The Killings at Kingfisher Hill

by Sophie Hannah

  ‘You notice everything, don’t you?’ said Daisy.

  ‘But Catchpool does not yet comprehend,’ said Poirot. ‘When I finally sat beside you, mademoiselle, you told me that you would not have been surprised if Monsieur Bixby had employed actors to give a false impression of the coach being full. When you said that, I knew at once: you were as aware as I of the fullness of the coach. You knew that every seat would be taken by somebody eventually. There was no chance that the one next to you would remain unoccupied. Why, then, I asked myself, would you leave your book on it so that no one could sit down, when there were people boarding the vehicle at this exact moment? Sooner or later you would have had to move the book and accept a neighbour for the journey, so why would you not do so immediately? There seemed only one possible answer: you were saving that seat for a particular person. Winnie Lord.’

  ‘But the two of them were not together,’ I said, confused. ‘Joan … Winnie … was standing alone. You, Miss Devonport, were standing some distance away and making loud, unpleasant remarks about her for all to hear. As if she were a stranger for whom you had nothing but disdain.’

  ‘I was angry,’ said Daisy. ‘Winnie and I had been together until she behaved in a way that disappointed me greatly. That was when she ran away from me and started to behave like a gibbering fool. I hoped that by speaking so harshly, I might bring her to her senses—remind her that she and I were friends and that she owed me a certain loyalty. I had always been good to her. The green hat and coat she was wearing were gifts from me and they were not inexpensive.’

  ‘What made her run away from you?’ said Poirot. ‘Wait—I think I know the answer. Remember, Catchpool, that when you first spoke to Winnie Lord and introduced yourself as an inspector from Scotland Yard, she replied that you could not be a police inspector, that it was impossible. She demanded to know your true identity. This provides the clue to what must have taken place between her and Mademoiselle Daisy only minutes before, leaving her so shocked and afraid—and making you, mademoiselle, so angry. You frequently find yourself feeling disproportionately angry, do you not? You experience the wild rage that can barely be contained when there has been only the mildest provocations.’

  Daisy closed her eyes.

  Poirot said, ‘On the coach, when Catchpool here merely glanced at your book, you reacted with disproportionate aggression, as you did when you spoke so savagely of Winnie Lord in front of the other passengers. When I first sat next to you, you expressed hostility towards me. Generally, mademoiselle, you were full of the rage that had no obvious cause. This is how a person behaves when they have suppressed their natural anger—caused by an oppressive parent, in this instance, and the forced disavowal of a beloved brother—for far too long.’

  ‘M. Poirot, may I tell you something?’ Daisy leaned forward.

  ‘Please.’

  ‘When I saw that I would have to smash up Winnie’s head and face so that no one would recognize her, I … I rather relished the prospect. She was dead already, with the poker lying beside her and some blood under her head, and … well, I worked up a considerable sweat while doing it. I felt calm and peaceful afterwards, as if the anger that had been boiling in me for so long had drained away.’

  ‘You must also have been angry with Frank,’ said Poirot. ‘Your parents had caused you the greatest unhappiness by forcing the two of you apart … yet Frank was ready to forgive them and seemed to return with no bitterness in his heart. Did you not feel betrayed by him?’

  Daisy smiled. ‘Goodness me, you really are as clever as people say you are.’

  ‘And you are a highly imaginative young woman.’

  ‘When I first met you, I accused you of making too much of a fuss about murder,’ said Daisy. ‘That is not my true opinion. Murder is a terrible thing. The most terrible of all. I wish …’ She gasped suddenly. ‘I wish that Frank were still alive. I wish it with all my heart.’

  ‘Yes, I see that it is so,’ Poirot said gently. ‘When he was killed, you were grief-stricken—more full of rage than ever. You wanted to make others suffer as you suffered. You asked yourself: what would be the cruellest possible punishment that you could inflict upon Sidney and Lilian Devonport? A clever and devious plan occurred to you. When did you think of it? Long before you first encountered Hercule Poirot by the side of a motor-coach, I think.’

