‘I agree. This house is like a glacier with walls and a roof,’ I said.
‘Will you two stop fussing?’ Rowland McCrodden barked. ‘What’s that, Poirot?’ He pointed to a piece of paper that lay face-down on what Kingsbury would doubtless have called ‘Mr Pandy’s desk’.
‘Aha!’ said Poirot. ‘All in good time, mon ami, all in good time.’
‘And what’s in the brown paper bag?’
‘I will answer your questions bientôt. But first … I am so very sorry, my friend, but it is my duty to inform you of the most terrible news. Please, will you sit down?’
‘Terrible …’ The flesh on McCrodden’s face seemed to drop. ‘Is it John?’
‘Non, non. John is perfectly well.’
‘Well, what is it, then? Spit it out!’
‘It is la pauvre Mademoiselle Mason. Emerald Mason.’
‘What about her? You haven’t invited her here, have you? Poirot, I will swing for you if you’ve—’
‘Please, mon ami.’ Poirot put his finger to his lips. ‘I beg of you, silence.’
‘Just tell me, for pity’s sake,’ McCrodden snapped. ‘What has Miss Mason done now?’
‘There has been the most unfortunate motorcar accident. Miss Mason was in a vehicle when a … a horse moved unexpectedly in front of it.’
‘A horse?’ I said.
‘Yes, Catchpool, a horse. Please do not interrupt. Nobody else was hurt, but poor Mademoiselle Mason … Oh! C’est vraiment dommage!’
‘Are you saying that Emerald Mason is dead?’ asked McCrodden.
‘No, my friend. It would perhaps be better for her if she were. A young lady, with her whole life ahead of her …’
‘Poirot, I demand that you tell me at once—’ began McCrodden. His face had turned as red as a beetroot.
‘Of course, of course. She is to lose both legs.’
‘What?’ McCrodden exclaimed.
‘Good Lord!’ I said. ‘That’s horrible.’
‘A surgeon is, at this moment, removing the two limbs. There was no way to save either one. Too much damage had been sustained.’
McCrodden produced a handkerchief and started to mop his brow. He said nothing. Then he shook his head several times. ‘That … that is … How unspeakably … I can’t believe it. Both legs?’
‘Yes, both legs.’
‘We must … The firm must ensure she has everything she needs. And flowers. A basket of fruit. And money, damn it! As much as she needs, and the best medical expertise available. There must be specialists who train people after accidents like this, so that they can …’ McCrodden’s mouth twisted. The redness had drained from his face. Now his skin looked almost transparent. ‘Will she be able to come back to work? If she can’t, it will kill her. Truly, it will. She loves her work.’
‘Monsieur McCrodden, I am so sorry,’ said Poirot. ‘You do not care for the young woman, I know, but this must nevertheless be a terrible shock for you.’
Rowland McCrodden moved slowly to the nearest chair, lowered himself into it, and covered his face with his hands. At the very same moment, Poirot turned to me and winked.
I made a questioning face at him. He winked again. A powerful sensation of disbelief gripped me. Could this really be happening?
I made another, more severe, questioning face. Was Poirot trying to signal to me that he had told McCrodden a lie? Was Emerald Mason perfectly fine, with two functioning legs still attached to the rest of her body, and no one angling to chop them off? In which case, what on earth was Poirot up to?
I wondered if I ought to speak up. What would happen if I were to say to Rowland McCrodden, ‘Poirot just winked at me twice; I think he’s pulling your leg’? That would hardly be the ideal phrase to use, in the circumstances.
‘Mon ami, would you prefer to retire to your room?’ Poirot asked him. ‘Catchpool and I, we can hold up the fort if you do not feel well enough to continue.’
‘Continue with what? I’m sorry, I … This appalling news has distracted me.’
‘That I can see,’ said Poirot.
‘Catchpool, I’m sorry,’ said McCrodden, almost inaudibly.
‘For what?’ I asked him.
‘I have been atrocious company today. You’ve been a saint to put up with me. I’ve treated you unconscionably and you did nothing to deserve it. Please accept my most sincere apologies.’
‘Of course,’ I said. ‘It’s forgotten.’
