Closed Casket

by Sophie Hannah

  “When we spoke on the telephone, you said that perhaps Scotcher did not have a doctor at all. Well, he was neither sick nor dying, but while he lived in Oxford, he was on the patient list of a doctor. I visited this man at his home. What I learned from him was fascinating. It made so many things so clear. Only there is a problem: what is now clear to me . . . unfortunately, it is also impossible.”

  “Please explain,” I said without much hope.

  “Now is not the time for explanation, Catchpool. Now, Poirot must think hard. I advise you to do the same.”

  “What is clear to you, and what aspect of it seems impossible? For pity’s sake, Poirot, what is it that you would like me to think hard about?”

  I was surprised when he answered willingly. “How can it all be made to fit together? Sophie Bourlet swears that Joseph Scotcher was alive—begging for his life—until the moment that Claudia Playford attacked him with a club in the parlor. Yet the inquest gave the cause of death as poisoning, and the time as considerably earlier. And Kimpton and Claudia tell us that they were together upstairs at the time the clubbing took place. Additionally, Brigid, the cook, saw them together on the upstairs landing when we were all hurrying downstairs in response to Sophie’s screams. But . . . if my theory about who killed Scotcher and why is correct, then Sophie must be telling the truth about what she saw in the parlor that night. She would have no reason not to.”

  “Please tell me your theory,” I said.

  “Let me finish, Catchpool. If my theory about who killed Scotcher and why is correct, then, also, it makes perfect sense that Claudia would club the head of the already dead Scotcher.”

  “It does?”

  “Oui.”

  “Do you mean because she wanted Scotcher to have a closed casket funeral for some reason?”

  “Not at all. His funeral turns out to be irrelevant. But, oh yes, it makes perfect sense that Mademoiselle Claudia would do this clubbing of Scotcher’s corpse. What makes no sense, however, is that Scotcher, who should have been dead from strychnine poisoning at that point, was apparently not dead at all! So who is lying? Sophie Bourlet? No, I do not think so. Claudia Playford? No! If Scotcher had been still alive in the parlor, she would have had no reason to club him around the head, therefore she would not have done so.”

  “If you had said all of that in Ancient Greek and jumbled up the word order for good measure, it would have been no more incomprehensible to me,” I told him.

  I stood up, walked over to the window and opened it. The sight of the smooth green lawn bordered by trees calmed me; one can only stare at the ever-alert green eyes of Hercule Poirot for so long, I have found, without starting to feel dizzy.

  I thought for a few moments, then said, “From what little I managed to understand of all that . . . you seem to be saying that you believe Sophie Bourlet, but you also believe Claudia Playford?”

  “Yes, I believe the nurse Sophie. But I also believe the findings of the inquest.”

  “In that case, it seems rather obvious that . . .” I paused, wondering how to put it into words. “When you know two things are true, and those two things seem to go against each other, instead of telling yourself one must not be true, shouldn’t you ask yourself what third thing that you have not yet thought of would allow both true things to be true at the same time?”

  Poirot looked as if he had gritted his teeth behind his mustache. “That is a nice idea, Catchpool, but unfortunately it cannot be true that Joseph Scotcher was both dead and alive when he was attacked with the club.”

  “Of course not. The two apparently irreconcilable true things I had in mind were, number one, Sophie Bourlet telling the truth, which you are convinced she is, and, number two, Claudia Playford having no reason to smash Scotcher’s head to smithereens with a club if he were not already dead.”

  “Catchpool!” Poirot cried out, startling me.

  “Yes? Are you all right?”

  “Be quiet. Close that window! Come and sit.” He seemed very agitated. I returned to my chair as instructed, hoping that I had not been too forthright.

  We sat in silence for nearly five minutes. From time to time Poirot murmured something inaudible. I could have sworn that at one point I heard him whisper, “Shut up the drawer, without the drawer,” but he would not confirm it.

  I waited. It became rather tiresome. I was on the point of objecting when he stood up, walked over to me, grabbed my head with both of his hands and kissed the top of it. “Mon ami, without knowing how I might apply your suggestion, you have solved the riddle in my mind! I am indebted to you, more than I can say. At last, the full pattern reveals itself to Poirot!”

