The Mystery of Three Quarters

by Sophie Hannah

  ‘Ah!’ he exclaimed, as Lenore led him past another sequence of doors.

  She stopped. ‘Did you say something?’ she asked him with a polite smile.

  ‘Non. Pardon, madame.’

  He had not intended to make a sound, but was relieved to have worked out what it was about Annabel Treadway that had struck him: although an atmosphere of melancholy still lingered around her, she had determinedly pushed her own emotions to one side in order to think only about her sister’s.

  ‘Yes, that is it,’ thought Poirot to himself with satisfaction. Both of the sisters had been so acutely aware of the other, so attuned to every word, expression or gesture coming from the other … Why? he asked himself. It was as if Lenore had placed Annabel—and Annabel, in turn, had placed Lenore—under a form of secret surveillance. Each sister had of course known that the other was in the room, listening to whatever she said, but both had pretended to listen in an ordinary, casual way, when in fact each one had been obsessively focused on the other.

  ‘They share a secret,’ Poirot thought. ‘The two sisters share a secret, and each is afraid that the other will give it away to Hercule Poirot, a stranger, who has come here to poke his nose into their private affairs!’

  ‘M. Poirot?’

  Distracted by his theorizing, he had failed to notice that Lenore Lavington had stopped walking. ‘This is the bathroom in which the tragedy occurred. Please, do go in.’

  ‘Thank you, madame.’

  As they entered, the floorboards creaked, making a strained noise that sounded like someone in great pain trying not to attract attention, thought Poirot wistfully. The room was sparsely furnished: only a bathtub in the middle of the room, one chair, a shelf with a crumbling edge, and in one corner a low squat chest of drawers with elaborate carvings around the edges of each drawer. Poirot had previously heard such pieces described as ‘tallboys’, but that name wouldn’t have suited this one, which was more of a ‘shortboy’. The wood ought to have been shiny, but instead had the dull look of furniture that nobody had polished for years.

  On the shelf stood one solitary item: a small bottle of purple glass. ‘What is that?’ Poirot asked.

  ‘In the bottle? It’s oil of olives,’ said Lenore Lavington.

  ‘In the bathroom, not the kitchen?’

  ‘Grandfather …’ She stopped. More quietly, she started again, ‘Grandfather never bathed without oil of olives.’

  ‘In his bathwater?’

  ‘Yes. It was good for his skin, he said, and he liked the smell—goodness knows why.’ She turned away and walked over to the window. ‘I’m sorry, M. Poirot. It’s surprising: I find it easy to discuss his death, but that little bottle …’

  ‘Je comprends. It is harder to talk about the bottle because it was something he enjoyed while alive. That is the thought that makes you sad.’

  ‘Yes, it is. I was fond of Grandfather.’ She said it as though this was something that might require explanation, not a fact to be taken for granted.

  ‘You are quite sure, madame, that you heard Monsieur Pandy speak—that you heard him, alive, and that it could only have been him? And from that moment until you saw that he had drowned in his bathwater, you were together with your sister and your daughter? Not one of you left the company of the other two, even for a few moments?’

  ‘I am quite, quite sure,’ said Lenore Lavington. ‘Annabel, Ivy and I were chatting away and he called out to us that we were disturbing him. He liked the house to be quiet.’

  ‘Mademoiselle Ivy’s bedroom is near this room?’

  ‘Yes, just across the corridor and a little to the right. We had closed the door, but it makes no difference in this house. He would have heard our conversation clearly.’

  ‘Thank you, madame.’

  ‘I would be grateful if you could tread carefully when you speak to Kingsbury,’ she said. ‘He has been rather withdrawn since Grandfather died. I hope you won’t need to bother him for too long.’

  ‘I shall make it as brief as possible,’ Poirot promised.

  ‘Nobody killed Grandfather, but if anybody had, that person could never have been Kingsbury. For one thing, his clothes would have been wet, and they weren’t. Annabel, Ivy and I all heard him cry out when he found … when he saw what had happened and, seconds later, we were all in here together. Kingsbury’s clothes were completely dry.’

  ‘You did not try to pull your grandfather out of the water?’

  ‘No. It was apparent that it was far too late to save him.’

  ‘Then your sister’s garments were also dry?’

  Lenore seemed angered by the question. ‘All of our clothing was dry. Including Annabel’s. She was wearing a blue dress with white and yellow flowers on it. Long sleeves. She stood right beside me, here. I would have noticed at once if she had water dripping from her sleeves! I am an observant person.’

  ‘I do not doubt it,’ said Poirot.

  ‘Surely you do not take this accusation against my sister seriously, M. Poirot? The same letter was sent to four people. What if it had been sent to a hundred people? Would you consider each one a possible culprit, even if the police had no suspicions and the death had already been judged by a coroner’s court to be an accident?’

  Poirot started to answer, but Lenore Lavington had not yet finished. ‘Besides, the idea of Annabel murdering anybody is quite ludicrous,’ she said. ‘My sister has the wrong constitution for any sort of unlawful action. If she broke even a minor law it would torment her for ever. She would never risk a murder. She wouldn’t even risk getting a different breed of dog.’

  Ivy Lavington walked into the room. ‘Lots of people stick with one breed,’ she said. ‘Hopscotch is an Airedale and so was Skittle, the one before him,’ she explained to Poirot.

