‘Then you are foolish,’ he said. ‘You know nothing of my character.’
‘I believe I do. And I believe there is something you are keeping back, something relating to your expression of despair in the dining room—’
‘Expression of despair! You are too fanciful. May we please change the subject?’
I decided we might as well, since I was getting nowhere. ‘Do you know, or know of, a woman called Iris?’ I asked him.
He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and used it to wipe his face. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I do not.’
CHAPTER 16
Down in the Dumps
It was vexing to have to ask everybody about Poirot’s Iris without knowing who she was, or why he thought her so important. When Sergeant O’Dwyer and I sat down with Harry and Dorro Playford in the library, I decided to get her out of the way first.
‘Iris is a pretty name,’ said Harry Playford. ‘Not sure I know any Irises. Do you, Dorro? Although, wait a second! What about the lady who made that hat for Mother? You know, with the pink lace. She had a little white terrier—Prince, was it? Yappy thing.’ Harry’s demeanour was relaxed and jovial. Murder in his home had not put a crimp in his mood, it seemed. If he was afraid of falling under suspicion, or if he was mourning the demise of Joseph Scotcher, he showed no sign of either.
His wife, by contrast, twitched like a frightened mouse. Her eyes would not keep still; it made me dizzy to look at her. ‘The hat lady’s name was Agnes,’ she said. ‘Did you mean Agnes, Mr Catchpool? Or is it definitely an Iris you want? Who is she? I can think of no one by that name. Has Athie talked about an Iris? Is she someone Joseph Scotcher knew?’
‘I’m afraid I know as little as you do,’ I told her. It was true that Agnes sounded a little like Iris. Could Hatton have misheard Poirot, or did Poirot mishear somebody else? It was safer not to assume it.
‘The dog was Prince, though, what?’ said Harry. ‘Or was it Duke?’
No answer came from Dorro, only a stampede of questions aimed at me. ‘Is it true what Sophie said—that she saw Claudia kill Joseph Scotcher? I have to say that I cannot see Claudia doing that at all. If she were to kill a person, she would not do it where anyone might wander in and see her. Tell them, Harry.’
‘Tell them what, old girl?’
‘That Claudia is innocent! That Sophie must be lying!’
‘I have never known Sophie to lie,’ said Harry thoughtfully. ‘Never known my sister to kill a man either. All very out of character,’ he concluded.
‘There is something that nobody seems to have considered, apart from me,’ said Dorro.
‘Tell us,’ I said.
‘If Claudia hangs for murder, Harry would then stand to inherit Athie’s estate in its entirety. I fear that an accident would then almost certainly befall him! He would become the killer’s next mark. Can you gentlemen truly not see what is happening in plain view?’
O’Dwyer opened his mouth to answer, but was cut off by more frenzied babbling from Dorro. ‘Joseph Scotcher was to be the sole beneficiary, but he was murdered—mere hours after Athie changed her will in his favour! Then the next thing we hear is that Claudia, of all people, has been caught red-handed, clubbing him to death. Attempted murder by hangman, that’s what it is! And if it succeeds, who is left? Harry! I have no doubt that the killer would find a way to dispose of him without delay—and what I want to know is, why are you not finding out who would inherit if Harry and Claudia and Joseph Scotcher are all dead?’
‘Steady on, old girl.’ Harry looked dazed.
‘Ask that Michael Gathercole fellow and see what he says.’ Dorro sounded far from steady. ‘I don’t like him one bit. I shouldn’t be surprised if he were next in line. Athie is awfully fond of him. I can’t think why. But that is how you will find the murderer. I should not be surprised if it were Gathercole, or fat Orville Rolfe. Fat people are as greedy about money as they are about food, more often than not. It must be one of those two lawyers that did it, and you need to prove it. I cannot do it—what resources do I have at my disposal? Meanwhile, Claudia must be shown to be innocent. As soon as the killer sees that there is nothing but Harry standing between him and a vast fortune …’ Dorro buried her face in her hands and started to cry, and at last we were given some respite from the endless flow of words.
