‘Would you have me neglect to shield Lilian from things I know will upset her?’ Sidney said coldly. ‘Is making people suffer now thought to be a virtue?’
‘If it is, you’re the most virtuous man in the world, Father,’ said Daisy.
Ignoring her, he said to Poirot, ‘Winnie was and is nothing but an aggravation. Trying and failing to manage her had already caused Lilian considerable distress. Yes, it is true: I did not wish her to be bothered by further talk of that little wretch.’
‘I see,’ Poirot said in a neutral tone. ‘Monsieur Devonport, I understand that when you and your wife banished Frank, after he stole from you—’
‘Must we talk about that?’ said Lilian.
‘We must, madame. When Frank was sent away from this family in disgrace, Daisy and Richard were not permitted by you, I believe, to continue their relationship with their brother?’
‘I refuse to answer questions about this!’ Sidney Devonport roared, banging his fist down on the table. A few people gasped. Others hastily swallowed exclamations of surprise.
‘It is true,’ said Verna Laviolette. Her husband gave her a sharp look, and Daisy nodded avidly.
Poirot said, ‘Although they were reluctant to do so, both Daisy and Richard severed all ties with Frank at the request of their parents. Monsieur Richard, am I correct?’
After a few seconds of agonized silence, Richard made a noise that was unambiguously affirmative: a sort of coward’s yes.
‘This is marvellous!’ Daisy clapped her hands together. ‘Richard and I have both been so terrified of Father for so long, you cannot possibly imagine, M. Poirot—and now, thanks to this murder and the official importance of us all telling the truth, even Richard is speaking up. As for me, Father, I am no longer afraid of you or Mother at all! It’s wonderful. Though it makes me angry too. Knowing that I can now say whatever I want to say and do whatever I want to do does rather make me loathe my former slavish self. Were you really ever so terrifying, or was I simply the silliest little mouse for taking you seriously in the first place? I suppose, in my defence, I did need your money. Not any more, though—not now that I’m engaged to Oliver.’
‘What about you, Monsieur Prowd?’ Poirot asked him. ‘Did you, do you, share your fiancée’s fear of Sidney and Lilian Devonport?’
‘I … I …’
‘He did,’ said Daisy authoritatively. ‘You did, darling. You were as scared as any of us, and every bit as observant of the required silences.’
‘Daisy’s right,’ said Richard after clearing his throat. ‘The honesty that you demand of us now that there has been a murder—a second murder—has changed things. It’s strange how different they have been, the two tragedies. After Frank’s murder, the silences multiplied and intensified. We all became more fearful, I think. But now …’ He left the sentence incomplete.
‘Now Inspector Catchpool and I are here to show you that telling the truth with discernment and yet ruthlessness is the only way to resolve all problems,’ Poirot said.
‘I suppose that’s why you first turned up here in disguise, as two men who just couldn’t get enough of Peepers?’ Daisy said with a smirk.
‘Ah!’ He smiled back at her. ‘There you have the point. I have plenty of questions for you, mademoiselle. First, however, I wish to ask your father: why did you allow these two engagements? Both Richard and Daisy cut their ties with Frank when you demanded it of them. I assume, therefore, that you could have forbidden the engagement of Daisy to Oliver Prowd, the man who colluded with Frank in the theft of your money, and that of Richard to Helen Acton. Yet you did not. Why? It makes no sense to me.’
‘You are an impudent, pompous blackguard and I have no intention of answering any more of your questions,’ said Sidney Devonport.
‘He perhaps cannot explain it to you,’ said Daisy. ‘I’m not sure he understands it himself. I do, very well. Richard does too. That’s because, for us, the thoughts and feelings of other people are real. Father cares only about himself and Mother. Nobody else counts. And, like all who behave as tyrannically as he does, he has almost no understanding of his own behaviour. If tyrants understood what they did and why they did it, they would surely behave differently—don’t you think so, M. Poirot?’
Poirot turned to Richard Devonport. ‘Why did you ask Helen Acton to marry you—a woman you had only just met and who had confessed to killing your brother?’
‘I wondered if you might ask me that,’ said Richard. ‘I did it to call her bluff.’