  “Jolly good,” I said coolly.

  “But, if I may make a small criticism . . . it is beyond me, quite beyond me, that you could say what you have said and still not see what is now so clear. Never mind! We must make haste. Send word to Inspector Conree that Hercule Poirot, he is ready! And then find Sophie Bourlet and bring her to the parlor, as soon as you can. Hurry, Catchpool!”

  34

  Motive and Opportunity

  Three hours later, Sergeant O’Dwyer and I had managed to shepherd everybody into the drawing room. It was a tense and terse gathering even before Poirot opened the proceedings. Inspector Conree was furious to have been ousted as leading man. He had abandoned his ongoing chin-erosion project and allowed his head to hang at an angle that would have suggested a broken neck to those unfamiliar with his habits.

  Apart from Conree, O’Dwyer, Poirot and me, the others gathered in the room were Lady Playford, Harry and Dorro, Randall Kimpton and Claudia, Michael Gathercole and Orville Rolfe, Sophie Bourlet, Hatton, Phyllis the maid and Brigid the cook, who was the first to speak.

  “What’s all this fuss, then?” she asked, glaring at each of us in turn. “I don’t sit about in the middle of the day! Meals wouldn’t get cooked if I did! I hope no one thinks I’ve time for this idleness, because I haven’t. Want to starve, do you? You’ll let me go if you don’t.” Her muscly arms looked ready to propel her out of the chair at any moment.

  Claudia said, “I will dance naked in front of Buckingham Palace if you didn’t cook tonight’s lunch and dinner between five and eight this morning, Brigid. Go on—admit it.”

  “Oh! Be a good sort and convince her that you didn’t, Brigid.” Kimpton winked at the cook, who responded with a huff of disapproval. “Meanwhile, I must work on getting myself hired as His Majesty’s head gardener.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen.” From the front of the room, Poirot gave a small bow. “I will detain you all no longer than is necessary. Dr. Kimpton, I would be grateful to encounter no interruptions. What I have to say to you all is important.”

  “I don’t doubt it, old boy,” said Kimpton. “Quick word in my own defense before you get under way: by any reasonable definition of ‘interrupt,’ I did not interrupt you. When I spoke, you had said nothing and requested nobody’s undivided attention. I believe I have . . .”—Kimpton made a show of counting heads—“. . . fourteen witnesses who will support my claim if necessary. But point taken and over to you, Poirot. I’m hoping you might be able to enlighten us in the matter of Joseph Scotcher’s murder.”

  “That is my intention, and why we are here.”

  Through all this I stood by Poirot’s side in front of the unlit fire, wishing I knew what he was about to say.

  “This is not by any means the first murder I have investigated,” he began. “It is, however, one of the most straightforward. So many questions I have wrestled with, and yet the solution to this puzzle is breathtakingly simple—almost alarmingly so.”

  “We are hardly in a position to agree or disagree with that,” said Claudia. “Why don’t you tell us what you have discovered, and then we can all reflect together upon the character of the crime?”

  “Do not interrupt, dearest one,” Randall Kimpton murmured.

  “Straightforward, Poirot?” Lady Playford’s voice came from the back of the room, wh
ere she sat in front of the French windows. “A man’s head smashed in with a club, and then it turns out he was poisoned before that, and you call it straightforward?”

  “Yes, Lady Playford. Conceptually and in theory, this was an orderly and . . . yes, I would be forced to say that it was an elegant crime. The reality was quite different. The murderer had to adapt to changing circumstances and unforeseen events. All did not go as planned, but if it had . . .” Poirot’s face was grave. “When evil makes itself orderly, the danger is severe. Most severe indeed.”

  I shivered. If only Hatton or Phyllis had thought to light the fire. It was a cold day—the coldest for a while.

