Closed Casket: The New Hercule Poirot Mystery

by Hannah, Sophie

  Kimpton barely noticed Poirot as he snuck in next to Lady Playford. The motorcar containing Claudia had arrived moments earlier, and he was looking over his shoulder with his arm outstretched. ‘There you are, dearest one,’ he said, and she ran to him as if they had been separated for weeks instead of less than thirty minutes.

  I secured for myself a spot on the bench behind Poirot, hoping I would be able to hear the conversation if he attempted to have it.

  He wasted no time. ‘Lady Playford …’

  ‘Lady Playford, Lady Playford! It’s interminable! Will you please call me Athie?’

  ‘Of course, madame. Please accept my apologies.’

  ‘What did you want to say?’

  ‘Is it true what I hear about Mr Gathercole, on the night of Joseph Scotcher’s murder?’

  ‘What have you heard, and from whom?’

  ‘From Mr Gathercole himself, though I did not hear his words. His words, ah … let us say they went over the houses to reach me.’

  ‘Around the houses. And it’s the wrong phrase in any case. You might say “reached me by a circuitous route”, but you would only say “around the houses” if you wanted to imply that the communication had been inefficient. As this conversation is. What is it that you would like to know?’

  ‘Mr Gathercole claims that he spent most of the evening of Joseph Scotcher’s murder hiding behind your bedroom curtains in case someone broke in and made an attempt on your life. Between leaving the dining room with Orville Rolfe and when Sophie Bourlet started to scream downstairs, that is where he insists he was: hiding behind a curtain. He also says that you asked Hatton the butler to lie and say that he saw Mr Gathercole coming in from outside.’

  ‘Yes. That is all true. Don’t blame poor old Hatton—he is too loyal for his own good. I wanted to protect Michael, who had done nothing wrong. I knew he had an alibi, and I decided it wouldn’t matter if it were not precisely the same alibi given to the police. All that matters, really, is that we all know he could not have murdered Joseph.’ Lady Playford smiled, but without enthusiasm. There was an air of weariness about her, as if she was put out to have to explain.

  Poirot had lapsed into silence. I imagined that he took a dim view, as I did, of her unscrupulous assessment of the matter. A famous and imaginative novelist she might be, I thought to myself, but she failed to realize that her testimony was worthless now that she had admitted how readily she was prepared to lie. Her fame must have gone to her head, I decided; she was too accustomed to being the sole arbiter of what everybody in the story said and did and thought.

  ‘So you suspected that, as a result of your announcement at dinner, you would be murdered?’ Poirot asked her.

  ‘Oh, no!’ She chuckled, as if the idea were absurd.

  ‘Then I do not understand. Mr Gathercole told—’

  ‘Oh, do stop. Stop!’ Lady Playford waved away Poirot’s words. ‘Instead of pelting me with endless questions, allow me to tell you properly. I shall make sure to include all the relevant details, and I will be kind enough, in addition, to arrange them in the correct order.’

  At the front of the room, the man with the curled-down bottom lip and the sandy hair was pulling back a chair and sitting where the coroner ought to sit. I had got it wrong, then: he must be the coroner, and the other man with the knobbly peanut-like head was somebody else. Who? And why had he arrived with Conree and O’Dwyer? He wasn’t the police doctor—who, I noticed now, was not here. I had caught a brief glimpse of him as he left Lillieoak. He was a dishevelled fellow with things spilling out of his pockets and out of the battered brown leather bag he carried.

  With the exception of Brigid Marsh and Hatton, everyone from Lillieoak was here. Poirot and Athie Playford were sitting in front of me, as I have said, and everyone else behind: Claudia Playford and Randall Kimpton were side by side, with Phyllis Chivers on Claudia’s other side and Sophie Bourlet on Kimpton’s. Harry and Dorro were seated together on the bench at the very back, and … That was peculiar. Why were Gathercole and Rolfe not sitting together? Had they exchanged unfriendly words?

  Then I realized: they were sitting together—or at least as close together as they could get, given the girth of Rolfe. From where I sat, however, it looked as if they had made a point of positioning themselves so that there was a sizeable distance between them.