  ‘It was very soon after Frank died,’ said Daisy. ‘I heard Helen tell the police that she had already pushed him over the balcony by the time anybody else appeared on the landing. And I … I saw with my own eyes that all Mother and Father saw was Frank falling to his death. They did not notice me at all, though I was there too, standing between them and Helen. They couldn’t have been sure that it was not I who pushed Frank.’

  ‘Eh bien, you had the idea that was at once outrageous and all too easy to put into action,’ said Poirot. ‘What if you were to pretend that you were the killer and that your motive for murdering your brother was the belief, instilled in you by your parents’ determined indoctrination, that Frank was a danger to the family? Why, then Sidney and Lilian Devonport would be forced to confront an intolerable realization: that they had lost the son they had only just regained and that it was entirely their own fault, and a direct result of their unwillingness to allow you to have your own thoughts and feelings about Frank. Such effort had they put into making you believe he was a danger—and now, when they have relented and want only to reclaim their banished, lost son … now they must pay the price for having so brainwashed you against him!’

  ‘Yes. It was the perfect reversal,’ said Daisy. ‘When I wanted to keep Frank, they wouldn’t allow it. Then, when they wanted to keep him, I wouldn’t allow it—and for the very same reason: because now I was the one to believe him to be a terrible danger, and I only believed that because they had made me believe it. It makes for a marvellous story, don’t you think, M. Poirot?’

  ‘How much of this “perfect reversal” story did you tell to Winnie Lord?’ said Poirot.

  ‘That is why she was in such a state of distress, yes? You saw Poirot and decided that you must play your game with him—confess to this murder you had not committed—and so why not practise by first telling the tale to Winnie?’

  ‘I needed something to keep me entertained,’ said Daisy. ‘Alfred Bixby was taking an age to open the doors of the coach and I was freezing to death.’

  ‘That must be why Winnie responded so strangely when I introduced myself as a police inspector,’ I said.

  ‘Indeed,’ said Poirot. ‘Winnie Lord was at that very moment considering whether to go to the police with this new information she had just received. Then suddenly, a representative of Scotland Yard appeared beside her! It must all have seemed so incroyable to her as to make her wonder: could all of this be a joke played by her friend Daisy Devonport? First the confession, and so soon afterwards, the policeman?’

  ‘Winnie turned out to be no friend of mine,’ Daisy said bitterly. ‘I thought she would stand by me no matter what, but she proved to be a disloyal piece of work if ever there was one. She threatened to tell the police—even though I had just taken her up to London and bought her a beautiful new hat and coat. I had to offer her a sizeable amount of money to secure her silence. I knew she and her mother were in desperate need of it.’

  ‘Mademoiselle, tell me … what precisely did you say to Winnie Lord about why you had killed Frank?’

  ‘Before we boarded the coach? Nothing at all. Only that I had done it and Helen was innocent. Afterwards, when I found her weeping by the side of a road near the Tartar Inn at Cobham, I told her a lot more. I said that … Well, first I told her everything that I had told you.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘She was by turns sullen and hysterical,’ Daisy said impatiently. ‘She kept asking how I could let Helen Acton hang for a crime I had committed. Had I not just told her that I had confessed, and to none other than Hercule Poirot? Silly fool. She really was tedious about it. At that point
I couldn’t resist telling her the whole story of why I had murdered Frank, though of course I had done no such thing—but anything to relieve the boredom of having to deal with her.’

  ‘So you told Winnie Lord only then—at Cobham—that your true reason for killing Frank was not that you believed him to be evil and dangerous, but instead that you wished your parents to think you had done it for this reason and to believe that their earlier indoctrination of you against your brother had caused the tragedy?’

  ‘Exactly, yes,’ said Daisy with a slight smile. ‘So that they would have to live with the knowledge of their own culpability. I told Winnie that I was only going to admit to my false motive, you see: saving my family from the evil and dangerous Frank. My perfect revenge only worked if they thought I had done it because of what they had made me believe about Frank.’

  ‘I see,’ said Poirot. ‘So if that was your false motive, then your other one, your “perfect revenge” motive, as you call it—would you describe that as your true motive, even though you did not commit the murder?’

  Daisy nodded. ‘It was true. A motive can be true even if one has not acted upon it.’