  “With any murder, one must consider motive and opportunity,” said Poirot. “Let us start with opportunity because that part is simple. It would seem that, apart from Inspector Conree, Sergeant O’Dwyer and Catchpool here, anyone in this room could have murdered Joseph Scotcher. For the moment, we will put to one side the clubbing in the parlor. I will return later to that, but first let us address the murder itself. We know that traces of strychnine were found in the blue bottle in Scotcher’s room, and we know that, in the presence of Sophie Bourlet, Scotcher took whatever medicine—or supposed medicine—was in that bottle at five o’clock every day, including on the day that he died. His death was caused by strychnine poisoning, as we heard at the inquest.”

  There was a murmur of agreement from some.

  “Apart from the three exceptions I have named, there is no one among you who could not have entered Scotcher’s room before five o’clock that day and put strychnine into the blue bottle,” said Poirot. “So, we move on to motive. Most of you had a reason to want Scotcher dead. If I may start with you, Viscount Playford?”

  “What?” Harry looked up, apparently confused. Then he rallied and remembered his manners. “Righto, yes. With you, old chap. Do go ahead. My pleasure.”

  “As the sixth Viscount Playford of Clonakilty, you naturally expected to inherit a portion of your mother’s estate. You expected it as any son would. You were already unhappy about the terms of your late father’s will, perhaps—your wife certainly was. Then one night at dinner you hear that there is to be no provision for you at all—you have been supplanted by Joseph Scotcher. If he were to be removed, however . . .”

  “Of course Harry expected his fair share!” said Dorro. “Didn’t you, Harry? What son would not?”

  “And you, madame, as Viscount Playford’s wife, you too had this expectation.” Poirot smiled at her. “The property of the husband is the property of the wife. This gives you, also, a motive to kill. I would suggest that your motive differs from your husband’s quite markedly, however. In your case, the new will is the beginning and end of it—fear of poverty, an insecure future, a need to see to it that the money comes to you. Not so your husband.”

  “No? I say!” said Harry. He and Dorro both looked surprised. “Out with it, then! What was my motive for wanting poor old Scotcher out of the way?”

  “You knew what would happen to your wife if Scotcher were to survive,” Poirot told him. “How bitter she would become and how obsessed. She would talk of nothing but the new will, and your straitened circumstances, you feared. You would be doomed to listen to her relentless discontent for the rest of your life, with little or no money to spend on enjoyable distractions.”

  Dorro stood up. “How dare you speak of me in that manner! Harry, do something. This is nonsense! If the poison was put in the bottle before five . . . well, Harry and I didn’t know about the new will until dinner, which was served at seven!”

  “Please sit down, madame. What you say is quite correct, but remember: for now I speak only of motive.”

  “Thank you for admitting I’m right, at least!” Dorro sounded furious, and not grateful in the least.

  Poirot turned to Harry, who was easier to deal with in every respect. “Viscount Playford, I have demonstrated that both you and your wife had a motive. You did not, however, murder Joseph Scotcher. Neither one of you did it.”

  “That’s the ticket!” Harry nodded. He reached over and patted Dorro’s knee with a hearty “Ha! Good-oh!”

  “Mademoiselle Claudia . . . ,” said Poirot.

  “Am I to be next? How thrilling.”

  “In spite of your engagement to Dr. Kimpton, your mother’s altered will would, I believe, have been a sufficient motive for you too. Perhaps you did not need the money or the land, but you are a person preoccupied by injustices. You think it unfair that your brother inherited your father’s title. Why not you, as the eldest child? And then to learn that Joseph Scotcher was to take something else that you saw as rightfully yours—”

  “You need not continue,” Claudia cut him off in a bored voice. “Of course I had a motive—anyone can see it! Though I should have killed Mother, not Joseph. After all, it was hardly his fault. Blame is something one ought to be very precise about, don’t you think?”

  “I believe one ought to be very precise about everything,” said Kimpton.

  “There is also the small matter of execution,” said Claudia. “Oh!” She giggled. “I don’t mean that sort of execution—the deathly sort. I mean the carrying out of one’s plans. No murder planned by me would involve poisoning and bludgeoning. Whoever is responsible made a dreadful muddle of it all. Bungled the whole show, as far as I can see.”

  “You are lying!” Sophie Bourlet spat the words out. “I saw you with the club in your hand!”