Her determination that Claudia be kept alive as protection for Harry meant, of course, that she would proclaim Claudia’s innocence whether she believed in it or not. Her theory left a lot to be desired, I thought. I was no aspiring murderer, but if I had been, I should certainly have had a go at Harry before Claudia. She was much more likely to be on her guard, whereas I imagined one might stroll up to Harry and say, ‘Any objection to getting murdered, old boy?’ and be met with an appreciative guffaw.
He placed his hand on his wife’s arm. ‘Remembering old Prince has started me thinking,’ he said. ‘Would it be jolly to have a little dog running about the place? I rather think it would.’
Dorro shook him off.
‘Where were you both on the evening that Scotcher was killed—between when we all left the dining room and when his body was found?’ I asked.
‘We were with you!’ Dorro said indignantly.
‘Not all the time,’ I reminded her.
‘Let me see,’ said Harry. ‘Well, first Mother shocked us all with her news, and nobody could really get to the bottom of it. Then there was a bit of a to-do, as you’d expect, and then Scotcher knocked us all sideways by asking Sophie to marry him. That was unexpected! Fellow only has a few months to live and he thinks about taking a wife. That’s love for you, I suppose.’
‘A few months?’ I said. ‘I had heard it was only weeks.’
‘I think you might be right,’ said Harry. ‘One never knows with an illness.’
‘Could you describe the to-do, Viscount Playford?’ asked O’Dwyer.
‘I dare say … let me see … Scotcher was terribly upset.’
‘He was pretending to be upset,’ Dorro said. ‘Do you want to know why he took such pains, always, to appear so concerned for the welfare of others? It was pure selfishness that drove him. Athie could never see it, but I saw it!’
‘Come now, darling. I’m not sure that—’
‘I saw it, Harry. As my husband you ought to take my word for it! Joseph Scotcher was a shrewd character if ever I met one. He had worked it all out, you see: appear to want nothing and people want to give you everything. It worked on Athie, like a charm. Of course he had to seem shocked and distressed at the announcement of the new will. What else could he say? “Oh, tip-top—this is what I have planned for all along”? And there is another one made in the same mould as Scotcher: Michael Gathercole! All his dutiful service over the years—self-interest is behind that, I can promise you.’
‘Dorro, you must not think the worst of everybody,’ said Harry firmly.
‘Not everybody, Harry. Take Brigid Marsh. I would trust Brigid with my life. Hatton the butler, and that ghoulish Phyllis—they are quite another matter, but Brigid is one in a million. And I have already said that Claudia is innocent. I could not say the same of Randall Kimpton with any certainty. Do we know how much of the Kimpton family fortune is at his disposal? I don’t mind admitting that I can picture Randall committing murder with no difficulty whatsoever. My family, the Sawbridges—we were wealthy landowners once. Did you know that, Sergeant? Mr Catchpool?’
Silently, we shook our heads.
‘My father contrived to lose the lot, silly old fool that he was! Harry might well have broken off his engagement to me. If he had had any sense—’
‘Wouldn’t hear of it!’ said Harry. To O’Dwyer and me he said, ‘Randall Kimpton could not have killed Scotcher. He was with me, Dorro and Claudia the whole time. We left the dining room with him, went to the drawing room with him. He only left us when summoned by you, Catchpool, to go and attend to Mr Rolfe.’
‘But who knows what happened after he and Claudia retired for
the night?’ said Dorro. ‘He could easily have slipped downstairs to murder Joseph Scotcher.’
‘So could you, old girl.’ Harry grinned, as if he had scored a point in a game we were all playing.
‘Harry, have you gone mad? You can’t honestly believe that I would ever—’
‘Club a chap to death? Ha! Not a bit of it! I only meant that when you went to bed, I went outside for a while. Poirot asked me to. You could have scuttled off downstairs and done poor old Joseph in. I don’t believe you did, but you had as much of an opportunity as Randall did.’
