The Killings at Kingfisher Hill

by Sophie Hannah

  ‘After that we both stayed in Lilian’s bedroom drinking tea and reading the newspapers until we were disturbed by Daisy’s screams.’

  ‘Ungodly screams.’ Lilian glanced disapprovingly at her daughter. ‘There was no need to make quite so much noise. I nearly died of a heart attack.’

  ‘What was I supposed to do upon finding a dead, faceless woman sprawled across the carpet?’ said Daisy smoothly. ‘Say “Oh, how marvellous” and carry on with my day?’

  ‘Mademoiselle Daisy, you found the woman’s body at eleven?’

  ‘Yes. The grandfather clock in the drawing room started to chime the hour while I was screaming. Before that, Oliver and I were walking around the garden. The weather has been so dreary and relentless recently, and this morning it was milder and even quite bright, so we thought we would make the most of it. We left here at … actually, I don’t remember. Do you remember, Oliver?’

  ‘Not precisely, no,’ he muttered, looking down at his hands. The depth of his unhappiness struck me in that moment more forcefully than it had before. Did he still refuse to believe that Daisy had killed Frank as he had at first, I wondered. Or was he now convinced of her guilt and desolate at the prospect of losing her?

  ‘Oh!’ Verna Laviolette exclaimed. ‘I think I might be able to help. Sidney, are you quite certain of when you took Lilian’s breakfast up to her?’

  ‘Certain,’ he barked.

  ‘In that case, M. Poirot, I can tell you that Daisy and Oliver set out on their walk very soon after that. You see, Sidney has a habit of—forgive me, Sidney, but one must be completely truthful when helping the police to solve a murder—he has a habit of closing doors much more decisively than he needs to.’

  ‘Slamming is the word you want,’ said Daisy.

  ‘Well … yes.’ Verna cast a nervous glance at Sidney as she spoke. ‘My bedroom, the guest room that I sleep in whenever I’m here, is next to Lilian’s. I slept in rather late today, having been unable to fall asleep until three or four o’clock in the morning—quite usual for me, I’m afraid—and I was woken suddenly by a loud slamming sound. I thought, “Oh, boy, is there trouble brewing?” So I put on my dressing gown and went out onto the landing, and I saw Oliver and Daisy heading out for their walk. Then when I was back in my room I looked out of my window and saw them in the garden.’

  ‘You heard the slam of the door and thought it might mean that there was trouble?’ asked Poirot.

  ‘Well … oh, darn it, M. Poirot, I’m going to be completely candid with you, even if you think the worse of me. Sometimes that sound can mean nothing, like today, when it only meant that Sidney had walked into a room and closed the door behind him. Other times, that same noise can mean Sidney’s about to lose his temper with somebody and everyone else had better take cover if they know what’s good for them.’

  ‘Yet you did not take cover,’ Poirot said. ‘You went out onto the landing.’

  ‘Yes, well …’ Verna’s cheeks had turned pink. ‘I will admit that my curiosity is usually greater than my fear, irrespective of the occasion.’

  ‘Verna, are you saying in front of all these people that you went out onto the landing to eavesdrop?’ Godfrey Laviolette looked aghast.

  ‘Yes, Godfrey, I am. Oh, come on, don’t look at me like that! It’s basic human nature to want to know what’s going on. Anyway, M. Poirot, none of that matters. I don’t want to hog the limelight and talk about myself, inconsequential as I am. What I’m trying to tell you is this: once I’d satisfied myself that there weren’t going to be any juicy tidbits for me to overhear, I went back to my room and through my window I saw Daisy and Oliver walking in the garden.’

  ‘Thank you, madame,’ said Poirot.

  ‘You will not be invited to this house again,’ Sidney told Verna.

  ‘Oh, is that so?’ She smiled. ‘So how are you and Godfrey going to be able to work on Peepers together, if I’m no longer welcome? You don’t think my husband’s going to come here without me, do you? Godfrey won’t stand for that, will you, Godfrey?’

  ‘Monsieur Prowd,’ interrupted Poirot. ‘Does the account of Madame Laviolette match your memory of what happened this morning?’

  ‘Yes,’ Daisy answered for him.