  “Oh, dear. Must we have this argument again?” Claudia raised her eyes to the ceiling. “I did not kill Joseph—tell her, Poirot, for heaven’s sake.” To Sophie she said, “I found him awfully compelling company, you know. And I care far too much about self-preservation to kill anybody in a way that would get me caught. If I ever killed a person—and I must stop imagining it or I might be tempted; so many deserve it—I would ensure that I did not fall under suspicion even for a second. If that proved impossible, I would leave the wretch alive, much as it might pain me to be merciful.”

  “Fighting talk, dearest one!” Kimpton clapped his hands together in appreciation. Michael Gathercole turned away in disgust.

  “Claudia Playford did not murder Joseph Scotcher,” said Poirot. “And so we move on to Randall Kimpton.”

  “Aha! I must pay attention,” said Kimpton.

  “You, monsieur, had more reasons to kill Scotcher than anybody else here—persuasive ones, all of them. Scotcher stole your first love, Iris Morphet. And now he was about to steal, as you would see it, Lady Playford’s estate in its entirety. What an injustice! Your wife-to-be, to whom you are devoted, cut off altogether! That might have been motive enough for you on its own, even without the matter of Iris Morphet.”

  “Ample motive,” Kimpton agreed easily.

  “Let us talk a little more about Iris,” said Poirot. “She deserted you in order to marry Scotcher, you told me, but that did not happen. Instead, her relationship with Scotcher came to an end. We can speculate about how and why this happened, but we do not know for sure. All we know is that she regretted her decision—but it was too late. You would not take her back.”

  “Would you have, in my place? A woman who has left me once already, for a man many times my inferior? A man who imitated me, who tried to replicate my mannerisms in order to make himself more popular? I do not see what you hope to achieve by going over this, Poirot. I have no more to say about Iris. I thought we were going to talk about all my excellent reasons for murdering Scotcher.”

  “That is what I am trying to do, mon ami. Please, be patient. After you rejected Iris, she married Percival Gillow, a man without prospects and of questionable character. Within a year of her marriage, she was dead. She fell under a train, you told me.”

  “That is correct,” Kimpton confirmed briskly.

  Poirot left my side and started to walk around the room as he spoke. “Cleverly—ingeniously—you told me two things one after the other: that Mr. Gillow was an unsavory character, and that the police were u
nable to prove that he pushed his wife under a train. You intended for me to think that if anyone had pushed Iris, it was her husband—that the death of Iris was either murder by Percival Gillow or an accident. But that is not what you truly believe.”

  “Is that so?” Kimpton smiled. He seemed to be trying for nonchalance, but I was unconvinced.

  “Dr. Kimpton, remember that I have been to England. I have spoken to many people, including the police who investigated Iris Gillow’s death. They told me about your visits to them, about your insistence that Joseph Scotcher had murdered Iris because she had found out that he was not ill, as he claimed, and had confronted him with what she knew. He feared exposure from her and so he murdered her—that was what you suspected then and still suspect to this day, is it not?”

  “Very well—yes, it is. So you have met Inspector Thomas Blakemore, have you? In which case, he will have told you that there was no proof of anything, hence the inquest verdict: accidental death.”

  “I have a question for you, Dr. Kimpton,” said Poirot. “If you believe that Scotcher murdered Iris, why did you encourage me to suspect Percival Gillow?”

  “Can’t you work it out, Poirot? I would have thought your psychological expertise would make short work of such an easily solvable puzzle. No? All right, I will tell you. In Oxford, when I was a younger man with lots of energy and a fair amount of optimism about people and what sort of stuff they were made of, I tried to convince all the trusting fools, Scotcher’s willing dupes. I was as sure as I could be that Scotcher was a liar and a malingerer, with not a scrap wrong with him physically, and so, naturally, I told people. Well, I was as good as ostracized! Scotcher put as much effort into convincing everybody that he was sick as I did into persuading them that he wasn’t. He treated a few influential Oxford acquaintances to a meeting with his fake doctor, just as he invited me to one with his fake brother. Both of these nonexistent characters were Joseph Scotcher in disguise: bearded and dark-skinned, at least to the wrist.”