Dorro’s face crumpled. ‘How can we bear this?’ she muttered. ‘Suspecting each other like … like …’ She had started to rub her hands together as if trying to wear the skin away. ‘I wish I could take back every word I have said! You must pay no attention to me, Sergeant, Mr Catchpool. None at all. Of course Harry is right. Randall—dearest Randall! Oh, I feel dreadful. I have accused half the household of murder, when really I don’t believe it of any of them. Nice sensible Mr Gathercole—I must have taken leave of my senses thinking ill of him. It’s only that I’m so afraid. I am not myself at all. You have no idea what it’s like! Athie is the only Lady Playford ever addressed or thought of as such. I too am Lady Playford, yet no one ever calls me that—oh, no, around here I am just plain old Dorro! I have no children, so I am accorded no respect or consideration. Lillieoak should be ours, mine and Harry’s. She arranged it all to thwart us! It would not have occurred to Guy in a hundred years to do such a thing—to humiliate us in this way! Athie underestimates Harry—she always has. And she had poor gullible Guy wound round her little finger. But that is the last word I shall say against anybody—I’m too kind-hearted, you see, to think ill of those I love for very long. Please, forget everything you have heard me say. Please.’
‘It is unthinkable that anybody in this house is secretly a murderer,’ said Harry.
‘And yet Joseph Scotcher was murdered, Viscount Playford,’ said O’Dwyer. ‘Somebody must have done it—someone who was here at Lillieoak that night.’
A shadow of something—it might have been anger, anxiety or any number of things—passed across Harry Playford’s face. ‘Yes,’ he said finally, with a sigh. ‘Because, after all, Scotcher was alive when we all sat round the dinner table together.’ He nodded, as if subjecting the fact to a process of internal verification. ‘And then, only a handful of hours later, he was … well, he was dead.’
‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘Which means somebody here, in this house, killed him.’
‘Quite,’ Harry agreed. ‘When one approaches the matter from that angle, it’s rather hard not to be down in the dumps about it. We shall all need cheering up after this, that’s for sure.’ He turned to Dorro. ‘What about the idea of a dog, old girl? A dog like Prince—or was it Duke? House like this needs one, or else it feels empty. I don’t know why Mummy hasn’t … Oh, well, I suppose she’s so busy now. But when I was a boy there was always a dog dashing about the place—there could be again!’
CHAPTER 17
The Grandfather Clock
Sergeant O’Dwyer and I spent the next two hours finding no trace of an Iris. Poirot had still not returned from Ballygurteen to explain why we were supposed to be looking for her. Orville Rolfe knew of no woman or girl by that name, and neither did Brigid or Hatton.
Nonetheless, our conversations with the two longest- serving members of Lillieoak’s staff were the most helpful we’d had so far. I had an opportunity to agree with Sergeant O’Dwyer, rather than the other way round, when he said, ‘I almost wish we had spoken to Hatton and Mrs Marsh first of all. Between them, they have painted a clear picture of the movements of the night in question.’
‘They have—assuming we can rely on their testimony,’ I said.
‘Brigid Marsh strikes me as an impressive character if ever there was one.’ O’Dwyer patted his stomach. ‘If her word is as good as her mutton soup, then I am in favour of relying on it.’
I said nothing. The mutton soup might have been near flawless, but as for the word or words … Brigid had said something to me earlier in the day that I had found inexplicable. Happening upon me in the hall, she narrowed her eyes at me and said, ‘I knew I was right—you’ve got that look about you!’ I asked the obvious question, to which she answered, ‘The look of a man who drinks water all through the night!’ She said this as fiercely as if she were accusing me of baby farming or some equally heinous crime, then pointed to her mouth and said, ‘Dry lips—I can see from here!’
As if all this were not quite galling enough, I was then subjected to a long and confusing story about her nephew, who had stolen some peppermints from a bowl that was a family heirloom, and broken the bowl in the process. He had then needed to lie about breaking it—which was an accident—because if he had confessed, Brigid would have known he had stolen the sweets—which was deliberate and pernicious.
I never drank water in the night, and I did not understand what analogy she was trying to make, but before I could say any of this, she had stomped off in the direction of the kitchen.
‘What about Hatton?’ I asked O’Dwyer. ‘Are you inclined to believe him too?’ Asking questions was the way to get the best from O’Dwyer. Make a statement and he would agree, but ask a question and he would happily produce an opinion of his own, as he did now.
‘Well, as I see it, Inspector Catchpool—’
‘Edward, please.’
