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

  I indicated that I had not.

  ‘My daughter-in-law, Dorro, made a remark that upset me. You must not think badly of her. She is a kind person who worries excessively, that is all. There is nobody in this house who is unkind or wicked, Sergeant. Even my daughter, Claudia, who has a punishingly sharp tongue sometimes …’ Lady Playford straightened her back in preparation for what she was about to say. ‘Claudia is no more a killer than I am a pirate on the high seas. It’s absurd.’

  ‘Then you believe that Sophie Bourlet is lying?’ I said.

  ‘No,’ said Lady Playford. ‘Sophie would not falsely accuse a person of murder. She has a good heart.’

  ‘Then …’

  ‘I do not know! Believe me, I quite see the problem! I insist upon two things—that my daughter is not a murderer and that Sophie Bourlet would not falsely accuse her of murder—and those two things are irreconcilable.’

  ‘If I might just kindly ask, your ladyship …’ Sergeant O’Dwyer seemed to introduce all his questions with these words. ‘You returned to your room—and did you leave it again, or did you stay in it, or what did you do after that?’

  ‘I stayed in my room, alone, until I heard Sophie’s distant screams and people running along the landing. In all that time I was disturbed only when Mr Catchpool knocked at my door. He wanted to check that nothing terrible had happened to me.’

  ‘Poirot asked me to make certain of everybody’s safety,’ I told O’Dwyer. ‘I found that all were safe and well except for Sophie Bourlet and Michael Gathercole, who were nowhere to be found, and Joseph Scotcher and Orville Rolfe, who were in their rooms but not at all well.’

  ‘If I might just kindly ask, your ladyship … Scotcher was dying of Bright’s disease of the kidneys, is that right, now?’

  ‘That is correct.’

  ‘And the upsetting remark that your daughter-in-law made. I should like to hear about it, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘She said that I was trying to pretend that Joseph Scotcher was my son Nicholas, who died as a child. She described Nicholas as “stone-cold dead”. As of course he is. I know that perfectly well. What upset me was not the unpleasant reality, which I accepted long ago, but that Dorro would choose to say such a thing to me.’

  ‘She regretted it soon afterwards,’ I could not help saying. ‘She was terribly upset later, in the drawing room, and wished she could take it back.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lady Playford thoughtfully. ‘One ought not to use words carelessly, or even spontaneously. Once they are launched, they cannot be called back. I have been unhappy on many occasions, but never once have I used a word or words that I have not carefully chosen.’

  ‘I’d agree with you there,’ said O’Dwyer. ‘If anybody has a talent for choosing words, it’s you, your ladyship.’

  ‘And yet, thanks to me, poor Joseph is dead.’ Tears shone in her eyes.

  ‘You must not blame yourself,’ I told her.

  ‘Now there Inspector Catchpool and I are of one mind,’ said O’Dwyer. ‘Whoever is to blame for Mr Scotcher’s demise is the one that coshed him over the head with the club.’

  ‘It’s kind of you to try, gentlemen, but you will never convince me this was not my fault. I changed my will in a way that was designed to provoke. I made a theatrical spectacle of the announcement, over dinner.’

  ‘Yet you did not expect Joseph Scotcher to be murdered a few hours later,’ I said.

  ‘No. Had I considered the possibility, I would have concluded it was out of the question. Shall I tell you why? Because the only sensible motives for this murder belong to those who would never commit the act. My son Harry—unthinkable! As for my daughter, Claudia … You might not believe this, Edward—may I call you Edward?—but the psychology is all wrong. It cannot be Claudia.’

  ‘What makes you so sure?’

  ‘A violent murder is the last resort of a person whose passionate rage or burning resentment has been locked inside them for too long—for a lifetime!—with no means of escape,’ Lady Playford said. ‘Finally, the cork pops. The glass shatters! My daughter’s simmering fury—which has been with her since childhood, despite having no discernible cause—has garnered quite an audience in the daily run of things. Far from keeping it stoppered up all her life, she has broadcast it far and wide, to anyone who crosses her path. Bitterness emanates from her as she stomps around the house feeling aggrieved on her own behalf, and she gives full vent to it. I am sure you have noticed, Edward.’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘You are too polite to say so. Claudia could lay waste to an army simply by opening her mouth and speaking her mind. For her to pick up a club and batter a man’s head with it … words would first have to fail her, and I assure you, no such thing has happened.’

