The Killings at Kingfisher Hill Read online

  ‘Well, I hope you are right,’ I said.

  Poirot beamed at me. ‘You will not comprehend this, Catchpool, but in my heart I already have the pleasure and satisfaction of having answered every last question and solved the mystery of the death of Frank Devonport most decisively.’

  ‘What?’ This surprised me, even knowing Poirot as I did. ‘Are you telling me that you already know—?’

  ‘No, no. You misunderstand me. I do not yet have all of the answers. Like you, I have mainly the questions. But when Marcus Capeling told us about Daisy Devonport and the two engagement rings—first the emerald and diamond from Oliver Prowd and then the ruby that was once Helen Acton’s—a feeling of overwhelming confidence swept over me. At that moment I knew that all would be well.’

  ‘That’s a coincidence,’ I said. ‘It was those confounded rings that sent me in the opposite direction. They convinced me that perpetual confusion was all we would ever get from the Devonport family.’

  Poirot smoothed down his moustaches with the index and middle fingers of both his hands. ‘There is a moment in each case—there always has been, from the commencement of my career in the Belgian police—when suddenly, before the mystery is solved, I see enough of the picture to know for sure that it will be solved. In that instant—and it is a glorious feeling, Catchpool … in that instant, I feel the very same emotions that I would feel if I already knew the answer.’

  ‘I see,’ I said doubtfully.

  ‘Once I have the feeling of triumph that accompanies the perfectly resolved puzzle, then I am forced to justify it. Do you see? I am bound by my duty to myself to create, in my mind, the resolution that proves the emotion correct. I hope you will experience this for yourself one day, my friend. Truly, it is the only way to succeed.’

  ‘It might help me to get closer to the exalted state you describe if you would explain about the rings. Why should a barrage of new, confusing details about women’s jewellery be a source of such delight to you? Why did you declare it to be “merveilleuse”?’ My friend winced at my appalling French accent, for which I could not blame him.

  ‘I could put the question to you only the other way around,’ he said. ‘Why were you not happy to have such striking new details added to the incomplete picture that we are attempting to make complete? I tell you, it is all in the attitude one adopts, my friend. To you, the stories about the engagement rings were yet one more complication. Yet another obstacle to us arriving at the truth, pushing us farther away from it.’

  ‘Precisely,’ I said with feeling.

  ‘But, mon ami, there is truth to be found. It exists! There is nothing human that cannot be made sense of once one knows all of the relevant facts. Alors, whenever a new detail is given to us, we must be grateful. Each new morsel of information is to be celebrated! And even more so when one is given a piece as striking as the story of the rings. Here there is additional cause for celebration because this story stands out so prominently. It becomes a point of focus in the still-forming picture precisely because it is, at the first glance, so baffling. Once one has a point of focus, all of the other details start to arrange themselves around it.’

  I mumbled something about that not having happened yet. Of course, Poirot had an answer at the ready: ‘If you resent it for not happening before it can possibly happen, you push it further away. Me, I prefer to trust that it will happen when the time is right. When we speak to Helen Acton tomorrow, we will gather more details for our picture!’

  ‘Tomorrow? I’m expected at Scotland Yard tomorrow.’

  ‘Then I will leave it up to you to amend those expectations,’ said Poirot firmly. ‘You will accompany me to Holloway Prison first thing in the morning. All has been arranged.’

  ‘You still haven’t explained to me why I’m holding this pencil and paper,’ I said.

  ‘You need it to make your list,’ said Poirot. ‘Often this is what cures you of the petulant mood.’

  ‘I’m not in a petulant mood,’ I told him. ‘What list?’

  ‘All of the things you do not understand.’

  ‘I don’t want to make a list. I don’t understand anything about this latest mess that we’ve stumbled into. The list would be endless.’

  ‘If you do not feel better after making the list, I will apologize for having wasted your time,’ said Poirot. ‘Unless it proves useful to my deliberations, in which case I will not apologize—though I doubt that it will. Your lists are usually not comprehensive. Nor are they made in the proper methodical way.’

  ‘Is that so? Well, on this occasion, my method will be not making the list at all.’