‘As I see it, Edward, the butler told us nothing that made us more likely to think of anybody as guilty. And if he himself were the murderer, he would surely benefit from a cloud of suspicion lingering over somebody else.’
‘He observed a remarkable number of comings and goings that night,’ I said. ‘I dare say it is his job to monitor the activities of the house in that way.’
I started to list, mainly for my own benefit, the things Hatton claimed to have witnessed on the night of the murder. Working with Poirot in London earlier in the year had left me with an appetite for listing things. As a method of clarifying one’s thoughts, I had found that it helped enormously.
Things Hatton saw on the night of the murder:
1. Lady Playford left the dining room in the middle of dinner. She appeared to be in a state of high emotion. She ran upstairs to her bedroom, closed the door and stayed there as far as Hatton was aware.
2. The next people to leave the dining room were Claudia Playford and Randall Kimpton. They were followed closely by Harry and Dorro Playford. All four went straight to the drawing room.
3. After that, the next to leave the dining room were Michael Gathercole and Orville Rolfe, who also left the room together. The latter was complaining of feeling a little unwell. Gathercole said something about feeling better after a good night’s rest. The two men entered the drawing room briefly to take their leave of the others, and then ascended the stairs. Each went to his room.
4. Next to leave the dining room were Hercule Poirot and Edward Catchpool, who went outside together.
5. Gathercole emerged from his bedroom ten minutes later. He went downstairs, put on his overcoat, and left the house by the back door.
6. Approximately five minutes after Gathercole had left the house, Joseph Scotcher and Sophie Bourlet came out of the dining room. Scotcher appeared to be in some discomfort. Sophie pushed him in his wheelchair to his bedroom. Once she had settled him for the night, she went to her own room, put on her coat and went out into the garden.
7. Roughly fifteen minutes later, Poirot and Catchpool returned to the house and proceeded to the drawing room.
8. At about twenty minutes to ten, Hatton retired for the night. As the grandfather clock in the hall was striking ten, which happened to be just as he was getting into bed, Hatton glanced out of his bedroom window and saw Sophie Bourlet walking through the garden in the direction of the house.
9. Ten minutes later the screaming started. Hatton put on a dressing gown, left his bedroom and went in search of the noise. When he re
ached the hall, he encountered Michael Gathercole, who was walking in through the front door at that moment. Together, they moved in the direction of the parlour to see what the noise was about.
‘We cannot eliminate Sophie Bourlet and Michael Gathercole as suspects,’ said O’Dwyer. ‘Either might have done the deed, then gone outside, and made sure as they were seen coming in again.’
‘What about Claudia Playford?’ I said. ‘Brigid Marsh swears that as she ran from the servants’ quarters to the parlour, she saw Claudia with Randall Kimpton at the top of the stairs, outside Lady Playford’s study, on their way down like everyone else. It’s rather baffling.’
‘What is?’ O’Dwyer asked.
‘Hatton mentioning the grandfather clock in the hall has made me think about the chronology of it all—and it doesn’t make sense. Listen: Sophie Bourlet is outside. She returns to the house—she is seen to do so by Hatton. Almost immediately upon entering, she witnesses Claudia Playford beating Joseph Scotcher to death with a club. She starts to scream. Claudia drops the club and runs upstairs to the landing, where she is seen soon afterwards by Brigid Marsh. How can Claudia have got herself from the parlour to that landing without using the main stairs? There is no other way up to the landing outside Lady Playford’s study.’
‘You’re right, there is not,’ said O’Dwyer.
‘Remember, Sophie is still screaming all this while. Upstairs, Poirot and I and others are opening bedroom doors and rushing towards those very same stairs. I think I was the first there—I did not see Claudia Playford coming up and I saw no one on the landing. My question is: could Claudia Playford have reached the safety of Randall Kimpton’s bedroom, or her own, between Sophie starting to scream and me opening the door of Orville Rolfe’s room and stepping out onto the landing?’
‘Well, could she?’ said O’Dwyer eagerly. ‘Only you can answer that. Are you minded to say that it was impossible, and that therefore she could never have been downstairs murdering Mr Scotcher in the first place?’
Closed Casket: The New Hercule Poirot Mystery Page 12
