Joseph wanted to talk about our wedding, and the arrangements, and how soon we could do this, that and the other—and all I could think of was how sickly he looked, how dreadfully weak. The business of Athie’s will was a great shock to him. He needed to rest. I could see that even if he could not. I told him we would talk more tomorrow, not knowing …’ She came to an abrupt halt.

  ‘Not knowing that for him there would be no tomorrow?’ Poirot suggested gently.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So you persuaded him to retire to bed?’

  ‘I did. I got him settled for the night and then I went out into the garden.’

  ‘For what purpose?’

  ‘To be away from everybody. I wanted to run away, far from Lillieoak—but only to remove myself from the pain, not from Joseph. I would never have left him. And yet, it was unbearable.’

  ‘His illness, do you mean?’

  ‘No.’ Sophie sighed. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Mademoiselle, please continue,’ Poirot urged.

  ‘Even if Joseph and I had made it as far as the altar, what then? Our joy would soon have been snatched away. Lasting happiness was impossible.’

  In the corner of the room, Inspector Conree seemed to be trying to squash the knot of his tie with the underside of his chin.

  ‘Pardon the impertinence, but did you cry when you were in the garden?’ Poirot asked Sophie. ‘Loudly, so that someone might have overheard?’

  She looked surprised. ‘No. I walked and walked.’

  ‘Did you encounter any other person in the grounds?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You did not whisper to anybody?’

  ‘I did not.’

  ‘I was in the garden also, with Catchpool. We spoke at length.’

  ‘I heard nothing,’ said Sophie. ‘Only leaves rustling, and the wind.’

  ‘What time did you go outside and what time did you return to the house? Do you remember?’

  ‘I went out a little after everybody left the dining room—everybody but Joseph and me, that is. I don’t know what time that was, I’m afraid.’

  ‘It was five minutes before eight o’clock,’ Poirot told her.

  ‘Then Joseph and I must have left the room at around ten minutes after eight. I helped him to prepare for bed for another fifteen or twenty minutes, and then I went outside. It must have been around thirty minutes past the hour when I went out.’

  ‘Then you left the house as Catchpool and I returned from our walk in the garden. We did not see you.’

  ‘I was quite unaware of the time. Perhaps I was five minutes later, or earlier.’

  ‘And what time did you return to the house?’

  Sophie said angrily, ‘Why do you ask questions to which you know the answers? You all heard me scream. You all came running.’

  ‘But I do not know how long you had been inside the house when you screamed, mademoiselle. You started to scream at ten minutes after ten o’clock—that I know.’

  ‘I had come in from the garden no more than five minutes before that. I heard the shouting immediately. No one upstairs would have heard it, but I did, clearly, as soon as I closed the back door and shut out the wind. I heard Joseph begging for his life.’

  ‘What precisely did he say?’ Poirot asked.

  ‘I cannot bear to think of it! I must, I know. He said, “Stop, stop! Please, Claudia! You don’t have to—” He knew she would kill him. I should have flown at her as soon as I saw the club in her hand, but it did not seem possible … And then, the shock! I was paralysed, Monsieur Poirot. It is my fault that Joseph is dead. If I had thrown myself on Claudia, I might have stopped her. I could have saved his life.’

  ‘Was it only Monsieur Scotcher that you heard speak? Did Claudia Playford say anything?’

  Sophie frowned. Then suddenly her eyes widened. ‘Yes! Yes, she spoke of a woman named Iris. “This is what Iris should have done,” or something like that. She said it while she was attacking Joseph.’

  ‘Please be as accurate as you can,’ Poirot urged. ‘It is important that I know her words.’

  ‘“This is what Iris should have done”—I’m certain of that part. And then, I think, “But she was too weak—she let you live, and so you killed her.” Or maybe it was “she let you kill her”. I was frozen. I could do nothing but scream and scream. I did
not …’ Sophie’s voice cracked. ‘I did not attempt to save Joseph’s life.’

  ‘Who is Iris?’

  ‘I have no idea. Joseph never mentioned her in my presence.’

  ‘Yet Claudia Playford believes that he killed her,’ said Poirot.

  ‘Joseph would not harm a soul. Claudia is a demon.’

  ‘Why were you so long in the garden on such a cold night?’

  ‘I was too ashamed to return to the house. I was not myself at all.

  ‘Capable Sophie, strong Sophie—that’s how they all see me. Always on hand to take care of Joseph and Lady Playford and everybody. I needed some respite from being the person that everybody mistakes me for.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Poirot. ‘What did Claudia Playford do once she had finished attacking the head of Mr Scotcher?’

  ‘She dropped the club on the floor and ran from the room.’

  Inspector Conree raised his chin and said, ‘Claudia Playford and Randall Kimpton tell a different story. They say they were together in Dr Kimpton’s room from when they left the bedroom of Orville Rolfe until you started to scream downstairs.’

  ‘Then they have told you a lie,’ said Sophie simply.

  CHAPTER 14

  Lady Playford’s Two Lists

  While Poirot and Inspector Conree were in Ballygurteen with Sophie Bourlet, Sergeant O’Dwyer and I were in Lady Playford’s study at Lillieoak. Since Scotcher’s death she had refused to come downstairs. The luncheon tray on her desk had not been touched, I noticed, and her face looked markedly thinner, though less than twenty-four hours had passed since the tragedy.

  ‘I left the dining room and went straight to my bedroom,’ she told Sergeant O’Dwyer. Her manner suggested that his question and any that might follow were a distraction. I had the distinct impression that she was trying to work something out on her own, and regarded interventions from others as a hindrance. ‘I did not eat dinner. You would find out anyway, so you might as well hear it from me. Mr Catchpool might already have told you.’