The Killings at Kingfisher Hill

by Sophie Hannah

  An hour later we were seated in the library, awaiting Daisy Devonport. I had given Poirot the fine detail of all the conversations I had conducted in his absence, ending with the most dramatic one and Daisy’s insistence that she must speak to him immediately.

  ‘Ah, c’est parfait!’ he cried. ‘You will see, my friend: the conversation that we are about to have with Mademoiselle Daisy—this too will unfold exactly as I predict. If I had a pen and paper, I could write it down like the lines of a play. It is almost as if I am able to observe the future.’

  He really was pleased with himself today!

  When Daisy entered the library, it was clear that she had been crying, and recently. Her eyes were red and swollen. ‘Thank goodness you’re back,’ she said to Poirot, lowering herself into the nearest chair to his.

  ‘How may I help you?’ he asked her.

  ‘I pray that you can. I have been so awfully foolish, M. Poirot.’

  ‘Mademoiselle … I wonder, will you permit me to tell you, and Catchpool here, the story that you wish to tell me?’

  Daisy looked confused. ‘You do not know the story. Only I know it.’

  ‘Do not be so sure,’ said Poirot. ‘You may stop me if I get something wrong. Do you agree?’

  Still looking nonplussed, she nodded.

  ‘You are here, are you not, to make a new confession? Not to the crime of murder this time, however. This morning you wish to confess to a lesser sin, the sin of lying. You have told a very serious lie, have you not?’

  ‘Yes.’ Tears spilled over and ran down Daisy’s face.

  ‘And—as if that were not enough—you have heinously contrived to conceal from me and from Inspector Catchpool many important things. Is this not so?’

  She nodded.

  ‘You did not murder your brother Frank, did you?’

  ‘No, I did not.’

  ‘What about the lady in the green hat and coat? Did you kill her?’

  ‘No,’ said Daisy. ‘I have killed nobody. But …’

  ‘Silence, please. Allow me to tell you what you did. You took the poker from the fireplace and destroyed the head and face of the dead woman. You bludgeoned her until you were certain that she would not be recognized. Yes?’

  ‘Yes,’ Daisy whispered.

  ‘And the note written in black ink? “You sat in a seat you should never have sat in, now here comes a poker to batter your hat in”…’

  ‘I wrote the note and placed it on her body,’ said Daisy.

  ‘Indeed.’ Poirot’s eyes moved around the room as he deliberated. ‘This is fascinating. Fascinating! You wrote the note because at the same time you did and did not wish to reveal the dead woman’s identity.’

  Daisy looked at him. ‘You are extremely clever, M. Poirot. I am no match for you.’

  Poirot paused, apparently savouring her words. ‘Tell me, if you did not kill the woman in the green hat and coat, then who did?’

  ‘I don’t know. Truly, I don’t. It might have been anyone. Anyone apart from Oliver or me. We were out walking together between ten and eleven. But everyone else, even those who were supposed to be with somebody at the time … I mean, it’s not impossible for two people to have done it together, is it?’

  ‘No, it is not,’ Poirot agreed. ‘Let us talk about the dead woman, the woman from the coach. She gave her name as Joan Blythe. Does that name sound familiar to you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Daisy. ‘That is one of the things I wanted to tell you. M. Poirot. I have withheld so much and told so many lies, I wish I could say that I am sorry. It feels true—I am sorry now—but if I were not in a state of mortal fear, would I be sorry? I doubt it. Which means that you should scorn my apparent contrition. It means that I regret my dishonesty for my own sake, not for any other, nobler reason.’ She looked very young and afraid and I tried hard not to feel sorry for her. For all I knew, this was just another act.

  Poirot said, ‘All I seek is the truth of what happened, mademoiselle. The rest is a matter for your conscience.’

  She nodded. Gathering herself a little, she said, ‘Joan Blythe is the name of the author of a book that is very dear to me: Midnight Gathering. I had it with me on the coach. You saw it, Inspector Catchpool, do you remember? I’d put it down on the seat beside me, and I turned and found you staring at it rather oddly. Then later you accused me of having stolen it, M. Poirot, when I had done no such thing. For some reason, the book caused you both to behave in a most peculiar way. In any case, Joan Blythe—the real Joan Blythe, whoever she might be—is that novel’s author. It was given to me by a friend of mine, a man called Humphrey. I subsequently gave it as a gift to many other people.’