  ‘All right, then,’ Athie Playford said to Poirot. ‘I shall tell you—but we will probably be interrupted. Yes, I asked Michael to do me the considerable favour of concealing himself behind my curtain for the whole night. I asked him to forgo a night’s sleep, and he was kind enough to agree without hesitation to be my protector. I thought there was an outside chance that someone might panic, and try to kill me while I slept. I might be old, but I am not yet ready to die, if only because I have the most delightful idea for my next bundle. Shall I tell you? I haven’t quite worked out all the particulars, but it has to do with a disguise.’

  ‘Madame—’

  ‘It must be one that covers the face. A veil, I think. Anyway, somebody suspects that beneath this disguise lurks Mrs So-and-so, and we see them suspecting it, and we also see others going to great pains—’

  ‘Madame, I am sure this story is fascinating, but I am more interested in the other,’ said Poirot. ‘Did you fear that this attempt on your life would come from a particular person?’

  ‘Yes. I had a definite name in mind. Is it not obvious to a great detective who that person must have been? Make an effort, Poirot! Would you like a clue? Though I am certain they both loathe me at the moment, neither Claudia nor Dorro would harm me, and as for Harry and Randall … well, you only have to look at Harry, don’t you? And Randall is too much of a contrarian.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Poirot asked.

  ‘Oh …’ Lady Playford sighed. ‘It is most tiresome. He derives boundless pleasure from saying, doing and caring about wholly ridiculous things. It cannot have escaped your notice. He attacks psychology because he knows you set great store by it. His favourite Shakespeare play is King John—he abandoned a successful career because he couldn’t bear the proximity of those who believed that King Lear was a greater masterpiece—which of course it is! Unquestionably!’

  ‘Do you believe that Dr Kimpton thinks so too, and simply pretends to disagree?’

  ‘No. That is why it grates on the nerves. He is frustratingly unlike other people. He should have been furious with me about the will, if only for Claudia’s sake—and so, of course, he was not! He is rich, but he would be equally happy poor. And yet once when he received a Christmas card—a very ordinary card with no important or interesting message—and could not read the signature on it, and couldn’t think who might have sent it or work it out from the postmark … well, he was in torment. Absolutely coming apart at the seams, and that is no exaggeration. He marched around the circumference of his entire social and professional circle until he tracked down the culprit.’

  ‘He was then satisfied?’

  ‘Oh, yes. But I mean, a normal person would have raised an eyebrow at the indecipherable signature and said, “I dare say I shall never know.” And left it at that.’

  ‘Do you remember who sent Dr Kimpton that Christmas card?’ Poirot asked.

  A peal of laughter burst from Lady Playford. ‘Oh, you are wonderful, Poirot. Ever the detective! Yes, as it happens, I recall it very clearly, because I shamelessly stole the poor fellow’s name and put it in the bundle of the moment. Jowsey—Trevor Jowsey. He was a former teacher of Randall’s—not a schoolteacher, a chap who taught him medicine. I reinvented him as David Jowsey, goods train driver.’

  At the front of the room, the coroner cleared his throat and patted the pile of papers before him. Any moment now the inquest would start.

  Lady Playford leaned in close to Poirot’s ear and whispered loudly, ‘Let me quickly tell you the rest of my idea—you of all people will appreciate it. The baddies suspect this disguised person of being Mrs So-and-so. Shrimp and her frien
ds help her to conceal her identity, and they insist that she is a different woman. In fact, the disguised woman is not Mrs So-and-so, who is safely elsewhere. And Shrimp is telling the truth, but her intention is to mislead. Isn’t that splendid? One can, you see, insist that the truth is true in a way that makes it appear a lie.’

  ‘I see that, as a plotter, you are without parallel,’ Poirot told her. ‘Tell me this: why might a murderer—in a story—be determined that his intended victim should have an open casket at his funeral and not one that is closed?’

  ‘That sounds a most intriguing scenario,’ she responded enthusiastically. ‘My first thought is that it must be something to do with the face—but one never stops at the first thought. One asks oneself instead: what would make it so much more interesting?’