  ‘Fascinating,’ Poirot murmured.

  ‘I had hoped that Winnie would be interested in discussing everything that was brilliant about my plan—the structural exquisiteness of it—but instead she only whined about how unpardonable it was that I had allowed the police to believe a different story for so long and risked Helen Acton’s life. Ugh, she was a fool! Do I sound despicable, M. Poirot? Perhaps I am. But Winnie knew as well as I did that Helen wanted to take the blame, or else she would not have done so! She could easily have said that Frank fell. Who would have thought of murder if she had only said it was an accident? Helen wanted to die. She still does. But Winnie was too stupid to see that.’

  Poirot nodded. He said, ‘Let us hear now about the other story you invented. The one that had not been created in your mind months in advance but was, rather, an improvisation on the day of our journey by coach.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Daisy looked puzzled.

  ‘The mysterious stranger with his warning of murder,’ said Poirot. ‘The seat in the seventh row beside the aisle, on the right.’

  ‘Oh, that.’

  ‘Oui, mademoiselle. That.’

  ‘As you say, it was an on-the-spot improvisation.’

  ‘Hold on a minute,’ I said. ‘Are you suggesting that—’

  ‘Yes, Catchpool,’ said Poirot. ‘The story told to us by Winnie Lord was preposterous, sensational nonsense from start to finish. There was not a grain of truth in it. It was invented by Mademoiselle Daisy with the sole aim of arranging for me to sit next to her so that she could make to me her murder confession.’

  My face must have made for a gruesome picture at this point in the proceedings. To think that I had listened so carefully to Winnie’s lies and wasted hours since that day trying to make sense of the large helping of codswallop she had fed us!

  ‘And Winnie agreed to tell this ridiculous tale at your behest, when she believed you to be a murderer?’ I asked Daisy. ‘No wonder she could barely bring herself to board the coach and sit beside you after what you had told her.’

  ‘I have already told you: I offered her a large sum of money to do as I asked. I bought her unquestioning compliance just as Father had always bought Mother’s and mine and Richard’s.’ Daisy frowned. ‘But I’m not a tyrant like Father. I was always good to Winnie. I cared for her. When I told her I had killed Frank, I expected her to be shocked, naturally, but there was no need for her to walk away from me as if I had a contagious disease. If she had made a similar confession to me, I would have asked her why first of all. I’d have done my best to understand her predicament. And … well I hadn’t committed a murder, so it felt rather unfair to be ostracized when I knew I was innocent.’ Seeing my expression, Daisy said sharply, ‘You do not need to point out to me the flaw in my reasoning, Inspector Catchpool. I’m well aware of it. Do you want the whole truth or do you not? Our true thoughts are often profoundly irrational.’

  ‘Did you tell Winnie Lord to pretend that her name was Joan Blythe?’ asked Poirot.

  ‘No. That was the one thing I didn’t think of: a name for her. She must have thought of the book and decided that the name of its author would do. Midnight Gathering would have been at the forefront of her mind because—’

  ‘Please, allow me,’ Poirot interrupted. ‘May I tell this part of the story?’

  ‘Very well.’ Daisy eyed him doubtfully.

  ‘Catchpool.’ He turned to me. ‘Remind us of what Mademoiselle Daisy told me when I asked her where she had obtained the book?’

  ‘She said, “It was originally a gift from …” then stopped and would not say the rest.’

  ‘The word “originally” is most informative,’ said Poirot. ‘When one is given a gift that one keeps—and we know that you still had the book in your possession, mademoiselle—one has no need to say the word “originally”. One would use that word only if the book, at the time of asking, was no longer the gift that it once was, that it had originally been. Do you see, Catchpool?’

  ‘No, I don’t see at all,’ I said.

  ‘Think about it, mon ami. If the book was given to Daisy Devonport by her friend Humphrey and she still had it, as we know she did, then it remained a gift from Humphrey. There would be no need to use the word “originally”. If, however, it had at one time been a gift from Mademoiselle Daisy to Winnie Lord, a gift that Winnie had very recently returned as a gesture of disgust and defiance after Mademoiselle Daisy confessed to the murder of Frank Devonport …’

  ‘Are you saying that the book was a present from Daisy to Winnie Lord, and then Winnie gave it back to her?’ I said.

