The Mystery of Three Quarters

by Sophie Hannah

‘No. I didn’t mean Freddie.’

  ‘Yet you dislike him, do you not?’

  ‘Not at all.’ She sounded bored.

  ‘You said when we last met that you had advised your son Timothy to stay away from him.’

  ‘Only because he’s so peculiar. I was thinking of the Dockerills, if you must know.’

  ‘What is your objection to Hugo and Jane Dockerill?’

  ‘They are unfair to my son. They punish him for the most minor of misdemeanours, while other boys, the ones who present an angelic façade, get away with …’ Lenore Lavington stopped.

  ‘Murder?’ Poirot suggested.

  ‘I shall have to have lots of bedrooms made up. How long do you plan for all these people to stay? And why so many?’

  Because any one of them might have murdered Barnabas Pandy—and I do not yet know which one.

  Poirot withheld his true answer and said instead, ‘I would prefer to wait until the final pieces of the puzzle fall into place before I say any more.’

  Lenore Lavington sighed. Then she started up the engine, and they were once more on their way, along narrow country roads lined with beech trees and silver birches. ‘I find it quite impossible to believe that one of these people you have invited could have entered the house on the day Grandfather died without any of us noticing,’ she said. ‘Still … if you’re certain, and as an inspector from Scotland Yard is taking the trouble to come to the Hall, you will have my family’s full cooperation.’

  ‘Merci mille fois, madame.’

  ‘As soon as we arrive at the house, you may look at the typewriter, if you still wish to do so.’

  ‘That would be useful.’

  ‘We have a new one, since you were last here—the old machine was past its best.’

  Poirot looked alarmed. ‘Do you still have the old typewriter?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve asked Kingsbury to put both machines out for you to look at. The new one was still in the shop when those horrible letters were typed, but if I don’t present it for inspection, you might think I am hiding something.’

  ‘It is sensible to be always thorough and check everything,’ Poirot told her. ‘Which is why I should like to ask you some questions about the day Monsieur Pandy died.’

  ‘Are you going to ask about the discussion Ivy and I were having while Grandfather took his bath? Go ahead. I’ve told you: I am willing to cooperate if it will help bring an end to all this unpleasantness and uncertainty.’

  ‘Kingsbury described it as an argument, not a discussion,’ said Poirot.

  ‘It was a horrible row, made worse by Annabel’s endless wailing at us to stop,’ said Lenore. ‘She cannot tolerate any sort of conflict. Nobody likes it, of course, but most of us accept that not every exchange can be a pleasant one. I’m sure Ivy and I would have resolved our dispute far sooner if Annabel had not constantly interrupted with her demands that we be kind to one another. That only inspired me to be rather unkind to her, as I recall. Her sympathies were with Ivy, as always, yet she took care to ingratiate herself with me too.’

  ‘Madame, I am grateful for your frankness, but it would be more useful to me if you could tell me first the cause of the contretemps between you and your daughter.’

  ‘Yes, I am being frank, aren’t I?’ Lenore Lavington sounded surprised. ‘Franker than I’ve been in a long time. It’s rather intoxicating.’

  Yet she also sounded worried by it, Poirot thought.

  ‘The harsh words that passed between Ivy and me in her bedroom that day were not the start of the trouble. A few days earlier, there was a family dinner that ended in disaster, and several months prior to that there was an equally ill-fated trip to the beach. That’s really when it all began. And it was my fault, all of it. If I had exercised a little more self-control, none of it would have happened.’

  ‘Tell me the story from the beginning,’ said Poirot.

  ‘I will, on one condition,’ said Lenore Lavington. ‘That you promise not to speak of it to Ivy. I have her permission to tell you about it, but I fear it would be dreadfully embarrassing for her if you were to raise the subject in her presence.’

  By way of response, Poirot made a noise that was carefully calibrated to sound like assent. The next words he heard surprised him.

  ‘I made an unfortunate remark about Ivy’s legs, while we were at the beach together.’

  ‘Her legs, madame?’

  ‘Yes. I will forever regret it—but, once made, a remark cannot be cancelled out of existence, however often one apologizes. It lives on in the memory of the one wounded by it.’