‘Gentlemen, we have much to discuss,’ said Poirot. ‘Monsieur McCrodden, you asked me about this sheet of paper. You may look at it now if you wish. So may you, Catchpool, if our friend is too distressed.’
‘He looks distressed to me,’ I said pointedly. ‘Doesn’t he to you?’
Poirot smiled. That was when I knew for certain that Emerald Mason’s legs were in no danger of being chopped off. I was cross with myself. There was nothing to stop me telling McCrodden he had been tricked, so why wasn’t I speaking up? Instead, I said nothing, trusting in the grand plan of Poirot, as if he were a deity.
I walked over to the desk, picked up the piece of paper and turned it over. On it were typed six words: ‘The eel feels down at heel.’
‘What the blazes …?’ I muttered.
Poirot began to laugh.
‘You sent me the typewriter?’ I said.
‘Ah! Oui, c’etait Poirot! I had Georges deliver it, and gave him instructions about what to say. He played his part most satisfactorily. To Mrs Unsworth, he gave the message about the eel.’
‘Enough games, Poirot. Why didn’t you simply tell me you’d found the typewriter?’
‘A thousand apologies, mon cher. Poirot, he has every now and then the mischievous impulse.’
‘Where did you find it?’
‘Where did I find the down-at-heel eel? Here at Combingham Hall. Do not breathe a word, please, Catchpool. Nobody here knows that a typewriter is missing.’
‘Then … the four letters signed in your name were typed by somebody here?’
‘The letters were typed here, yes.’
‘By whom?’
‘That is indeed the question! I have a suspicion—but that is all it is, and I cannot prove I am right. The certain knowledge …’ He sighed. ‘After much hard work, it still eludes me.’
‘Haven’t you promised to reveal all at two o’clock tomorrow?’ I reminded him.
‘Yes. Time is starting to run out for Poirot.’ He smiled, as if the idea pleased him. ‘Will he make the enormous fool of himself? No, he cannot! He must think of his reputation! He must preserve his good name—the most excellent name of Hercule Poirot. Alors, there is, then, only one thing to do! This mystery must be solved before two o’clock tomorrow afternoon. I am very close, my friends … very close. I feel it here.’ He pointed to his head. ‘The little grey cells are hard at work. The running out of time … it is invigorating, Catchpool. It inspires me! Do not worry. All will be well.’
‘I’m not worried,’ I told him. ‘I haven’t promised any answers to anybody. I was only reminding you that you ought to be worried.’
‘Very amusing, Catchpool.’
‘What’s in the brown paper bag?’ I asked.
‘Ah, yes, the bag,’ said Poirot. ‘We will unwrap it now. But first, I must confess something. Monsieur McCrodden, I see that you are still unable to speak, so please listen to what I am about to say. The story I told you about Miss Mason, that she is to lose both her legs—it was not true.’
McCrodden’s mouth fell open. ‘Not … not true?’
‘Not in the least. To the best of my knowledge, that young woman has suffered no unfortunate accident, and both of her legs are still in the condition of the mint.’
‘But you … you said … Why, Poirot?’
I found it peculiar that McCrodden was not angry. He seemed, rather, to be in a funny sort of trance. His eyes looked glazed.
‘That, mon ami, along with much else, I will explain at our gathering tomorrow. I am sorry to have caused y
ou distress with my little story. In my defence, I can only say that it was absolutely necessary. You do not know it yet, but you have helped me greatly.’
McCrodden nodded vaguely.
Poirot walked over to the desk. I heard a rustling noise as he took something out of the brown paper bag. Then he stood back so that we could see what it was.
‘Isn’t that …?’ I started to say. McCrodden laughed.
It was a small plate of blue and white patterned china, with a slice of Church Window Cake on it.
‘Yes, indeed—it is Mademoiselle Fee’s cake. One slice. That is all I need!’ said Poirot.
‘To keep the wolf from the door until dinner?’ said McCrodden, before letting out another delirious laugh. He had evidently undergone some kind of transformation, and Poirot was responsible, yet it was hard to know if the effect was accidental or deliberately engineered.