  Prowd nodded. ‘Yes. Forty minutes after nine, that sounds correct. Daisy and I walked around the garden, then around the estate. We walked up to the swimming pool and then we strolled in the wooded area beside it. Then at around fifteen minutes before eleven Daisy said that she was tired and wanted to go home, so we did. She walked into the drawing room, found the body and started to scream.’

  ‘Where were you when she found the body?’ I asked him.

  ‘In the entrance hall, about ten steps behind her. I wish I could have got to the drawing room first and spared her the ordeal.’

  Daisy gave him a sharp look, from which I gathered that in her opinion she was far better equipped to handle ordeals than her fiancé.

  Godfrey Laviolette said, ‘Can I take my turn now? When Sidney left me to go to Lilian, I went to the library to read. There I found Richard.’

  ‘That’s right. I was in the library writing letters and reading from nine o’clock,’ said Richard.

  ‘What about you, Mr Semley?’ I asked. Since he was here, it seemed rude to exclude him.

  ‘I was at home,’ said Semley. ‘This mess has nothing to do with me.’

  ‘You were alone at Kingfisher’s View?’ Poirot asked him.

  ‘No, I was with my aunt.’

  ‘What is her name?’

  ‘Hester Semley. I was with her for most of the morning. Certainly between ten and eleven.’

  ‘And she will confirm that the two of you were together?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Semley.

  ‘Eh bien,’ said Poirot. ‘Then it seems that the only person in this house who was alone at the time of the young woman’s brutal murder, and therefore without the convenient alibi, is you, Madame Laviolette.’

  ‘Golly.’ Verna’s eyes widened. ‘You’re right, M. Poirot. I was alone all morning, until I heard Daisy screaming and came downstairs. I swear to you, I didn’t touch that girl. Why would I do such a thing?’

  Ignoring her question, Poirot said, ‘Those of you who were in the house at any time during the morning—did you hear anyone knock at the door? Between ten and eleven o’clock or even before then?’

  ‘I did,’ said Richard Devonport. ‘I’m afraid that is all I can tell you, though. I was engrossed in my book and only dimly aware of somebody needing to answer the door. I decided, rather selfishly, that it could be left to someone who was not busy reading. Oh! If I was reading, that must mean I had finished writing my letters, which means the visitor must have arrived shortly before ten. Godfrey was already in the library with me—’

  ‘I heard no one at the door,’ Godfrey cut in.

  ‘There was definitely a knock,’ said Richard. ‘I would place it at about ten minutes before ten.’

  ‘But you heard nothing more than this?’ Poirot asked him. ‘No conversation or introductions?’

  ‘I did not,’ said Richard. ‘As I say, I was thoroughly immersed in my book, and the door knocker is much louder than voices speaking at an ordinary level.’

  ‘I heard … something, now that I come to think of it,’ said Verna. ‘How funny that I didn’t think of it before. Not the front door, but I heard Lilian’s bedroom door close softly, a while after I heard Sidney slam it. I remember thinking, “Well, it can’t be Sidney who closed the door that time. He’s never closed a door so quietly in his life.” I went out onto the landing again—’

  ‘For goodness sake, Verna, will you stop spying on our friends?’ Godfrey exclaimed. The cheeks of his smooth, ageless face had turned bright red. He looked like a wooden doll onto whom somebody had painted red spots for colour.

  ‘Stop bullying me, Godfrey,’ Verna retaliated. ‘I imagine that M. Poirot and Inspector Catchpool are delighted that I’m able to tell them all the th
ings I observed.’

  ‘Delighted,’ I said coolly. I did not like her at all.

  ‘What did you see when you ventured out onto the landing?’ Poirot asked her.

  ‘I saw Lilian,’ she said simply. ‘She was about to walk down the stairs. I assume she did, but I didn’t see her go all the way to the bottom. I went back to my room.’

  Lilian Devonport frowned. ‘Verna, you cannot have seen me. I was in my bedroom the whole time.’ She sounded more puzzled than angry.

  Verna looked confused now too. ‘It’s peculiar,’ she admitted. ‘I didn’t hear the door close or slam a third time, you see, and yet when Daisy started screaming we all ran out of our rooms and Sidney and Lilian both came out of Lilian’s room at the same time that I came out of mine. So why didn’t I hear Lilian going back to her room after going downstairs?’

  The question was directed at Poirot, but it was Lilian who answered it: ‘For the simple reason that I never left my room in the first place,’ she said. ‘You cannot have seen my face, Verna.’