  ‘The remark was an insulting one?’ Poirot asked.

  ‘It certainly wasn’t intended to be. You will have noticed, I’m sure, that Ivy’s face is badly scarred. Of course you have. No one could fail to notice. As her mother, I naturally worry that the disfigurement will make it difficult if not impossible for her to attract a husband. I should like her to have one—and children. My own marriage was not a success, but Ivy would make a better choice than I did, I have no doubt. She is more realistic than I was at her age. If only she would understand that marriage is about being chosen as much as it is about choosing.’

  Lenore made an impatient noise. ‘It is impossible to tell this story without saying things that you might judge to be unforgivable, M. Poirot. I’m afraid I cannot help how I feel. Ivy is lucky that most of her face is unaffected by the scarring. She could easily conceal it if she arranged her hair in the right way—which she perversely refuses to do. She could if she chose to, of course, and I have never believed that her scars would deter any man from ever taking an interest in her. Ivy has a lively and engaging way about her.’

  ‘Most engaging,’ Poirot agreed.

  ‘I do think, however, that she ought not to add to the problem by eating until she’s the size of a small house. What man would want a wife with scars on her face and a hugely fat body? If I sound angry, M. Poirot, it is only because I have never said this to Ivy, though it’s often in my mind. Nothing has ever mattered more to me than my children’s happiness. For their sake, I was a dutiful and loving wife to their father, my late husband, until the day he died. For their sake, I allow Annabel to fuss over them and interfere in their lives as if she’s as much their mother as I am. I know how much they love her, and I have always put their needs and feelings before my own. In order not to hurt Ivy’s feelings, I have sat at the dinner table night after night and watched her pile extra helpings on to her plate, and I’ve said nothing—not a word—though I can hardly bear to watch. She was a large, stocky child and will always be a well-built girl, of course. She takes after Cecil, her father. Still, I cannot help watching the way she eats and wondering what on earth she thinks she’s doing. She seems not to worry at all about her figure. I can’t understand it.’

  Lenore Lavington exhaled loudly. ‘There. I’ve said it. Those are my true feelings. Do you think I’m a cruel, unloving mother, M. Poirot?’

  ‘Not unloving, madame, but … if you will permit me to make an observation?’

  ‘By all means.’

  ‘Mademoiselle Ivy is a perfectly attractive young lady of a quite normal shape and size. You are, in my opinion, worrying unnecessarily. It is true that she does not have the exceptionally fine-boned frame that you and your sister both have, but many women do not. Look around at the world! It is not only those with the waist I could encircle between my forefinger and thumb who fall in love and make successful marriages.’

  Lenore Lavington shook her head vigorously as Poirot spoke. The moment he’d finished, she said, ‘If Ivy continues to heap potatoes on to her plate at her present rate, she will soon have no waist to speak of. That was what started the trouble at the disastrous dinner: she helped herself to one potato, then another, then another, until I simply couldn’t stop myself.’

  ‘From what?’ asked Poirot.

  ‘All I said was, “Ivy, two potatoes are enough, surely?” I thought I had chosen my words carefully, but she flew into t
he wildest rage, and all her resentments came pouring out, including the full story of what had happened on the beach. Grandfather and Annabel were terribly shocked and upset, and I was upset because I was made to seem like the villain of the piece, which I suppose I was—and that only made it even worse!’

  ‘Tell me the story of the beach,’ said Poirot.

  ‘It was last summer,’ said Lenore. ‘A blisteringly hot day. Annabel had influenza, and couldn’t even get up to play with Hopscotch in the garden. He was howling and whining at the foot of her bed, and it was causing her great distress. She asked us to take him out for the day, away from Combingham Hall. I wasn’t thrilled by the prospect—I am not a dog lover, I’m afraid—but Ivy said that Annabel would recover more quickly if she wasn’t worried about Hopscotch, so I agreed.

  ‘We went to the beach. Ivy nearly drowned as a young girl—did you know that? That’s how she acquired those horrible scars. She rolled down a river bank into the water. Annabel’s dog before Hopscotch—Skittle, his name was—he tried to stop her from rolling into the water, but only ended up scratching her face to ribbons. It wasn’t his fault, of course.’