‘It is not for the stomach but for the little grey cells,’ Poirot said. ‘Here, my friends, in this small slice of cake, we have the solution to the mystery of who killed Barnabas Pandy!’
‘Goodness me, what a horrible house,’ said Eustace Campbell-Brown, as he, Sylvia Rule and Mildred alighted from the car that had brought them to Combingham Hall. He stared up at the building’s façade. ‘A person surely couldn’t live here? Look at it! And to think, they could sell it for a fortune and buy any number of swanky, well-appointed flats in London, Paris, New York …’
‘I don’t think it’s as bad as all that,’ said Mildred.
‘Neither do I,’ said Sylvia Rule. ‘You’re right, Mildred—it’s a very handsome building indeed. Eustace doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He’s only displaying his ignorance.’
Mildred looked at her mother, then at her fiancé. Then, without a word, she set off towards the house. Sylvia and Eustace watched her walk in through the open front door.
‘May I suggest a truce?’ said Eustace. ‘At least until we return to London.’
Sylvia turned away. ‘I am allowed to think that the house is attractive if that is what I happen to think,’ she said.
‘Doesn’t it bother you that you have, once again, driven Mildred away? Don’t you mind being as unbearable as you are?’ Eustace held up his hands. ‘That one was my fault. I will desist from making hostile remarks if you will too. How about it? We need to think not about ourselves but about Mildred. You and I might be enjoying our little war, but I don’t think she can stand much more of it.’
‘You called me a murderer,’ Sylvia reminded him.
‘I should not have said that. I apologize.’
‘Do you truly believe it? Answer me honestly.’
‘I have said I’m sorry.’
‘But not meant it! You have no understanding of the suffering of others—of women like me. You’re a demon.’
‘Now that you’ve got that off your chest, how about that truce?’ said Eustace.
‘Very well. For as long as we are at Combingham Hall, I shall try my best.’
‘Thank you. I will too.’
Together, they entered the house. They found Mildred standing alone in the entrance hall. She flinched at the sight of them, then looked up at the ceiling and quietly started to sing one of her favourite songs, ‘The Boy I Love Is Up in the Gallery’, her arms stretched out on either side. She looked as if she wanted to fly away.
Eustace thought: ‘I’ve got to get her away from Sylvia’s influence or we’ll both be driven quite mad.’
Mildred’s voice shook as she sang:
‘Now, If I were a Duchess who had a lot of money,
I’d give it to the boy that’s going to marry me.
But I haven’t got a penny, so we’ll live on love and kisses,
And be just as happy as the birds on the tree.
The boy I love is up in the gallery …’
‘Does anyone hear singing?’ asked Rowland McCrodden. ‘I’m sure someone’s singing.’
‘Poirot, how can a slice of cake be the solution to an unsolved murder?’ I asked.
‘Because it is a whole slice: undivided, intact. Not separated into quarters. It is the solution to what I have thought of, for some time, as the Mystery of the Three Quarters! Unless …’
Poirot hurried over to the cake and, producing a small knife from his pocket, cut off the yellow square in the top left-hand corner. He pushed it to the edge of the plate, separating it from the rest of the slice. ‘Unless this is the case,’ he said. ‘But I do not believe it is. No, I do not believe that at all.’ He pushed the yellow square back to its original position, so that it was touching the other squares.
‘You are suggesting that one square is not separate, but connected to the three other squares,’ I said. ‘Which means that … all four people who received letters accusing them of murder know one another?’
‘Non, mon ami. Not at all.’
‘John does not know any of the others,’ said Rowland McCrodden. ‘That’s what he told me, and I believe him.’
‘Then what does Poirot mean by the whole, undivided slice of cake being the solution?’
We both looked at him. He smiled enigmatically. Then McCrodden said, ‘Wait! I think I know what he means …’
‘But I don’t know where it could be,’ said Hugo Dockerill in a panicked voice. ‘I mean, it might be anywhere! All I know is that it’s not here, and we’re already hopelessly late. Oh, dear.’
‘Hugo,’ said his wife gently. ‘Calm down. Nobody at Combingham Hall cares if we arrive at noon or at midnight. As long as we’re there in time for tomorrow’s meeting, that’s all that matters.’