  ‘Why did you not tell me the truth on the coach, when I asked how the book came into your possession?’ said Poirot.

  ‘And why did you tell me that you had invented Humphrey?’ I asked her.

  ‘I did tell you the truth,’ Daisy said to Poirot. ‘I told you it was a present someone had given me. I was about to say that it was from a friend called Humphrey when I realized that you had just accused me of theft and did not deserve to know any more than I had already told you. It hardly mattered to you—it could have been Humphrey, Cedric or James for all you would care.’ She turned to me. ‘I told you the truth at first too. Then I decided to have some fun and take it back, pretend it was a lie. I quite enjoy lying sometimes. It’s good sport.’

  ‘This I have no difficultly in believing,’ Poirot said with a small sigh. ‘Did you enjoy pretending to have murdered your brother Frank?’

  ‘That provided me with a darker sort of satisfaction,’ said Daisy. ‘I would not describe it as enjoyment.’

  ‘And you believed you were safe from punishment for this crime to which you had confessed? For as long as Helen Acton adhered to her story that she killed Frank, you were safe. She was already in prison and condemned to die. You were at no risk of being hanged for a crime of which another woman had already been convicted.’

  ‘So I thought,’ Daisy said quietly.

  ‘Then when Catchpool told you that Helen Acton had retracted her confession, you panicked. You could not allow your own confession to be the only one. Here, suddenly, was a tangible danger that you might be the one to hang.’

  ‘You are very clever, M. Poirot. You understand why I am now willing to tell you the truth.’

  ‘Allow me to return the favour, mademoiselle.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I, also, will now tell you the truth: Helen Acton has not retracted her confession. That was our little lie that we devised for you.’

  Daisy’s mouth fell open. She stared at me hard.

  ‘Do not blame Inspector Catchpool,’ Poirot told her. ‘The idea was mine. Now, tell me, do you wish to confess once more to the murder of Frank? If not, that leaves Helen Acton as the only one claiming to be guilty. Her execution will no doubt be expedited if you are no longer offering a rival confession for consideration.’

  ‘But … I don’t want Helen to die.’ Daisy’s voice shook. ‘Frank loved her and she loved him. I know she did. I saw it. Not for long, but I saw it. It was real. You could feel it in the room. But I do not want to tell any more lies, not to save Helen, not for any reason. I am tired of lying, so tired.’

  I knew what she meant. I rarely lied, but when I did—usually at Poirot’s instigation or to pacify my mother—I found it exhausting.

  ‘I will ask you again to make sure,’ said Poirot. ‘Did you kill your brother Frank? Did you push him over the balcony to his death?’

  ‘No, I did not. I swear it. I have never murdered anyone! I only wanted you to think that I could, and that I had. I see now how stupid and vain and petty I have been. There is nothing I can say that will make up for what I’ve done, I know that. My behaviour has been inexcusable.’ She shut her eyes and closed her hands into fists. ‘If you only knew how I have dreamed of committing murder and getting away with it. I have spent nearly a year wishing I could do it—ever since Father
sent Frank away—but I am incapable. I am no better than a frightened child. So instead I boasted of doing the thing I was afraid to do. It might not make sense to you, but I only wanted to pretend to be someone who possessed the courage I lacked!’

  ‘You wished to kill Frank?’ I asked her.

  ‘No. Not at all.’ Daisy stood up and walked over to the window. ‘I adored Frank, but having lost him forever … it won’t make sense to you, I’m sure, but after his death, I fantasized endlessly that it was I who had killed him to punish Father. And Mother. If they thought they could have him back after they had deprived me of him …’ Her face contorted in pain. ‘And then sometimes it was my parents I dreamed of murdering—the people who cared so little for my feelings that they disowned my brother even though I begged them not to. Oh, we all knew the hierarchy of importance: Father at the top, above everybody, then Mother, then Frank. Richard and I were irrelevant. Mother could have made Father see sense if she had only been brave enough to stand up to him. Look what happened when she fell ill and asked if Frank could be forgiven—he granted her wish!’