  ‘Mademoiselle Annabel saved your daughter’s life, did she not?’ said Poirot.

  ‘Yes. If it weren’t for my sister, Ivy would have drowned. They both nearly drowned. The current was easily strong enough to carry them both away, but, somehow, Annabel managed to drag Ivy out of the water and save her, and save herself too. They were very lucky. I can hardly bear to think about what might have happened. Annabel has had a strong aversion to water ever since.’

  ‘To water,’ Poirot murmured. ‘This is most fascinating.’

  ‘Ivy was also scared of water for a long time, but at the age of fourteen, she set herself the task of conquering her fear, and soon became a regular and enthusiastic swimmer. She now drives to the beach for a dip as often as she can—the same beach to which she and I took Hopscotch the day Annabel was sick.’

  ‘Commendable.’

  ‘Yes. Though all that swimming has given her legs and arms a rather muscular quality. And there is no need to tell me that many women with the limbs of male athletes have happy marriages, M. Poirot. I don’t doubt it. I simply want my daughter to look as attractive as she can, that’s all.’

  Poirot said nothing.

  ‘I am not a regular swimmer myself,’ said Lenore. ‘I had not seen my daughter in a bathing costume for many years, until the day we took Hopscotch to the beach. Ivy swam for half an hour, then came to sit with me. Hopscotch was playing in the waves, and Ivy and I were sitting near the trees. She was eating some sort of picnic. Then the dog came running over to us, having noticed that there were goodies available, and the strangest thing happened: Ivy turned pale and began to shake. She was staring at Hopscotch, her mouth wide open, trembling as if she might faint.

  ‘I asked her what was wrong, but she couldn’t speak. A memory had come back to her, you see—a memory of the day she nearly drowned. She was able to tell me this only later, on the way home. Having remembered hardly any of the details for so many years, she had suddenly remembered her head being under the water, and being unable to breathe or free herself from whatever was trapping her there. Suddenly, she remembered all of it vividly. She remembered there had been trees on the river bank, like the ones she and I were sitting near on the beach, and she remembered seeing Skittle’s legs … How well do you know dogs, M. Poirot?’

  ‘I have made the acquaintance of several over the years, madame. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Have you ever known a dog like Hopscotch? One with a thick, wiry coat?’

  Had he? Poirot did not think that he had. He said so.

  ‘Hopscotch is an Airedale Terrier,’ said Lenore. ‘You will have noticed, I’m sure, that the hair on his four legs is fluffy and voluminous—almost as if he’s wearing furry trousers.’

  ‘Oui. That is a good description.’

  ‘Skittle, the dog that tried to save Ivy, was an Airedale, just like Hopscotch. When dry, the legs of Airedale Terriers look much wider than they are—the hair fluffs out instead of lying flat. When Hopscotch ran over to Ivy that day, in the hope of sharing her picnic, his legs were wet from playing in the sea, and so they looked much thinner—like two brown sticks. It took Ivy back, in the most vivid way, to the day she nearly drowned.

  ‘She remembered seeing Skittle’s wet legs, you see, and thinking, only for a second or two, that they were brown tree trunks. Because they were so thin, she said she imagined they must be far away, and thought this meant that she was trapped far out from the bank of the river with no hope of rescue. I think she was probably delirious with fear.

  ‘Moments later, Annabel reached her and suddenly there was hope! Ivy noticed that there was a thick tree trunk beside the thin ones—that was when she knew that the thin ones were not tree trunks at all. She realized they were moving back and forth, and that they were attached to the dog. Everything started to make sense again.’

  Lenore Lavington’s breathing had a jagged sound to it. ‘You can imagine how distressing it was for me to hear all this, M. Poirot. It brought it all back: the shock of discovering that I had so nearly lost my daughter. If Ivy and I had not taken Hopscotch to the beach that day, if he hadn’t got his legs wet in the sea, those memories might never have surfaced. I wish they hadn’t, and I wish I hadn’t said what I said afterwards, but one cannot undo the past, can one?’

  ‘Are we coming now to the unfortunate remark about the legs?’ Poirot asked. He had been wondering if she would ever get to it.