  ‘No. You’re right, I did not. I saw your long hair, from the back. It was loose. And you were wearing your nightgown. And it was definitely your bedroom door that I heard opening and then closing again.’

  ‘It was not me, Verna,’ said Lilian quietly.

  ‘Wait,’ said Oliver Prowd. ‘Daisy and I were outside, Richard and Godfrey were in the library, Sidney was in Lilian’s room with Lilian. There were no servants here this morning—darling, you told me at breakfast that Sidney had let the little scarecrow go, the girl who had briefly replaced Winnie?’

  ‘What of it?’ said Daisy. ‘She was worse than no help at all.’

  ‘I simply mean that … well, if it was not Lilian that Verna saw going down the stairs dressed in Lilian’s nightgown, and the rest of us are all accounted for, then who was it?’

  ‘There is no one else it could have been,’ said Richard.

  ‘What if there is?’ said Oliver, looking around the table. ‘What if there is someone else in the house—someone who has been hiding for goodness knows how long and who is still here now?’

  CHAPTER 12

  Irritating Little Questions

  Silence descended on the room. After a few seconds, Poirot said, ‘Tell us, Monsieur Prowd. You have a theory, do you not?’

  ‘I wouldn’t call it a theory, but what if the woman Verna saw on the stairs was the same one who ended up dead in the drawing room? She might have arrived yesterday and spent the night here in one of the many empty bedrooms.’ Seeming to warm to his theory, Oliver went on: ‘No one apart from Richard heard a knock at the front door this morning—not even Godfrey who was in the library with Richard at the time. So perhaps Richard never heard the door. He might have imagined it.’

  ‘Is that possible, Mr Devonport?’ I asked him.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Richard. ‘I … goodness me, I’m not sure. Until it was called into question, I would have said I was certain that I had heard the door, but maybe I … No. I’m sorry, Inspector. I could not swear to it. Oliver might be right.’

  ‘I have heard that many of the houses at Kingfisher Hill are haunted,’ said Percy Semley. ‘By spirits,’ he added, in case any of us had imagined a less conventional sort of haunting.

  Poirot turned to him. ‘Monsieur Semley, in a moment, Inspector Catchpool and I will accompany you to your home where we will speak with your aunt. Until then, please say nothing unless I ask you a question. The same instruction applies to you all. I have several things I wish to ask before I leave for Kingfisher’s View. Some of my questions might seem trivial but they are not, so please answer as fully as you can and with complete honesty. It is only once these little matters have been cleared up that I will be able to proceed towards solving the larger, more important puzzles. Madame Devonport, is it customary for you to open and close doors very quietly? Are you the opposite of your husband in this respect?’

  ‘She is,’ said Daisy. ‘Mother creeps around the house silently, like a little mouse.’

  ‘Then, Madame Laviolette, is it not possible that it was indeed Lilian Devonport whom you saw at the top of the stairs, and that you did not hear her return to her bedroom subsequently because she did so very quietly?’

  ‘I suppose …’ Verna considered the matter. ‘I mean, I would say it was kind of unlikely but I suppose it is just about possible.’

  ‘I never left my bedroom,’ Lilian Devonport said indignantly. ‘Are you accusing me of lying, M. Poirot?’

  ‘His sort have no shame,’ growled her husband.

  ‘Monsieur Devonport, on the day of your son Frank’s murder, you compelled Oliver Prowd, the Laviolettes and your other two children to leave this house and spend the morning at a different house—that of Percy Semley—while you and your wife privately welcomed home your estranged son and his fiancée, Helen. What I wish to know is this: why did you choose Kingfisher’s View?’

  ‘I don’t have to explain myself to you,’ Sidney said.

  ‘There are many houses on this estate that are nearer to Little Key than is Monsieur Semley’s house. Are you, perhaps, a dear friend of Hester Semley? Dear enough that she would not object to you asking her to accommodate your family members and guests for the morning?’

  ‘No,’ Sidney snapped. ‘The woman is a tiresome windbag and no friend of mine.’

  ‘I say, old boy!’ Percy Semley looked wounded. ‘What has Aunt Hester ever done to upset you? She’s a harmless old thing.’