  ‘Distinctly, the ill humour,’ Poirot muttered under his breath.

  After that, we spoke hardly at all for the remainder of the journey back to London. Alone in my rooms that afternoon, I snapped the pencil he had given me and tore up the sheet of paper. I ate a delectable loin of pork cooked for me by my landlady, Blanche Unsworth, then sat in front of the fire with a large measure of brandy and attempted a crossword puzzle, but the clues proved more difficult than usual to decipher and I soon gave up.

  Later still, full of admiration for my Belgian friend and mystified by the hold he seemed to have over me, I took some paper from my own supplies and used my own pencil to do what he had asked of me. ‘List’ I wrote at the top of the page, and as I did so I saw Joan Blythe’s unfinished face in my mind and knew that she had to be item number one.

  1. What is the explanation for the Joan Blythe incident? Was somebody trying to kill her? If so, who and why? Did the man who warned her not to sit in that particular seat on the coach intend the warning helpfully, to save her life, or did he intend to threaten and scare her? Who was he? Why did she board the coach at all, knowing her life was in danger? And, if she was resolved to do so, why did she not hurry aboard early enough to ensure that she would have a choice of seats? When she finally got herself on board and saw that the only seat left was the very one about which she had been warned, why did she not then make a run for it?

  I laid down my pencil with a heavy sigh and considered giving up. This was not one question, it was many. Poirot would mock me for my inadequate list-making abilities.

  I started to write again.

  2. Does the Joan Blythe puzzle have any connection to Frank Devonport’s murder?

  3. Why did it scare her so much when I mentioned the words ‘midnight gathering’, and why was she no longer afraid once I told her that those two words were the title of a book that Daisy Devonport was reading?

  4. Why did Poirot ask Daisy about the book? Why did he think it was important?

  5. Who killed Frank Devonport? Was it Daisy Devonport, Helen Acton or someone else?

  6. If neither Helen nor Daisy murdered Frank, why are both claiming that they did?

  7. How could Helen have fallen in love with Richard Devonport in a few hours, and so passionately in love that she decided to kill Frank (if she did)? Is that at all plausible? (Probably not—but she might have met Richard long before that day, unbeknownst to anybody else.)

  8. Why did Helen think she could only rid herself of Frank and marry Richard if Frank was dead? Did she believe this to be the case or did she want Frank dead for a different reason (assuming she killed him)?

  9. Why did Daisy swap her emerald and diamond ring for Helen’s ruby ring, and did Oliver Prowd not object to this? (Richard Devonport suggested that Oliver would tolerate any behaviour from Daisy.)

  10. Why did Richard want to marry Helen when she had killed his brother? (Obvious answer: because he does not believe that she is guilty, and never has.)

  11. Why did Sidney Devonport allow Richard to get engaged to a woman who had killed his other son? (Does he too believe Helen Acton to be innocent? Or does he care so little about Richard, or Frank, or both? Perhaps he assumed that Helen would soon hang and therefore it would not matter, but that seems odd from a man in the habit of exerting strong control over his family in other respects.)

 
12. Why did Sidney Devonport want Richard to distract Lilian before he told Verna Laviolette about Winnie? Why would Winnie not be returning to Little Key? Before she left, what was her role in the Devonport home? Servant/cook?

  13. Why did Godfrey Laviolette ask us not to talk to the Devonports about the house changing its name from Kingfisher’s Rest to Little Key?

  14. Why did Verna Laviolette apologize to Oliver Prowd and Lilian Devonport after mentioning the word ‘grave’ at dinner? (Possibly because Lilian is dying and Oliver’s father recently died.)

  15. Why do the Devonports pretend all is well and try to conduct their social life as if nothing has happened when their son has been murdered and his former fiancée is about to hang for the crime (or was about to, until Daisy Devonport also confessed)?

  16. What did Godfrey Laviolette mean when he referred to ‘paradise’ at Kingfisher Hill being ruined? What made him and Verna decide to sell their house to the Devonports?

  17. What is the explanation for the strange behaviour of Verna Laviolette? Is it strange or am I being fanciful in thinking it so?