  ‘And Dorro?’ I said.

  ‘Are you asking if Dorro might have killed Joseph? The idea is laughable! Oh, she was in a bate at the prospect of inheriting nothing, but Dorro is a fearful woman. More importantly, she is a pessimist. She could not commit murder without feeling that discovery, conviction and execution were almost guaranteed, and that trio of unfortunate consequences would deter her. Anyhow, why should Sophie pretend she saw Claudia doing it if Dorro was the one she saw?’

  ‘What about your daughter’s young man—Randall Kimpton?’ I asked.

  Lady Playford looked surprised. ‘Why should Randall wish to kill Joseph? His only motive would be money, and he already has it in abundance.’

  It was all very well her insisting that this, that and the other person could not possibly have murdered Scotcher. Someone had. That was beyond doubt. ‘Whom do you suspect?’ I asked.

  ‘Nobody. “Suspect” suggests a firm belief, and I have none. I have two lists in my mind, and nothing more.’

  ‘Lists?’

  ‘Those who are innocent beyond all doubt, and the rest.’

  ‘When you say “beyond all doubt”—’

  ‘From my knowledge of their characters.’

  ‘Might we hear the two lists, your ladyship?’ asked O’Dwyer.

  ‘If you must. The innocents are: Harry, Claudia, Dorro, Michael Gathercole, Sophie Bourlet. The others are—forgive me, Edward—Edward Catchpool, Hercule Poirot—’

  ‘I beg your pardon? Poirot and I are on your list of potential murderers?’

  ‘I have every confidence that neither of you murdered Joseph, but I do not know it,’ Lady Playford said with a hint of impatience. ‘I cannot say that you, or Poirot, would never commit murder. If it makes you feel any better, I could not say it of myself. In the right circumstances … For instance, if I knew who had killed Joseph, I might well find the largest, sharpest knife in the house and stick it into them. I should enjoy it, too!’

  There was a knock at the door.

  ‘I don’t want to speak to anybody else,’ Lady Playford said urgently, as if speaking to me and Sergeant O’Dwyer were quite enough of an ordeal. ‘One of you shoo them away, whoever it is.’

  It was Hatton, the butler. The crisis conditions at Lillieoak seemed to have restored his ability to speak when necessary. ‘There is a message for you from Monsieur Poirot, Mr Catchpool,’ he whispered efficiently, leaning forward to aim the words directly at my ear. ‘He telephoned. He wishes you to ask everybody if they know a woman by the name of Iris.’

  I wondered if Inspector Conree shared this wish of Poirot’s.

  ‘Hatton, Brigid, Orville Rolfe—and Randall Kimpton in some circumstances, though never for money,’ said Lady Playford once the butler had gone. ‘They are all on my list of possible murderers. The person who poses the gravest problem is Phyllis. She adored Joseph—hung on his every word. I do not believe she would have harmed him. On the other hand, she is slow-witted, and it is never difficult to persuade that sort of person to do the wrong thing.’

  ‘If I could trouble you to answer one more question, your ladyship,’ said O’Dwyer. ‘It’s about your new will.’

  ‘I thought it might be.’

  �
�Why did you decide to change it in the way that you did, with Mr Scotcher so close to death’s door? Did you not believe he was bound to die before you?’

  ‘I have answered that question already,’ said Lady Playford wearily. ‘I do not wish to repeat myself yet again. Edward here will be able to tell you.’

  I nodded, remembering her impressive performance in the dining room. Physical health is affected by psychology, therefore Scotcher might be persuaded to last a little longer if he knew he would one day inherit a fortune. I had not been convinced at the time and I was no more convinced now.

  ‘I wonder if you would mind talking a little about your late husband’s will, Lady Playford,’ I said hesitantly, half expecting her to shout at me to be quiet and stick to the subject at hand.