  ‘I did not say that she had harmed me, I said that I found her tiresome. We are supposed to tell the truth, are we not? I do find her tiresome—very—and that is after minimal acquaintance. If I knew her any better than I do, I should no doubt detest her.’

  ‘Oh, now, steady on!’ Percy objected.

  Sidney addressed his next remark to me. ‘We nearly bought Kingfisher’s View, which was up for sale. That is how we first made Miss Semley’s acquaintance. Then Godfrey and Verna decided to sell this house, and we bought it in preference to Kingfisher’s View. Being our good friends, Godfrey and Verna offered us a competitive deal that it would have made no sense to refuse. Hester Semley, instead of accepting our decision and minding her own affairs, hounded us relentlessly.’

  ‘You are being horribly unfair, Mr Devonport.’ Percy protested.

  ‘Please, mesdames et messieurs, may I have quiet, unless I am asking a question or you are answering one. Monsieur Devonport, can you explain to me why, in spite of your aversion to Hester Semley, hers was the house to which you sent everybody on the morning of your son Frank’s return to—’

  ‘That was my doing,’ Godfrey Laviolette interrupted. ‘Verna and I are good friends of Hester Semley, who, I should like to say, is a generous-spirited and warm-hearted lady without a bad bone in her body. We often play golf with her at the club here. When I heard Lilian talking one morning about the need to get everyone out of the way so that she and Sidney could spend some time alone with Frank, I suggested that we might all stroll over to Hester’s place. I knew we would receive a warm welcome there, and we did.’

  ‘And, despite your dislike of Miss Semley, you agreed to this suggestion?’ Poirot asked Sidney.

  ‘Why wouldn’t I? It seemed a sensible solution.’

  ‘Why was this privacy so important?’ Poirot asked. ‘Later in the day, everybody else met and spoke to Frank, n’est-ce pas?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Daisy emphatically. ‘I for one have never understood why Mother and Father needed to see Frank first, without the rest of us here—and for so long, too. Mother, why was it? Tell us.’

  Daisy was lying and she wanted us all to know it. It was the sort of ostentatious, proud lying that is better described as a form of acting. Her theatrical manner revealed that she knew the answer to her question only too well and wanted to force Lilian to state it, knowing this was the last thing her mother wished to do.

  ‘There was no particular reason for it,’ said Lilian. She might have been acting too�
�much more subtly and convincingly than her daughter.

  ‘No reason at all,’ Sidney agreed. ‘We simply wanted to see Frank alone.’

  ‘He was not alone,’ I reminded them. ‘He was with Helen Acton.’

  ‘That was unfortunate,’ said Lilian.

  ‘You disliked her even before Frank’s death?’ I said.

  ‘No, I simply wished to be reunited with my son without a stranger being present.’

  Sidney nodded his agreement.

  ‘I see,’ said Poirot. ‘I have now several questions for you, Monsieur Laviolette.’

  ‘Oh, lucky you, Godfrey!’ Verna laughed.

  ‘Why did you ask me to say nothing about the name of this house having been changed from Kingfisher’s Rest to Little Key? You told us—did he not, Catchpool?—that we should not mention this in the presence of Monsieur or Madame Devonport.’

  Godfrey looked caught out. Then he shrugged and said, ‘I didn’t want to upset anybody. Frank was the one who suggested a new name for the house when they bought it from us. He dreamed up Little Key. I knew that any talk about the name would upset Sidney and Lilian. It would have made them think of Frank.’

  Daisy laughed. ‘What Godfrey is too polite to tell you is that, since Frank’s death and Helen’s arrest, there has been an unspoken rule in this house—one of so many. Nobody must mention Frank or Helen. We must all gaily go about our lives as if neither of them ever existed. Anything that my parents do not wholeheartedly approve of is banned from conversation and thought—not only their own, but mine and Richard’s too, and Oliver’s. Even their friends and equals, Godfrey and Verna. Anyone who sets foot in this house gets to know about the unspoken, unwritten rules very quickly.’

  I could see from the faces around the table that this was true. Everyone apart from Sidney and Lilian recognized Daisy’s account of life at Little Key.

  Poirot said to Sidney Devonport, ‘Is this, then, also the explanation for why Winnie could not be mentioned in your wife’s hearing? When Catchpool and I first arrived here as your guests, you gave a signal for your son Richard to distract your wife before explaining that there had been a problem with Winnie. Why did you do that?’