  ‘Mademoiselle, if you did not push Frank to his death, then who did?’

  Daisy shook her head. ‘I wish I knew. When I came out of my room, he was already falling.’

  ‘And you saw people standing on the landing near where he had fallen, did you not? Whom did you see?’

  ‘Helen. Verna. Mother and Father.’ Daisy turned to me. ‘May I answer your other questions now, Inspector, the ones I would not answer when you asked me yesterday? I should like to atone for my dishonesty by being as truthful as I can from now on. I did tell you the truth about one thing: you asked me why Father and Mother sent us all over to Kingfisher’s View on the day Frank was killed. I gave you an honest answer: they simply wanted it. In their estimation, in the ordinary course of things, only they and their wishes matter. On that particular day Frank mattered too, but none of the rest of us ever had—so why on earth would they want us cluttering up the house? There was nothing more to it than that.’

  This was a fuller answer than she had given me the first time. I believed her.

  ‘You also asked why Father tolerated Richard’s engagement to Helen. It’s quite simple: after Frank’s murder, my parents decided to pretend that neither Frank nor Helen had ever existed. Not straight away, mind you. They screamed and wailed over Frank’s lifeless body for about thirty minutes, after which they closeted themselves away in Mother’s bedroom. When they eventually emerged from that room, we all saw at once that a … a sort of wall had gone up around them. From that moment until the two of you arrived and started asking uncomfortable questions, they behaved as if they’d never had a son called Frank and as if there was no such person as Helen.’

  ‘And so when Richard proposed marriage to her and she accepted …?’ Poirot prompted.

  ‘Richard saw that in this particular matter, Father was powerless. News of the engagement reached him, of course, but he has never acknowledged it. We all knew that he wouldn’t. In order to protest about it, he would have had to utter Helen’s name, which might have led to a conversation that would have been impossible for his pride to withstand. Richard could have said, “Who are you to tell me what to do, Father? You said Frank was to be banished forever, then changed your mind on a whim to please Mother.” Obviously Richard would never be so bold, but the possibility was there and that was enough to ensure Father’s silence on the subject. He knew only too well that changing his mind about Frank had diminished his moral authority beyond repair. And he and Mother were very quickly unwilling to think about Frank at all. They did not want to be bereaved, or to have had a son who had stolen from them, a son who was then murdered. They created a new reality that they could stand to live in—one in which nothing had happened, none of the unbearable, shameful things. How could they then object to Richard’s engagement without stepping out of their invented world and into our real one?’

  ‘What about your engagement to Oliver Prowd?’ I asked her. ‘Did you think along the same lines as Richard: that Sidney would disapprove of your marriage to Oliver yet be unable to object?’

  ‘Yes, I did. What could he have said? “I forbid you to marry the man who conspired with Frank to steal from me”? I would have feigned innocence and said, “But, Father, I don’t understand. If Frank can be given another chance then why not Oliver? You said that we must never weaken and allow Frank to worm his way back in.” Don’t you see? Father had succumbed to persuasion from Mother to make her last days more bearable, but he loathed himself for doing so. He saw it as unpardonable weakness on his part and took pains to ensure that Richard and I would have no occasion to raise the subject for discussion.’

  ‘Do you love Oliver Prowd?’ Poirot asked her.

  ‘Of course I do. Not as much as he loves me, but I would never wish to love a husband that much. One would feel rather powerless.’

  ‘I have another question for you, mademoiselle. When you came into the drawing room and found me there with Inspector Catchpool, Sergeant Gidley and the police doctor—do you recall the scene?’

  ‘Yes. That woman’s dead body was there, lying on the floor, and I was about to have to pretend that I had not recently smashed up her head with a poker. Of course I recall it. I shall never forget it.’

  ‘Then you may also recall that Catchpool and I discussed her identity. The name Joan Blythe was mentioned. Why did you not immediately say, “This is a coincidence, for Joan Blythe is also the author of my favourite book”?’