‘Please elaborate,’ said Poirot.
‘I did not believe she had killed Frank. I still don’t believe it. She loved him. That was clear in the short time I spent with them. I had no idea why she was lying, and I thought that if I tested her by proposing marriage …’ He broke off with a shrug.
‘You thought she would say, “Golly, you’ve put me in a bind now—I had better come clean and reveal all”?’ Daisy laughed. ‘No determined liar would admit defeat so easily. My brother is naïve, M. Poirot. Why on earth wouldn’t she agree to marry you, Richard? It makes her lie look all the more plausible, doesn’t it? Love at first sight at Little Key, how unbearably romantic. You love her, she loves you!’
‘When she agreed to marry you, you could have told her that you had been merely conducting the experiment,’ Poirot said to Richard. ‘Instead you allowed the engagement to continue.’
‘I … yes, I did.’
‘He enjoyed imagining that a woman who had loved Frank might love him too,’ said Daisy.
‘Darling, don’t be cruel,’ Oliver Prowd muttered.
‘She’s right,’ said Richard quietly. ‘I cannot pretend that that sort of consideration played no part in my decisions. And when I became certain that Helen had not killed Frank, that she was lying, I felt I had to do something. Perhaps I had come to care for her in a very short time, I don’t know. All I know is that I could not bear the thought of her hanging for a crime she had not committed.’ Looking at Sidney, he added, ‘That is why I wrote to you, M. Poirot, and asked for your help, suggesting that you feign an interest in Peepers in order to be invited here by my father.’
Sidney’s lip curled in anger. It was the first time I had seen his mouth make a different shape.
Poirot turned to Verna Laviolette and said, ‘I have a question for you, madame. Why did you decide to sell this house?’
A flash of something that looked very much like fear passed across her face.
Poirot proceeded as if he had not noticed, though I knew he had. ‘Paradise had been ruined—that is what your husband told me. What had happened to ruin the paradise of Kingfisher Hill for the two of you?’
‘Godfrey, I’m going to tell him the truth whether you like it or not,’ said Verna. ‘Everyone else has been spilling the beans all over the place and now it’s my turn. The fact is, M. Poirot, Godfrey and I could not afford to keep this house and a big house in London, too.’
‘What nonsense,’ said Sidney. ‘Godfrey, you’re as wealthy as I am! We made our money together.’
‘And then, more recently, Godfrey lost plenty of ours in a series of bad investments that you know nothing about,’ said Verna bitterly. ‘Did I say bad? I should have said catastrophic.’
Her husband’s face was bright red. ‘Stop it,’ he hissed at her. ‘Stop it right now or I won’t be held responsible for what I do to you later!’
‘Did you hear that, Inspector Catchpool?’ said Daisy. ‘It sounds as if another murder might be on the way. How thrilling to have three!’
‘There is nothing thrilling about murder,’ Poirot declared with force. ‘It is tragic and devastating and continues to cause suffering many years after it has happened—to the innocent and to the surviving loved ones of the guilty. It is and will always be an abomination—a stain on the face of the earth.’
Daisy scowled at him and said savagely, ‘Do you think I don’t know that? I know it better than you do.’
‘Then perhaps you will help t
o ameliorate all of our suffering by answering my questions as truthfully as possible,’ said Poirot.
‘I expect you’re going to ask me why I killed Frank,’ she said. ‘Very well—I shall tell you.’
Daisy stood up. ‘I loved Frank very much,’ she said. ‘He was my hero. I am a person who needs heroes, M. Poirot. Some people have no use for them—have you noticed that? I have to have them, and Frank … well, he was not like anyone else. No one else would have suggested changing the house’s name to Little Key because of something in a Charles Dickens story. Frank always wanted everything to be so much better than it was. He believed that any obstacle could be overcome if one tried hard enough. When Father cut him off without a penny, he did not tell himself that he was down on his luck or unfortunate in any way. Instead, he made his own money, created the most wonderful schools, and became a teacher who inspired dozens of young people to learn and achieve.
