Closed Casket: The New Hercule Poirot Mystery (Hercule Poirot Mystery 2) (19 page)

The journey back to Lillieoak by car was not a pleasant one. I sat beside Poirot and opposite Sophie Bourlet. It had started to rain and the sky was slate grey. Darkness was descending. I do not mind the nights in London; I scarcely notice them. There is always a sense that the next day is girding up to get going, and none too patiently. My feeling about Clonakilty is that the opposite seems true: it can be broad daylight and still there is the suspicion that the impending night is ready to pounce and smother when the time is right.

Poirot was fidgeting next to me, continually adjusting his clothing and his moustache. Every time the motorcar went over a bump in the road, he moved to restore to their correct position hairs that had not been displaced. Finally he said, ‘Mademoiselle—might I ask you something?’

It took Sophie a few seconds to break free of the cocoon of silence in which she had wrapped herself. ‘What is it, Monsieur Poirot?’

‘I do not mean to add to your unhappiness, but there is something I would like to know. How would you describe your relationship with Mademoiselle Claudia?’

‘It has deteriorated since I accused her of murder.’

‘And before that, did you like her? Did she like you?’

‘You ought to have asked the second question first. I had no opportunity to decide how I felt about her before it became obvious that she loathed me from every angle. So … it was then hard for me to think well of her and treat her kindly.’

‘You make it sound as if you tried.’

‘I did. Claudia has some admirable qualities. And it was uncomfortable living in a house with someone who detested me. I have always firmly believed that the best remedy, when someone dislikes you, is to be relentlessly friendly and generous-spirited towards them. It works nearly every time.’

‘Not with Claudia, though?’

‘Decidedly not. She was determined to despise me on principle.’

‘What principle?’ Poirot asked.

‘Lady Playford approved of me, and soon grew fond of me. We both loved Joseph and talked a lot about how best to care for him. It strengthened the bond between us.’

‘And Claudia was jealous?’

‘I think she saw me as the good daughter to Lady Playford that she had never been.’

‘Did Claudia like Scotcher?’ I asked.

‘She liked to have him around, certainly,’ said Sophie. ‘Him and Randall Kimpton, whom she dotes on—they were the only two people she ever showed any interest in.’

‘Why do you think Mademoiselle Claudia killed Mr Scotcher if she liked to have him around, as you say?’ asked Poirot.

Sophie pressed her eyes shut. ‘I have asked myself that question … oh, you have no idea how many times! I cannot think why she did it. There seems to be no reason, apart from maybe something about this Iris person she mentioned. Have you found out about her yet—who she is and what she was to Joseph? He never once spoke of her to me.’

‘Do you think Mr Scotcher asking you to marry him might have had something to do with it?’ Poirot said. ‘Again I wonder about jealousy. It is a most dangerous emotion.’

‘No. Claudia was not remotely interested in Joseph as a romantic prospect. Randall Kimpton is her sun, moon and stars. No other man holds any appeal for her.’ Sophie bit her lip. She said, ‘It’s going to sound as if I’m contradicting myself, but … I don’t think it was me that Claudia envied. I think she did her damnedest to make herself believe it was me, but I suspect she was jealous of a far more powerful rival than I could ever be.’

‘Who?’ Poirot and I asked in unison.

‘Shrimp Seddon. Lady Playford’s detective heroine. I suspect that, as a young child, Claudia was hurt by her mother caring so much for Shrimp and spending so much time with her. One need only listen to the way Lady Playford talks about her writing to know that it excites her in a way that nothing else does. And Shrimp is clever enough to be fictional, and therefore beyond the reach of Claudia’s capacity to punish, so a substitute is needed—someone on whom all the pain of childhood neglect can be vented. I think I fitted the bill very nicely.’

‘Mademoiselle, I should like to ask you one more question,’ said Poirot. ‘Please would you go over once more for me your discovery of Joseph Scotcher’s body—what you saw when you returned to the house that night?’

‘I have told you everything already,’ said Sophie.

‘Please.’

‘I came in. I heard raised voices, a man and a woman. I moved towards the parlour, where it seemed to be coming from. I saw Claudia and Joseph. Joseph was on his knees, begging for his life.’

This was the same Joseph Scotcher who had died at least an hour earlier from strychnine poisoning, I reminded myself.

‘And Claudia said all those things about Iris: “She should have done this, but she didn’t, and you killed her”, or something like that. And then I started to scream, and Claudia dropped the club and ran—through the door to the library. Why must I go through all of this again? It’s horrible.’

I could not help but feel proud when Poirot put a question to Sophie that he had first heard from me.

‘Claudia Playford was seen on the upstairs landing with Randall Kimpton, mademoiselle, when everybody was coming down the stairs in response to your screams. I see only one way she could have got there, and that is by running up the stairs very quickly after attacking Mr Scotcher, before anyone opened their door. Did you, by chance, hear the footsteps of Claudia Playford running up the stairs? You would, I think, have heard her in the hall when she emerged from the library. That floor is tiled, with no carpet. You might perhaps have wondered if she planned to escape, this murderer of the man you loved. That might have made you more aware of her movements.’