  ‘We were driving back. After what Ivy had told me, I was not myself—not at all. I tried to concentrate on getting us home without crashing into anything. I desperately wanted her to stop talking so that I could gather my wits … and the words just came out! I didn’t choose to say what I said.’

  ‘What words came out, madame?’

  ‘I said that Skittle wasn’t the one whose legs resembled tree trunks. And I said that Ivy ought to think about doing a little less swimming, because her legs would look more and more like tree trunks the more muscular she became. I regretted it as soon as the words were out of my mouth. Still, there was one benefit: Ivy was immediately furious with me. The horrible old memories of her near-drowning were no longer in her mind. All she could think about was how much she loathed her heartless mother. I didn’t say what I said to hurt her—I don’t really think her legs look like actual tree trunks—I only wanted her to think about something else instead of the memories that were upsetting her. I wanted her to turn her attention to her future, not the past. I must have spent hours apologizing to her, and I thought we’d put it behind us, I really did—but then months later at dinner … well, I’ve already told you about that.’

  ‘Mademoiselle Ivy told your sister and your grandfather the story of what happened at the beach, and what you had said to her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What was their reaction?’

  ‘Annabel was distraught, naturally,’ said Lenore with a weary impatience. ‘For every tear shed by anybody else, Annabel must always produce a flood of her own.’

  ‘And Monsieur Pandy?’

  ‘He said nothing, but he looked terribly unhappy. I don’t think it was my careless remarks so much as the thought of how frightened Ivy must have been, thinking she was about to die. She perhaps should have kept her newly discovered memories to herself. It’s Annabel’s influence. Ivy never used to have these outbursts of emotion. Even after a dinner had been ruined, it wasn’t enough for her! On the day Grandfather died, I was walking along the landing and I heard loud sobbing. It is possible to cry quietly, you know, M. Poirot.’

  ‘Indeed, madame.’

  ‘I’m afraid I decided I could not tolerate such self-pity any longer. My daughter used to be a robust, sensible girl. I told her so, and she screamed at me: “How am I supposed to feel when my own mother has compared my legs to tree trunks?” Then of course Annabel dashed up the stairs to meddle where she
wasn’t needed, in the guise of peace-keeping, and soon afterwards Grandfather shouted from his bath that we were all making a horrible din and could we please desist? If Annabel had kept out of it and let me speak to my daughter privately, there would have been far less of a commotion, because Ivy and I had to raise our voices to make ourselves heard above her ceaseless wailing. Grandfather was no fool—he knew it as well as I did. It was Annabel he was shouting at. By then, he had already decided …’

  Poirot turned to see why Lenore Lavington had stopped speaking. Unsightly blotches had appeared on her face. She stared straight ahead, at the road.

  ‘Please go on,’ said Poirot.

  ‘If I do, you must promise to repeat it to nobody. No one knows apart from me, now that Grandfather is dead.’

  ‘You are going to tell me, I think, that Monsieur Pandy had decided to make a new will?’

  The car jerked dramatically. ‘Sacre tonnerre!’ cried Poirot. ‘You are surprised to discover that Hercule Poirot knows so much, I understand, but it is no reason to kill us both.’

  ‘How can you know about the will? Unless … You must have spoken to Peter about it, Peter Vout. That’s funny. Grandfather said I was only one he had told. Perhaps he meant the only one of the family. Annabel must never know, M. Poirot. You must promise me. It would destroy her. I have been saying things about her that are not entirely complimentary, I know, but nevertheless …’

  ‘Nevertheless, she is your sister. And she saved the life of your daughter.’

  ‘Quite,’ said Lenore. ‘After Grandfather died, it was the one thing I was thankful for: that he did not have the chance to alter his will, and so Annabel would never have to find out. I would have made sure she was well looked after, naturally, but that’s hardly the point. To be cut off so brutally … I think she might have fallen apart.’

  ‘Did you try to persuade Monsieur Pandy to change his mind, when he told you what he intended to do?’

  ‘No. It would only have strengthened his resolve. To try to persuade someone out of a feeling …’ She broke off with a firm shake of the head. ‘It’s the very essence of futility. It never works, whether directed at oneself or at others. Grandfather rarely, though occasionally, saw that he had been wrong about something, but never when told by somebody else.’