‘Maybe he was right to believe that anything was possible, or maybe he was only right about himself: he could achieve great things because he always believed that he could, and never gave up. Richard and I were not so brave. We could not overcome our fear of our parents when they ordered us to shut Frank out of our hearts and lives as if he had never existed. We did as we were told. Of course we did—that is what we had been trained from birth to do. To defy my parents felt impossible to me at the time, entirely impossible. So I was resourceful. I designed for myself a way to avoid suffering. I cannot bear to suffer in the way that most people seem willing to when the occasion arises. Can you guess what I did, M. Poirot? Inspector Catchpool?’
I could not. Neither could Poirot.
‘I’m disappointed in you both,’ said Daisy. ‘It’s rather obvious. I set out to convince myself that Frank was a thief and a scoundrel, that I was better off without him, no longer loved him, and would not miss him. You did too, didn’t you, Richard?’
‘I tried, but I failed,’ he said. ‘No matter what Father and Mother said, I could not agree with them. What Frank did was wrong, but … one does not stop loving a brother when he makes an error of judgement.’
‘Especially when he does so to help his friend,’ said Oliver Prowd quietly.
Daisy smiled at me. She said, ‘I am stronger and more determined than Richard. I tried and I succeeded. At first it was hard. Then with practice it grew easier. You see, Father and Mother had doted on Frank before he stole from them. He was easily their favourite of the three of us. That they had turned against him so decisively had to mean something—I convinced myself of it. It had to mean that Frank was evil and immoral, a danger to our family and not at all the person I had believed him to be. Before too long, I believed it as zealously as Mother and Father did. And happiness was regained!’ Daisy threw up her hands in a mockery of joy. ‘No more suffering for me.’
‘And then?’ said Poirot.
‘Well, then, Mother discovered that she was suffering from an incurable illness, didn’t you, Mother? And suddenly she wanted her lost, favourite son back. She asked Father if he would be willing to welcome Frank back to the fold so that she could be reunited with him before she died. Father capitulated. And there you have it. That is why I had to kill Frank.’ Daisy sat down.
I was exceedingly relieved to hear Poirot say, ‘I do not understand this at all, mademoiselle.’ I too was more confused than before she had commenced her explanation.
‘It’s perfectly straightforward,’ said Daisy. ‘Father had drummed it into me that Frank was a menace and a danger, and I ended up believing it more passionately than he or Mother did—it was the only way to avoid abject misery. Please, do not make me repeat the whole story. I was indoctrinated, partly by my parents and partly by my own efforts. And how much more of a danger would Frank be, I asked myself, with Mother in her sickly, enfeebled state and Father morally cowed by his shame at having abandoned his principles and welcomed a thief back into his home? What if Frank took this opportunity to steal even more money from us or revenge himself in some other way? I decided that, since everyone around me was weakening, I would have to be the strong one and save the family.’
Without speaking a word, Sidney Devonport got up and left the room, slamming the door behind him.
Lilian was crying. ‘Oh, Daisy, oh, my child,’ she said. ‘Please say that it isn’t true.’
‘It is quite true, Mother,’ Daisy replied evenly. ‘And … you believe me.’ She smiled. ‘I can see that you do, and Father does too. That is a relief.’
‘Why can’t I die now?’ Lilian asked of no one in particular. ‘Must I live to see my daughter hanged for the murder of my son?’ She looked up to the ceiling. ‘Why can’t I be taken now?’
‘Perhaps you have not yet suffered enough, Mother,’ said Daisy in a hard voice. I remembered what I had first called her: Diamond Voice.
‘I should like to say …’ Godfrey Laviolette cleared his throat.
‘Oui, monsieur?’ said Poirot.
‘I am presently in as secure and prosperous a financial position as any fellow could ever hope to be.’
We all turned and stared at him, thinking it odd that he should choose this moment to change the subject.
‘I have been in this same enviable position for as long as I can remember,’ he went on. ‘What’s more, Verna knows it. What she said before about our finances—it was a lie. Many of our friends had their fortunes wiped out by the crash—obliterated!—but not us.’ He looked at Poirot. ‘So don’t listen to my wife: we didn’t sell this house because we were short of money.’