  Did this mean, I wondered, that Lady Playford was unlikely to have been the woman Orville Rolfe overheard arguing with a man on the day of the murder? She sounded entirely innocent—as if she had never given the matter of caskets any thought whatever, and certainly not whether they ought to be open or closed.

  ‘From whom did you ask Mr Gathercole to protect you, Lady Playford?’ By now, Poirot’s voice sounded rather steel-edged.

  ‘Why, from Joseph, of course,’ she said.

  ‘Joseph Scotcher?’

  ‘Yes. I had just told him that he would inherit an immense fortune if I were to die.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘Most people would not leave everything to a man they imagined might murder them—is that what you are thinking?’

  Poirot admitted that it was.

  ‘You are quite right.’ Lady Playford sounded pleased with herself.

  ‘I am thinking other things also. Such as: why would a dying man wish to murder you? For the money? That does not convince me—not when he would have it for such a brief time only, and when he would be too sick to make a nice use of it. I assume that all of Mr Scotcher’s needs in relation to his illness were taken care of?’

  ‘Oh, yes. I made sure Joseph had the best of everything. No expense was spared.’

  ‘Then what other reason would there be for him to kill you? So that he could quickly marry Sophie Bourlet and leave her a rich woman after his death?’

  ‘I am sure you will have great fun trying to work it out,’ was Lady Playford’s reply.

  ‘You are a talented storyteller. Would it not be fun for you to tell me?’

  ‘There are things I am only prepared to speak of after the inquest—once we leave this courthouse.’

  I could well imagine Poirot’s frustration; I felt it myself. Neither he nor I had the authority to compel anyone to talk to us who did not wish to do so. Conree had all the power, and there was no way of knowing if he was asking any of the right questions. From what I had seen of the way he conducted himself, I feared that he was not.

  Poirot was not so easily defeated. ‘Tell me this one small thing,’ he said. ‘Why did you not lock your bedroom door if you feared a murderous approach from Mr Scotcher? It has a lock. I have checked.’

  ‘After the inquest, I will happily tell you.’

  ‘Remarkable!’

  ‘What is remarkable?’ Lady Playford asked.

  ‘Randall Kimpton said the very same thing, and also Michael Gathercole. Everybody promises to talk after the inquest. Why not before?’

  ‘That really is a very silly question, Poirot. If I were prepared to answer it … Ah! It seems that we are finally about to start.’

  She was right. The curl-lipped man introduced himself as the coroner, Thaddeus Coyle, and proceedings were underway.

  We listened attentively as the facts that only some of us already knew were revealed to all. The peanut-headed man turned out to be the superior officer of the police doctor, and his representative. The dishevelled Dr Clouder had mislaid the keys to his motorcar, we were told, and so could not attend.

  Scotcher had died of strychnine poisoning, and it was the opinion of the garda’s medical expert that the poison was ingested between five in the afternoon and half past seven in the evening, depending on how much poison was swallowed. Death was estimated to have occurred between nine and thirty minutes past. The evidence suggested that Scotcher was moved to the parlour post-mortem, where his head was almost entirely destroyed by a club that had belonged to the Playford family, on which his blood, brains and bone fragments had been found.

  The coroner listened to Sophie Bourlet’s account of having witnessed Claudia Playford inflict the damage to Scotcher’s head, after which Inspector Conree was called upon to present the fingerprint evidence. The club, he told us, chin raised only slightly from his chest, was covered in fingerprints, some of which belonged to Claudia Playford. However, the fingerprints of Athelinda Playford, Frederick Hatton, Phyllis Chivers, Randall Kimpton and Harry Playford were also found to be present. This was simply explained: the club was an easily accessible household ornament and many had touched it at one time or another.

  Of the bottles in Scotcher’s bedroom, only one was completely empty, and it was this one—the only one that was blue—that had been found to contain traces of strychnine as well as of a harmless herbal remedy, while the other bottles contained an assortment of herbal tonics but no poison.

  I was surprised to hear about the tonics. I would have expected the bottles in the room of a dying man to contain various chemical concoctions, but perhaps Scotcher was too far gone for conventional medicines to be beneficial to him.