  ‘Guy? Oh—you mean because of what Dorro said at dinner? No, I don’t mind in the least. It was not an easy decision to make, but my husband and I knew it was the right one. You’ve seen Harry. If Lillieoak and everything that was Guy’s had passed to him in the customary fashion, it would not have been him making the decisions and running things, it would have been Dorro, and—’

  Lady Playford broke off abruptly. After making an impatient noise she continued. ‘I might as well finish, now that I have started, whatever you will think of me. I love Dorro well enough, but I do not trust her. Neither does Claudia—and Lillieoak is her family home as much as it is Harry’s. And, really, the fact that things are habitually done a certain way does not mean they must always be done that way. I am Guy’s widow—frankly, I don’t see why I should be pushed aside any more than Claudia should be. Why should I leave my home that I love and let Dorro take over? And Harry and Claudia receive allowances that are generous and cover all their needs, whatever Dorro’s opinion might be. Guy quite agreed,’ she added as an afterthought.

  I was glad this was the sort of problem I was never likely to have. ‘Do you know a person by the name of Iris?’ I asked Lady Playford.

  ‘Iris? No. Whom do you mean?’

  I wished I knew.

  ‘No. I know of no Iris.’

  Her denial was convincing. All the same, I could not help thinking that if anyone could tell a lie and make the world believe it, that person was surely Athelinda Playford.

  CHAPTER 15

  Seeing, Hearing and Looking

  While Sergeant O’Dwyer conferred with the police doctor, and organized the local gardaí who were charged with searching Lillieoak, I went in search of Gathercole. I wanted to speak to him alone, and guessed that I would miss nothing that mattered if I left O’Dwyer to his own devices for the time being. After the gardaí, Orville Rolfe was next on his list. Rolfe was the one person who could not have killed Joseph Scotcher, as far as I could see. Between when I knocked on Scotcher’s door, finding him alive, and when I knocked on Rolfe’s and encountered him in his unwell state, there were no means by which Rolfe could have got downstairs without passing me, and I would certainly have noticed if he had done so.

  He did not. And after that, either I or Poirot was with him, or else confining him to his room by means of a large chair outside his door, until Sophie Bourlet screamed. That seemed conclusively to rule out Orville Rolfe.

  I searched the house for Gathercole and did not find him, so I went outside to stroll around the gardens. After about ten minutes of walking wherever the fancy took me, I saw him in the distance. He was standing with his hands in his pockets, staring down at a row of rose bushes. I approached slowly so as not to scare him away.

  He looked up and almost smiled at me, then turned quickly to glance up at the house. Was he looking at a particular window, or at the house in general? I could not tell.

  He stared at the building for some seconds before turning back towards me. At that moment, I was struck by an interesting notion. It was watching Gathercole that had put it into my mind.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked me.

  ‘Would you mind awfully if I tried out an idea on you?’ I said. ‘I had it only a moment ago, and I shall find it hard to think about anything else until I have discussed it with someone.’

  ‘By all means.’

  ‘When you looked up at the house just now, I remembered something that Lady Playford said when Sergeant O’Dwyer and I spoke to her.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘It was a question: why should Sophie Bourlet pretend she saw Claudia Playford murder Scotcher if in fact Dorro Playford was the one she saw?’

  ‘Dorro? I don’t understand. Has it been suggested that Dorro—’

  ‘No. The opposite,’ I assured him. ‘Lady Playford was telling us that Dorro was on her list of those who are innocent beyond doubt. In support of this, she asked her question: why should Sophie say she had seen Claudia clubbing Scotcher to death if in truth it was Dorro that she saw? Lady Playford asked this as if the answer were so obvious, it should not need stating: “Well, of course she would not!” That was what Sergeant O’Dwyer and I were supposed to think, and I duly did. Until a few moments ago.’

  ‘And now what do you think?’ Gathercole asked.

  ‘Shall we walk?’ I suggested. He shrugged, but followed me when I started to move.