‘Then what was the reason?’ I asked him.
‘I’d prefer not to say, Inspector Catchpool. However, I will do you the courtesy of explaining, as sincerely as I can, why I do not wish to answer.’ He had the strangest expression on his face. It was half of a smile—as if, by his estimation, I had not yet earned the other half. ‘Verna and I had our reasons for wanting to leave Kingfisher Hill. They were good, sound reasons. Like I told you before: the way we saw it, this place was a ruined paradise.’ With a heavy sigh, Godfrey went on, ‘We also knew that our good friends Sidney and Lilian would disagree with us if we drew their attention to the conditions that had caused us to wish to leave. Sometimes, folks disagree about whether a particular event or change is a good thing or a bad thing. Happens all the time.’ Godfrey laughed nervously.
‘What do you mean, Godfrey?’ asked Lilian. ‘What have you not told us about Kingfisher Hill?’
‘Lilian, I swear to you—on my own life and the lives of all my children and grandchildren—if I were to tell you, you would not think it was a problem at all.’
‘Then why haven’t you told us?’ she retorted.
‘Because I didn’t want to spoil your enjoyment of buying this place.’
‘But if I would not have thought it was a problem …?’
Godfrey made an exasperated noise. ‘There’s nothing wrong with this house, Lilian. Nothing at all. You and Sidney love it here. Just forget about it, okay?’
‘For someone who thinks Kingfisher Hill is a ruined paradise, you spend an awful lot of time here,’ Daisy said to Godfrey.
‘Only because of that tedious game,’ said Verna.
‘Oh, tedious, is it?’ said Godfrey. ‘Now it’s all coming out.’
‘Yes, it is, dear. It’s the dullest thing in the world. By the time one gets to the forty-third rule on the list, one is quite ready to scratch out one’s eyes. I yearn never to have to play it again—and never to come to Kingfisher Hill again.’
‘You may leave at your earliest convenience, Verna,’ said Lilian.
‘Not quite yet,’ said Poirot. ‘For the time being everybody will stay where they are, please.’
‘What about me?’ asked Percy Semley. ‘May I leave? The master of the house has taken himself off somewhere, so I don’t see why—’
‘You will stay where you are and you will keep quiet,’ Poirot told him. ‘Mademoiselle Daisy, thank you for explaining why you murdered your brother.
There are a few other matters that you can perhaps clear up for us, also.’
She looked at him expectantly.
‘You were the first to enter the drawing room this morning after the dead woman had been murdered. You found her body, yes?’
‘Have we not covered this ground already?’ Oliver Prowd asked.
‘Yes, I found her,’ said Daisy.
‘And in spite of the green coat and hat, it did not occur to you that she was the woman who had sat beside you on a coach a few days ago. You were shocked to discover that, in my opinion, it was she—the same woman.’
‘Yes,’ said Daisy. ‘As I said … I did not notice what she was wearing.’
‘But mademoiselle, there was a note that had been laid upon the body: “You sat in a seat you should never have sat in, now here comes a poker to batter your hat in.” Do you seriously expect us to believe, mademoiselle, that you read that note and still it did not occur to you that this might be the same woman from the coach, a woman who had said in your hearing that she was afraid to sit in that seat because she had been warned that she would be murdered if she did?’
Daisy looked at Poirot as if he had lost his mind. ‘Why would those words make me think of her? I had quite forgotten her existence until you mentioned her.’
‘I do not believe you,’ said Poirot. ‘I find it not at all credible that you did not know at once that these two women—on the coach and in your drawing room—were the same person.’
Daisy nodded. ‘I understand why you don’t believe me, but it did not cross my mind and that’s the truth. Shall I tell you why I didn’t think of it? Because the idea that a stranger who knew neither my name nor my address should turn up dead in my drawing room a few days later … why, that is such a preposterous proposition that it seems to me to be beyond impossible. And one does not consider the impossible as a possibility.’
‘A skilful answer,’ said Poirot. ‘I congratulate you. Shall we see if this next question requires from you the same level of imaginative skill?’
The Killings at Kingfisher Hill Page 18