  Sophie Bourlet testified that the blue bottle had been closer to full than to empty when she had last given any of its contents to Joseph. Asked when this was by the coroner, she replied, ‘It was that same day, the day he died. I gave him two spoonfuls at exactly five o’clock. I always do.’

  This too puzzled me. Believing in the efficacy of such things as herbal tonics was one thing, but why on earth should it matter at what time of day a person drinks lavender root or eucalyptus tincture or whatever it was?

  I should probably, at that point, have had a premonition. Poirot later confessed to me that he had—though of course Randall Kimpton would say that his word alone is no evidence at all.

  The coroner ruled that the cause of Joseph Scotcher’s death was murder by person or persons unknown. Then, instead of drawing the inquest to a close, he stood up and cleared his throat.

  ‘There is something else that I must say, and this will form part of the official record of today’s proceedings. Having informed myself most thoroughly with regard to Inspector Conree’s ongoing investigation into Mr Scotcher’s death, I am aware that one of the more, if you will permit me to use the word, mysterious aspects of this matter is the question of why anyone should bother to snuff out the life of a man with so little time left to him. Additionally, I have considered, and Inspector Conree has considered, that a possible motive for murder was the new will made by Lady Playford, which named the deceased, Mr Scotcher, as the sole beneficiary. Therefore, another puzzle was this: why change one’s will in favour of a man who is soon to die? In the light of these still unanswered questions, and after long and careful consideration, I have decided it is my duty to make public an aspect of this unfortunate business that both Inspector Conree and I believe might prove to be significant. It has nothing to do with the physical cause of Mr Scotcher’s death, but it might be pertinent nonetheless. As it is not, strictly speaking, a medical matter but what I believe would have to be called a human matter, I made the decision to tell you about it myself rather than have it presented alongside the police doctor’s report.’

  ‘I wish he’d just say it,’ Lady Playford hissed impatiently.

  Did she know what was coming? I wondered. My sense was that she did. I felt an uncomfortable prickling sensation all over my skin.

  ‘Joseph Scotcher,’ said the coroner, ‘was not dying.’

  ‘What? Not dying? What do you mean, not dying?’ It was Dorro, needless to say, who protested first. ‘You surely do not mean that he was never dying? He’s dead, is he not
? After he swallowed the poison, he must have been dying. So what precisely do you mean?’

  ‘Good lord, we shall be here until Christmas,’ Randall Kimpton murmured.

  ‘Silence, please!’ The coroner sounded more astonished than angry. Perhaps Randall Kimpton was the first person ever to make a joke during one of his inquests. ‘I am presiding over these proceedings, and nobody speaks without my permission. Let me be clear: until he ingested strychnine, Joseph Scotcher was not dying. He was not suffering from Bright’s disease of the kidneys, or from anything else.’

  Sophie Bourlet cried out, ‘That is not true! The doctor would be here to say it himself if it were true!’

  Mr Peanut stood up and said, ‘I am afraid it is quite true. I have read Dr Clouder’s post-mortem report, and spoken to him about it at length. Mr Scotcher’s kidneys were as plump and pink and healthy as ever two kidneys could be.’

  ‘Which is why I said that it was not a medical matter,’ explained the coroner. ‘A fatal disease that is present is one thing. The absence of Bright’s disease, on the other hand … well, in one who has told everybody that he is soon to die of that very illness, I would call that a matter of psychological interest.’

  I turned to survey the room—in time to see Randall Kimpton sneer at yet another mention of psychology. His eyes met mine and he smiled in a manner that anyone would have deemed excessive; he looked almost enraptured. The signal was clear: he wanted me to know that he had known, but was there any need to look so gleeful and self-satisfied about it? Of course he was more likely to have tumbled to the truth than I was; he had been acquainted with Scotcher for years, no doubt, and I for only one day.

  He was not the only one who had known, it seemed. Claudia had that same look, a mixture of triumph and relief: ‘So now the truth is revealed,’ it seemed to say. ‘I have known all along.’

  Michael Gathercole looked guilty rather than triumphant. He glanced at me apologetically. ‘I knew as well,’ was the message. ‘Sorry I said nothing about it.’