  I could not think of any more questions to add to the list, so I folded it and put it in my pocket. As I did so, there was a knock at the door and my landlady, Blanche Unsworth, appeared in the sitting room.

  ‘Goodness me, it’s cold in here,’ she said, rubbing her arms. I was about to say, ‘Don’t be silly, there’s a roaring fire in the grate,’ when I saw that it had burned out. I had been too immersed in my list-making to notice.

  ‘I’m sorry to disturb you, Edward. A gentleman telephoned for you from Scotland Yard, said he worked with you—a Sergeant Giddy?’

  ‘Could it have been Gidley?’

  ‘Yes, I think it was. That’s right. Sergeant Gidley.’

  ‘I’ll come now.’ I rose to my feet.

  ‘Oh, no, he’s not still on the telephone. He wanted me to give you a message, but …’ Her face took on a wounded, hard-done-to expression. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you’d been put in charge of a murder case? You know I like to hear your stories.’

  ‘Stories aren’t stories until they have endings,’ I said. ‘This one doesn’t yet. The case was only assigned to me very recently.’

  ‘Well, that’s what Sergeant Giddy wanted to talk about—this new case of yours, the Devonshire case.’

  ‘Devonport.’

  ‘Yes, that’s it. A lady came to Scotland Yard to see you about it: a Miss Winnifred Lord.’

  Aha! So here was Winnie, the Devonports’ never-to-return servant.

  ‘She wishes to speak to you at your earliest convenience,’ said Mrs Unsworth. ‘Says she knows who killed Frank Devonshire and she knows why, too, and it’s not the reason you all think. She left a telephone number. I’ve written it down and left it next to the telephone.’

  ‘But …’ My mind had started to race. ‘Did she not give the information to Sergeant Gidley? Why did he let her leave?’

  ‘He said she wanted to speak to you and no one else. I don’t blame her! I’d also want to speak to the man in charge if I had important information in a murder case. I wouldn’t want to natter away about something so important as murder to the first person I ran into.’ She stared at me pointedly. ‘I should want to speak to you, Edward, and no one else.’

  I had a terrible feeling of foreboding on behalf of poor Winnie, whom I had never met. Who else might know that she knew—if indeed she did—the facts of Frank Devonport’s murder, apart from Sergeant Gidley, Blanche Unsworth and me? Was she in danger? I had to find her, and soon.

  She knows who killed Frank and she knows why, too, and it’s not the reason you all think.

  Did that mean what I thought it meant?

  I hurried to the telephone and dialled the number that Mrs Unsworth had taken down. A woman answered: Winnifred Lord’s mother. Speaking to her did nothing to reassure me that my fears were misplaced. I was told that Winnie had been to Scotland Yard earlier in the day, since which time she had not returned, as she had promised to, and her mother had received no word from her.

  The following morning I had a quick wash, dressed and ate a cursory breakfast, all within the space of twenty minutes, much to Mrs Unsworth’s chagrin. I have long suspected her of fabricating the most devious schemes to keep me at her breakfast table for as long as she can. Well, on this occasion she failed.

  I had arranged for a police driver to call at half past nine and take me from the lodging house to Holloway Prison, collecting Poirot on the way. After Holloway, we would proceed to Kingfisher Hill and Little Key. How on earth I could ever be respected there as a figure of authority after Poirot’s and my attempt to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes, I had no idea. It would be easier if no one made mention of Peepers, but there was little chance of that.

  Poirot was ready and waiting for me on the street when I arrived, looking more dapper than ever. At the sight of him I had to remind myself that we were not on our way to a jolly day at the Ascot races but rather to my least favourite prison. I have visited many in the course of my work for Scotland Yard and have found none to be pleasant, but Holloway is the worst of all. I have never been able to tolerate the suffering of women very easily, and within those walls there is little else to be found. I detest everything about the place, starting with its outward appearance. If one deliberately blurs one’s vision, the building’s exterior resembles a large, indistinct mass of people with mouths open in protest and arms thrown up in furious protest.

  The interior is no better. The strangest thing about being inside a prison is that one expects to meet evil face to face, but in fact there is little of the purest evil to be found inside this or any jail. What one encounters instead, over and over again, is hopelessness and regret: the traces of stale betrayals, tempers fatally lost and horrible compromises in impossible situations.