Sophie’s eyes darted back and forth as she tried to think. ‘No,’ she said eventually. ‘I heard nothing. As you say, Claudia must have run upstairs, but … I did not hear her. I heard only my own screams.’

As soon as we drew up outside Lillieoak, Sophie Bourlet flung herself out of our vehicle as if Poirot and I had conspired to imprison her in it against her will, and ran for the house.

‘Everything is altered, Catchpool,’ Poirot said with a heavy sigh, as he and I stepped out into the cold air.

‘Indeed. Two pink, healthy kidneys, and no getting away from it.’

‘Speaking of getting away … Whatever Inspector Conree might say now that the inquest is behind us, I must ask you to remain at Lillieoak until I have solved this case. Having you by my side, it assists with the flow of my thoughts. If it would help for me to speak to Scotland Yard on your behalf …’

‘There is no need. Yes, I shall stay.’ I didn’t tell him I had telephoned my boss that morning, before the inquest, and that the mere mention of the name ‘Hercule Poirot’ had been sufficient to achieve the desired result. I had no intention of going anywhere, with the matter of Joseph Scotcher’s murder unresolved.

‘I will solve it, Catchpool! Do not be in doubt of that.’

‘I am not.’ I had utmost faith in him—as little as I had in Conree, and as much as my Belgian friend had in himself.

He sighed. ‘This case is full of apparent contradictions. Scotcher was dying of Bright’s disease, but then no! He was not dying—he was healthy! Scotcher was bludgeoned to death with a club—but he was not! He was poisoned. There are two things about Mr Joseph Scotcher that we first believed were true.
Eh bien
, both turn out to be false.’

I didn’t know I was going to say it until the words came out of my mouth: ‘Iris Gillow—what if she is the key to all of this?’

‘What do you know about her?’ asked Poirot.

‘Only that Randall Kimpton needs to tell us who she is—because it seems to me that she must be a vital part of this story.’

‘Not really.’ The voice came from behind us as we stood outside Lillieoak’s front door.

I turned. It was Kimpton, strolling towards us with his hands in the pockets of a long grey coat. ‘I do not deny that Iris is important, but she is not
relevant
. There is a difference. Shall we go inside? I said I would tell you after the inquest, and enough time has been wasted already.’

No lights were on inside the house; it was as if we had entered the mouth of a cave. ‘“Here walk I in the black brow of night, to find you out,”’ said Kimpton in a tone of exasperation. ‘Except it’s not yet night and it would be nice to be able to see where one was going.’

Once we were in the library with the lights lit, Poirot said, ‘Dr Kimpton, you knew, did you not?’

‘Knew what?’

‘That Mr Scotcher was not dying at the time of his murder. That he did not suffer from Bright’s disease of the kidneys, or any other illness.’

‘Well … that depends on your definition of knowledge.’

We waited for him to say more. He, in turn, appeared to be waiting for us to speak, with his usual charming smile in place. After a few seconds, he adjusted it to a frown. ‘Strong suspicion is not knowledge, as any detective will tell you,’ he said. ‘I see you that are uninterested in this line of enquiry, so I will abandon it. Yes, in the sense that you mean, I knew. I did not believe for a moment that Scotcher was dying, or that there was anything the matter with his kidneys. I never believed it.’

‘Why did you not tell me this immediately, monsieur?’

‘Do you mean immediately after Scotcher was murdered, or immediately upon your arrival at Lillieoak?’

‘The former,’ said Poirot.

‘Conservation of energy.’

‘Would you care to explain what you mean by that?’

‘I did not wish to have an argument, or waste my time trying to persuade you,’ said Kimpton. ‘Why should you have believed me if I’d told you Scotcher was no more dying of a fatal kidney disease than you are or I am? Most people do not encourage everyone of their acquaintance to believe they are about to meet their maker when they are not. I knew that if I told you, you would go to Athie for confirmation, or Sophie, or both, and I knew what both would say: that
I
was the liar. You would have said, “Come, come, Dr Kimpton, you have let your imagination run clean away. Don’t be cruel. Nobody would do such a thing,” or words that conveyed the same meaning. Let me tell you, Poirot: somebody would
always
do such a thing, no matter how wildly implausible the thing. Anyway, happily we do not need to have this argument because the truth is now revealed. At long last.’

‘What about Mademoiselle Claudia? Did she believe in Scotcher’s illness?’

‘Claudia?’ Kimpton laughed. ‘Not a bit of it. Neither did Athie, or Sophie, or Hatton, or anybody with a shred of sense.’

‘Sophie Bourlet assures me that Scotcher was
dying,’ Poirot told him. ‘She accuses the police doctor of lying about the state of his kidneys. What do you say to that, Dr Kimpton?’