‘Thank you for trying to make me feel better, dearest Jane. I know you’re crosser about our lateness than you’re letting me see.’
‘I’m not cross, Hugo.’ She put her hand in his. ‘I wish I understood, that’s all: what it must feel like to be you, the way you think and … carry on. I can’t imagine it. I can’t imagine needing to make three trips to post a letter because, on the first two trips, you forget to take the letter with you. I would never do that, and so it’s hard for me to understand how it’s possible.’
‘Well, it got posted in the end. It’s not the letter that’s the problem, it’s my blasted hat! Where is the damned thing?’
‘Why don’t you take a different hat?’
‘I wanted to take this one. I mean, that one, the one that isn’t here any more!’
‘You said you had it in your hand very recently.’
‘I’m sure I did, yes.’
‘Well, then. Where did you go when you left the room a moment ago?’
‘Only to the parlour.’
‘Then might the hat be in the parlour?’
Hugo frowned again. Then an expression of utmost delight appeared on his face. ‘It might! I shall go and have a look.’
He returned a few seconds later, hat in hand. ‘Your method worked. Dearest Jane, you are marvellous. Right! Shall we go?’
Jane Dockerill sighed. ‘We should—but isn’t there something else we need to take with us, apart from your hat and all the things already waiting by the door?’
‘No, I’ve got everything else. It’s all in the overnight case. What else do we need?’
‘Timothy Lavington and Freddie Rule?’ She shook her head and smiled. ‘Shall I go and find them?’
‘Yes, please, darling. You’ll do a better job of that than I would, I’m quite sure.’
‘So am I. Hugo?’
‘Yes, dearest?’
‘Hold that hat in your hand the whole time I’m gone, won’t you? I don’t want you losing it again.’
‘Absolutely. I shan’t let it out of my sight.’
*
‘If I’m right, Poirot, then what you mean is this,’ said Rowland McCrodden. ‘It’s not that all four people who received letters accusing them of murder know one another. Neither is it that they all knew Barnabas Pandy. It is that they were all acquainted with the writer of the letters.’
‘Yes—you a
re correct,’ said Poirot.
McCrodden looked astonished. ‘Am I?’ he said. ‘I wasn’t expecting to be. It was only a guess.’
‘It was a good one,’ Poirot told him. ‘At least … I am nearly certain that you are correct. There is still one important question I must ask, and that will require a trip to London.’
‘London? But everybody’s coming here,’ I exclaimed. ‘You’ve brought them!’
‘And here they must remain, until I return. Do not alarm yourself, mon cher Catchpool. I will be back in good time for our two o’clock appointment tomorrow.’
‘But where are you going?’
‘It must be … is it Peter Vout?’ asked Rowland McCrodden.
‘Another ingenious guess!’ Poirot clapped his hands together.
‘Hardly,’ said McCrodden. ‘Vout is just about the only person who might know anything who isn’t here at Combingham Hall.’
‘He will certainly know the answer to the question I shall ask him tomorrow morning,’ said Poirot. ‘He cannot fail to know it! After which, hopefully the complete picture will be clear—and just in time, too.’
*
John McCrodden arrived at Combingham Hall to find the front door standing wide open. He walked in. The floor of the entrance hall was wet and muddy. There were some unattended suitcases by the bottom of a staircase three times as large as any he had seen before.
‘Hello?’ he called out. ‘Hello! Is there anybody here?’
No person appeared, and nobody answered his question. There was nothing John would have liked more than for it to turn out that he was, indeed, alone in this enormous building that was as cold as a grave—where he could build and light a fire in one of the rooms and spend a peaceful evening on his own—but he knew this was merely a fantasy. No doubt an assortment of affected society people would appear at any moment, and he knew he would loathe them all.
He was halfway across the hall in search of a kitchen where he could rummage for food and make himself a cup of hot, strong tea when a door to the right of him opened and at last someone appeared.
‘I’m John Mc …’ he started to say, turning. But he ran out of breath saying his own name.
The Mystery of Three Quarters Page 22