  I said some of this to Poirot. He replied, ‘Today will be different, for we bring hope to Helen Acton. We bring the news that her life, temporarily, is saved, thanks to Daisy Devonport.’

  ‘She will have received that news already.’

  ‘This is true.’ He soon brightened up again. ‘Then we will bring to her even better news! If she tells us the truth, she need never pay with her life for that murder.’

  ‘Well, unless the truth is that she did, in fact, murder Frank. Also …’

  ‘What, Catchpool? Please speak up. I would very much like to hear every single one of your reservations.’ He appeared to mean what he said with no hint of sarcasm.

  ‘I was only thinking that since Helen Acton confessed to Frank Devonport’s murder, perhaps she very much wants to pay with her life, whether she in fact killed him or not.’

  ‘Suicide by hangman? It is possible, yes. In due course we will find out.’ Poirot said all of this in that brisk way he has when he is eager to move on to another topic. ‘Now, tell me, mon ami … these words of Winnifred Lord’s that were reported to you by Blanche Unsworth who heard them from Sergeant Gidley: “I know who disposed of Frank Devonport, and I know why, and it’s not the reason you all think”.’

  ‘“Disposed of”?’ I said.

  ‘Indeed. Those were the exact words of Winnifred Lord. I have spoken to Sergeant Gidley in person this morning. Did you not wonder why I waited for you on the street? I had been out very early, not only to visit Sergeant Gidley but also Winnifred Lord’s mother in Kennington.’

  ‘All before ten in the morning?’ I raised an eyebrow.

  ‘I detest the excessively early rising, Catchpool, but sometimes it is necessary. Oui. Winnie Lord has still not returned. Her mother is extremely distressed. She has not heard from her since she left the house yesterday to go to Scotland Yard. I attempted to calm the mother but was unsuccessful. In the end the most I could do was promise to bring her daughter’s disappearance to the attention of the police. This I did when I spoke to Sergeant Gidley. He told me precisely what Winnifred Lord told him—the only thing she told him, for it was you she sought for the telling o
f the whole story. But to Sergeant Gidley she said those words: “I know who disposed of Frank Devonport and I know why, too, and it’s not the reason you all think.” Now, when you and I spoke on the telephone last night, you seemed to think that those final words—“It’s not the reason you all think”—might have significance?’

  ‘Well, yes. As far as I am aware, no one has any notion at all of why anybody should have wanted Frank Devonport dead. The only reason that has been offered up for consideration is the one that Helen Acton has provided: she wanted Frank out of the way so that she could marry Richard. Therefore “the reason you all think” must be that one, which means—unless I’m mistaken—that Winnie Lord believes Helen Acton is indeed the guilty party, but that she is lying about her motive.’

  ‘I knew it!’ Poirot cried in triumph. ‘Mon ami, you are mistaken. I know you so well that I perceive your incorrect conclusions even when you do not state them! Think about it for one second, I entreat you. “I know who disposed of Frank Devonport, and I know why, too, and it’s not the reason you all think.” Those were the words of Winnie Lord, yes? Now, imagine, purely for the sake of our little experiment, that it was Alfred Bixby, the impresario of char-a-bancs, who committed the murder. This is quite impossible, I know, but humour me. Monsieur Bixby secretly entered the house, hid somewhere on the landing and pushed Frank Devonport to his death. Imagine that Winnie Lord knows this, and knows, furthermore, that his motive was revenge. Let us say that Frank Devonport once insulted the Kingfisher Coach Company.’

  ‘All right,’ I said, curious to see where he was going with this.

  ‘Now think again of the words of Winnie Lord: “I know who disposed of Frank Devonport”—she means that she knows it was Alfred Bixby. “I know why, too”—because he insulted the Kingfisher Coach Company. “And it’s not the reason you all think”. This could easily mean that “you all”, we all, believe the motive for murder to be a desire to marry Richard Devonport—because we have the wrong culprit in mind. And Alfred Bixby’s reason was quite different! Do you see, Catchpool?’