  I decided it could do no harm to share my ideas with him. I might even tell Poirot later that I had done so. ‘Let’s assume Sophie saw someone—we do not know whom—lift a club and bring it down once, twice, three times, maybe more, on poor Scotcher’s head. She is so horrified by the sight that she screams and screams, bringing everyone rushing down the stairs to see what is amiss.’

  ‘That is what she says happened,’ Gathercole agreed as we walked between two rows of lime trees.

  ‘Imagine the horror of witnessing such a thing happening to the person you love. Anyone might scream uncontrollably.’

  ‘I dare say.’

  ‘Imagine this too: in your state of shock, you make an almighty din. You can’t help it. Straight away, you hear footsteps and cries of, “What on earth is that?” Soon they will all be upon you, and you will have to explain that you witnessed a murder … and that’s when it dawns on you!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That the person you saw clubbing Scotcher to death is someone you cannot bring yourself to name as his killer,’ I said. ‘Someone you want to protect, would want to protect no matter what they had done. What do you do? Why, you tell as much of the truth as you can, and you simply substitute someone you dislike and regard as dispensable—Claudia Playford—for the real murderer. This was my brainwave when I saw you looking up at the window of Lady Playford’s study! I saw you, you see. There would have been no use in telling me you did not look, because I know you did.’

  Why had he? I wondered. Did he want to make sure Lady Playford was not watching before he embarked upon a conversation with me?

  ‘In exactly the same way, we all heard Sophie Bourlet witnessing the murder of Joseph Scotcher,’ I went on. ‘She screamed because she could not help herself—but having done so, she could not pretend that she had not just seen someone kill Scotcher. There she was, frozen by the door, with his dead body in front of her! And if she was unwilling to name the true culprit, and decided to lie and say it was Claudia, well, then it might have been anyone. And the answer to Lady Playford’s question—why accuse Claudia if she saw Dorro do it?—is then perfectly simple: Sophie wanted to save the true murderer from the gallows.’

  Gathercole came to an abrupt halt. ‘Will you pardon me if I point out an error in your reasoning?’

  ‘Please go ahead.’

  ‘If Sophie wanted to protect Scotcher’s killer, she needn’t have admitted she witnessed the murder. Her screams were adequately explained if she had simply found the battered body of the man she loved. We would all have accepted that without question.’

  ‘Indeed we would. But in her state of extreme shock and distress, that might not have occurred to her.’

  ‘Perhaps not,’ Gathercole conceded less than whole- heartedly.

  ‘Did you come down the stairs
?’ I asked him as we began to walk again.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘When Sophie started to make her commotion—did you come down the stairs with the rest of us? Suddenly you were there, but you were dressed for outdoors, as I recall. And before that, I had been unable to find you.’

  ‘I went out. Walked all the way down to the river and back. I find water calming. Our evening so far had been … less so.’

  ‘If you don’t mind my asking, where were you when you heard Sophie scream?’

  ‘At the front door. I had returned to the house mere seconds before. I made my way to where the noise seemed to be coming from and there you all were. I think I was the last to arrive.’

  Nervous about what I wanted to say next, I did my best to appear casual about it. ‘I say, do you mind if I ask you something else? It’s been on my mind since we all sat around the dining table together.’

  ‘What would you like to know?’

  ‘After Lady Playford left the room, there was a moment when you looked … well, quite beside yourself. Utterly desolate. It was as if something had upset or enraged you. I only wondered …’

  ‘I was concerned about Lady Playford,’ said Gathercole. ‘She had left the room in response to Dorro’s unkindness—which was unforgivable.’

  I did not believe him. His voice had changed to something less natural than before.

  ‘Unforgivable? Dorro regretted saying it soon afterwards, you know. She was also in a state of shock, and frightened about her future, and Harry’s.’

  ‘Yes,’ Gathercole said briskly. ‘I might have judged her too harshly.’

  He was withholding something important. The faster he walked, and the longer he kept his head turned away from me, the more certain I became.

  I decided to take a risk. ‘Listen, I work for Scotland Yard. My job, whatever the crime, is to suspect everybody. In this case, I am guilty of negligence: I suspect everybody except you.’