  ‘I believe this is so, yes.’

  ‘He is quite right,’ said Daisy. ‘Winnie loved that book. Carried it with her wherever she went. I had written a special message inside it for her, and it meant the world to her. Soon after I told her that I had killed Frank, the driver of the coach came to take our suitcases and bags to stow them away. Winnie made him wait while she removed Midnight Gathering from her case. She handed it back to me and said, “I don’t want this any more. You can have it back.” So, yes: it was originally a gift from me to Winnie—one she later rejected. That is why I had it with me on the coach. I would hardly have …’ Daisy stopped abruptly. A red hue crept across her face.

  ‘You would hardly have wanted or needed to read Midnight Gathering yourself,’ Poirot finished her sentence for her. ‘You knew every word in its pages and every episode in its narrative almost by heart—because you, Daisy Devonport, under the name Joan Blythe, are the book’s author.’

  ‘Please, you mustn’t tell a soul.’ Daisy’s face had turned white. ‘I know I have no right to ask it of you, but I beg of you—’

  ‘How did you know, Poirot?’ I said incredulously.

  ‘A little guesswork, followed by the calculation of probabilities.’ He looked at Daisy. ‘Why, I wondered, was this one novel of particular importance to you—you who have such a vivid imagination, such a skill for making up sensational and irresistible stories—and you who also, if you will pardon me, care so much more for your own inventions and what goes on in your own mind than for the truth or what might matter to anybody else? Why would you give this book to everyone who matters to you? My suspicion was confirmed when I visited a publisher in London yesterday—a Mr Humphrey Pluckrose of Pluckrose & Prince. You were not altogether lying, mademoiselle, when you said that Humphrey Pluckrose had given you the book. It was not a gift, however; you had signed a contract with his firm that obliged him to furnish you with copies of your own novel.’

  ‘Please keep this knowledge to yourself,’ begged Daisy. ‘My writing is the only part of my life that my family knows nothing about and has no involvement in. It is my freedom.’

  I thought of Winnie Lord’s fear when I uttered the words ‘Midnight Gathering’. When she heard me say it,
she must have thought that the jig was up: that I had seen her take the book out of her suitcase and hand it to Daisy. If I had, I would have known that they were not strangers to one another. When I explained that the woman who had been sitting beside her in the seventh row had a book with that title, her fear dissolved: it was then clear to her that I knew nothing of her personal connection to Midnight Gathering or to Daisy Devonport.

  ‘Will you keep my secret?’ said Daisy. ‘Please, M. Poirot, Inspector Catchpool. It is of paramount importance to me that this should remain unknown. Nobody apart from the employees of Pluckrose & Prince knows that I am Joan Blythe.’

  ‘Do you know what is of paramount importance to me?’ Poirot said softly. ‘The truth about the two murders at Little Key. You have told me so much of it, mademoiselle, but still not all of it. Never mind. I shall tell the rest to you—as soon as Sergeant Gidley can fetch Helen Acton from Holloway prison and bring her here.’

  CHAPTER 16

  Little Key, Heavy Door

  The next day at noon, the drawing room at Little Key was full of people. Every seat, including those borrowed from Peepers HQ, was occupied. Poirot, Sergeant Gidley, Inspector Marcus Capeling and I sat on straight-backed chairs in a row closest to the door. Helen Acton, with an unreadable expression on her face, sat on the piano stool with her back to the piano. I imagined her turning, lifting the instrument’s lid and starting to play, though it was hard to fathom what sort of music would be appropriate for an occasion of this type.

  Also present, and seated on the more comfortable armchairs and sofas, were Sidney, Lilian, Daisy and Richard Devonport, Oliver Prowd and Godfrey and Verna Laviolette.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Poirot began.

  He was at once interrupted by Oliver Prowd, who said, ‘What about Percy Semley? Should he not be here too?’

  ‘No,’ said Poirot. ‘I will speak of him later, for he is important, but his presence is not required. Let us start, then, with the facts. We have two murders to discuss today: the murder of Frank Devonport and the murder of Winnie Lord.’