  Daisy smiled sadly. ‘Because Midnight Gathering, at that point, was the very furthest thing from my mind. I knew Joan Blythe wasn’t the dead woman’s name, and I knew why she had told you it was.’

  Poirot was nodding as she spoke. ‘You knew, did you not, that her real name was—’

  ‘Winnie Lord,’ said Daisy.

  I wished I could see through the skin of his forehead to the fine mind beneath. How had he known that Joan Blythe and Winnie Lord were one and the same person? It was unfathomable to me!

  ‘Let us play a little game,’ Poirot said to Daisy Devonport. ‘I will tell you parts of a story—the parts that I know. It will be like the jigsaw puzzle. You will fill in the missing pieces. Do you agree?’

  She nodded.

  ‘I have known for certain only since yesterday that Joan Blythe from the motor-coach was Winnie Lord, though I guessed it much earlier. But there was something I knew almost from the start, something that helped me greatly. I knew that you and Joan-Blythe-from-the-coach were travelling together. You were not two passengers who happened to be seated for some minutes side by side; you were travelling companions.

  ‘Knowing as I did that the two of you had embarked upon this journey by motor-coach together and yet ended up pretending, for my benefit, to be strangers to one another—this has made the solving of all of the puzzles seem possible to me from the very beginning, when it did not seem possible to Catchpool. For him there were only the many strands that made no sense when each was viewed as unconnected to the others. He remarked upon the impossible coincidence of them all happening at once: first, a woman warned by a stranger that she would be murdered if she sat in a particular seat. Then, that seat being next to one occupied by a woman who tells Hercule Poirot that she has committed murder herself.

  ‘How can it happen, Catchpool asked me, that two women speak to us so candidly of murder during the same journey, two unconnected women—or so he believed! Eh bien, then there was the apparent coincidence le plus incroyable: that these two revelations should occur when we are en route to Kingfisher Hill to investigate yet another murder, for which an innocent woman might be about to hang. Of course, mademoiselle, there was nothing coincidental about any of it, as you know—you, the inspired inventor who orchestrated the entire scene!

  ‘You and Winnie Lord were travelling to Kingfisher Hill. It was where you both lived. You had been to London and now you were returning. You did not know that your brother, Richard, had ask
ed for my help in proving Helen Acton’s innocence. He had told no one. When you became aware that here was Hercule Poirot, the famous detective, within easy reach, it did not strike you as anything but a coincidence. An opportunity. You had no notion that I was en route to Little Key to solve the murder of Frank Devonport. According to the law that crime was already solved and justice was soon to be done. You, meanwhile, had spent many months indulging in the morbid fantasy that you had committed the murder of Frank in order to punish your parents—to deprive them of him in the very same way that they had deprived you. Alors, you decided to play a little game with Poirot. The part of you that likes to tell lies in order to create certain effects … it could not resist.’

  ‘It did not try,’ Daisy admitted. ‘I was certain I could confess to you without letting slip any details that would identify me. I was excited to hear what you might have to say on the matter. I yearned for you to solve the mystery and guess why I did it—which you failed to do. I didn’t kill Frank but if I had … well, I would have had a very interesting and clever motive, wouldn’t I? I thought to myself, let’s see if the great Hercule Poirot can work it out.’

  ‘Ah, but you faced an obstacle,’ said Poirot. ‘How could you make this confession to me? I was sitting next to Catchpool, several rows behind you, and you were sitting in the seventh row with Winnie Lord. You could hardly stand and shout about murder over the heads of all the other passengers.’

  ‘How did you know that Winnie and I were travelling together?’ said Daisy.

  ‘It was obvious,’ said Poirot. ‘Catchpool had seen a book on the seat beside you: Midnight Gathering. When you saw him looking at it, you picked it up and held it for a moment. Then when Catchpool started to move along down the aisle, you put the book back on that seat, the one that was later taken by Winnie Lord. But the coach was full—completely full—and you knew that, mademoiselle, because Alfred Bixby, owner of the Kingfisher Coach Company, had boasted most volubly and made sure we passengers all knew that every ticket was sold and every seat taken.’