‘It’s bunkum. As a doctor, I can tell you that no nurse—and Sophie is, I believe, a very good one—could have spent as long as she did tending to Scotcher’s every need and not tumble to the truth of the matter. You are not a scientific or medical man yourself, Poirot—I quite see that—so let me explain: Scotcher talked a lot about his impending death, and he was thin. In every other respect, he and the dying had little in common. He was never too weak or in too much pain to be witty, considerate and charming. Ask any doctor or nurse about their death’s door patients and you will find that flattering their interlocutors is generally not among their priorities. Yet for Scotcher, it was, always.’

Kimpton pulled a chair away from a highly polished round table and sat down. ‘Sophie Bourlet is no fool,’ he said. ‘She is a shrewd and perceptive woman. She knew Scotcher was a fraud, but it didn’t stop her loving him. Now she is lying to protect his reputation.’

‘What about Viscount Playford and his wife?’ asked Poirot.

‘Harry and Dorro? Oh, they would have believed Scotcher, absolutely. I dare say that numbskull Phyllis believed him too.’

‘I do not understand,’ said Poirot. ‘If Lady Playford knew that Mr Scotcher was deceiving her so shamelessly, why was his employment at Lillieoak not terminated?’

‘Aha! That is an excellent question. You must ask her. I should be interested to hear her answer.’

‘Did you never ask her? Did Claudia not ask—Lady Playford’s own daughter?’

‘No. Neither of us referred to it.’

‘Why not?’

‘We had different reasons. I will tell you mine first. I gave the matter careful consideration and decided that Athie was every bit as clever as I am. She also spent much of each day in Scotcher’s company. She therefore had the capacity and the opportunity to suspect him, and, what is more, I was certain that she did. So! What would have been the point of telling her that I shared her suspicion? She had evidently decided not to act on it—to retain Scotcher in employment and to talk to us all about his illness as if it were real—which, to my mind, meant that she too was a liar.

‘She then took it further: she engaged Sophie Bourlet to cater comprehensively to Scotcher’s non-existent invalid needs. Now she was almost an equal partner in Scotcher’s edifice of lies! Oh, no, I was not about to issue any challenges—not without certain knowledge. Athie would have defended Scotcher to the hilt and taken against me. That would have upset Claudia dreadfully. She enjoys savaging her mother, and does not realize how much under Athie’s influence she remains. I do not believe she would ever marry a man of whom her mother seriously disapproved.’

‘And what was Mademoiselle Claudia’s reason for failing to speak to Lady Playford about Scotcher’s lies?’

‘Sport.’ Kimpton grinned. ‘It’s always sport with Claudia. She adores two things: drama and power. In that respect, she is an exact replica of Athie. She dropped just enough hints to let Athie know that she knew—’

‘Aha!’ Poirot said triumphantly. ‘So Claudia knew, but you only suspected?’

Kimpton sighed wearily. ‘I am disappointed in you, Poirot. How could Claudia have
known
any more than I did? She had her suspicions, however, and she made the most of them. Imagine that Claudia had faced Scotcher across the breakfast table one day and said, “Your illness—it’s a great big whopping lie, old bean!” in front of Athie and everyone. What would have happened? Scotcher and his collaborators in deception would have denied it, and Claudia and I would have insisted that we did not believe them, and that would have been that. There would have been no way to settle the matter, no more suspense infusing every conversation at Lillieoak, no more mystery to enliven our humdrum lives. Most of all, there would have been no more scope for Claudia to drift menacingly around the place as if at any moment she might spill the beans and cause the most almighty scene. My impression was that Athie feared she might one day, which gave her a certain power. My dearest one
adores
power. Do you understand at all, Poirot? Catchpool? I expect our ways seem very strange to you.’

‘No stranger than the ways of anybody else,’ said Poirot.

‘Oh, I would not say that,’ said Kimpton. Something about his tone conveyed a sense of a warning. ‘Tell me this: have you ever before met a man who
pretended to be dying any day now when in truth he was perfectly healthy?
’

‘That precise pretence? No, I have not.’

‘There you are, then.’

‘Although I did encounter a criminal several years ago, a man who very much wished to avoid playing chess—’

‘Incidentally, whoever murdered Scotcher …’ Kimpton interrupted Poirot’s reminiscences. ‘That person is not
why
he died. He died because, quite needlessly, he invited death into his life. I have never been more convinced of anything. Death had not spotted him, nor sought him out—it was, for the time being, steering clear of him, but then he dangled the bait in front of death’s nose, with all his lies, and Death repaid him by snatching his life away. That is what I think.’

‘That does not sound very scientific,’ said Poirot.

‘I will concede: it does not,’ Kimpton agreed. ‘There must be a little of the Shakespeare scholar still left in me. And, as if that were not enough, there is also Iris. She is the reason why no opinion I offer about Scotcher could ever be objective.’

‘Iris Gillow?’ asked Poirot.

‘Yes.’ Kimpton stood up and walked over to the window again. ‘Though her name was Iris Morphet when I first met her. Shall I tell you about her?’