  ‘Have you been listening outside the door?’ asked her mother.

  ‘No,’ said Ivy. ‘Have you been saying things you don’t want me to overhear?

  ‘My sister is like a second mother to Ivy and my son Timothy, M. Poirot. They both tend to leap to her defence, having first imagined I am attacking her when I’m not.’

  ‘Oh, Mummy, stop feeling sorry for yourself!’ said Ivy with good-humoured impatience. ‘It’s Aunt Annabel who has been accused of murder, not you. She absolutely couldn’t have done it, M. Poirot.’

  Poirot decided he liked Ivy Lavington. She had a youthful energy about her, and she struck him as the only normal member of the household—though of course he had yet to meet Kingsbury. ‘Was Hopscotch with the three of you in your bedroom, Mademoiselle Ivy, while your Grandfather took his bath?’

  ‘Of course he was,’ Lenore Lavington answered the question on her daughter’s behalf. ‘Wherever Annabel goes, the dog follows. He can go off on his own, but she isn’t allowed to. The day she travelled to London to see you, he howled for nearly an hour after she left. It was horribly incon-venient.’

  ‘Madame, may I tell you the names of the other three people who received letters accusing them of Monsieur Pandy’s murder?’

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘John McCrodden. Hugo Dockerill. Sylvia Rule. Do you know any of these names?’

  ‘Hugo Dockerill is Timothy’s housemaster at school. I have never heard the other two names apart from when you spoke of Mr McCrodden earlier.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Mummy.’ Ivy laughed. ‘Of course you know who Sylvia Rule is.’

  ‘That’s not true.’ Lenore Lavington looked confused. ‘Do you know who she is?’ she asked Ivy. ‘Who is she?’ It was as if her daughter knowing something she did not was a prospect she found intolerable.

  ‘She’s the mother of Freddie Rule. He’s in Timmy’s house at school. He started at Turville about six months ago. He was horribly bullied at his last school.’

  Poirot watched with interest as the colour drained from Lenore Lavington’s face. ‘F-Freddie?’ she stammered. ‘Strange, lonely Freddie? His family name is Rule?’

  ‘Yes. And his mother is Sylvia. You must
have known that! Why do you look so queer?’

  ‘Fred-die,’ her mother said again, more slowly, her eyes glazed and remote. By merely uttering the name, she managed to imbue it with a peculiar sort of horror.

  ‘Why do you object so strongly to poor Freddie, Mummy? What harm has he ever done to you?’

  Ivy’s robust question ruptured the tense atmosphere.

  ‘None,’ Lenore Lavington answered crisply. She seemed restored to her old self. ‘I didn’t know his family name, that’s all. I’m surprised you do.’

  ‘I spoke to him once when we went to visit Timmy at school. I noticed a boy on his own looking rather glum, so I went over to speak to him. We had a long and quite interesting chat. He introduced himself as Freddie Rule. At some point he must have mentioned his mother, Sylvia, because I know that’s her name.’

  ‘That awful hermit boy is no friend of Timothy’s,’ Lenore Lavington told Poirot. ‘I’ve advised Timothy to avoid him, in fact. I think he’s peculiar in the head—the sort of boy who might do anything.’

  ‘Mummy!’ Ivy laughed. ‘Did you really? Have you lost your wits? Freddie’s the most harmless boy in the world.’

  Poirot said, ‘On the day your grandfather died, the two of you and Mademoiselle Annabel were supposed to be attending the Christmas Fair at your son’s school. That is correct, is it not?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lenore.

  ‘But you did not go to the fair, in the end.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I can’t remember.’

  Poirot turned to Ivy. ‘Do you recall the reason, mademoiselle?’

  ‘Perhaps Mummy wanted to avoid Freddie Rule, and that’s why she changed her mind about going.’

  ‘Don’t be absurd, Ivy,’ said Lenore.

  ‘It’s only that you looked so ghastly when I mentioned his name, Mummy. Why? I know you’re not going to tell me, but I should very much like to know.’

  So, too, would Hercule Poirot have liked to know.

  CHAPTER 16

  The Opportunity Man

  Kingsbury’s small cottage was a short walk from the main house. Immediately outside it was a compact kitchen garden with borders of lavender, rosemary and hyssop.

  Poirot approached the front door, eager to meet ‘The Opportunity Man’, as he had begun to think of Kingsbury. If the ladies of Combingham Hall were telling the truth, then Kingsbury was the only person who could have murdered Barnabas Pandy. Could it be as simple as that? Poirot wondered. Might he extract a confession from the manservant and solve the mystery today?

  He knocked on the door, and soon afterwards heard shuffling footsteps behind it. It opened. A skeletally thin man with creased, papery skin and eyes of a peculiar yellow-tinged green stood in the doorway. He looked at least seventy years old. Poirot suspected that he believed himself to be smartly dressed, though the bottoms of his trousers were covered in dust. What little hair he had hung in isolated strands of white, as if remnants of a wig he had once worn had adhered to his scalp.

  Poirot introduced himself to the old man and explained his presence at Combingham Hall, starting with his visit from Annabel Treadway. Kingsbury squinted and bent his head forward, as if struggling to see and hear him. It was only when Poirot referred to his conversation with Lenore Lavington and mentioned that she had sent him to the cottage that the servant’s manner changed. His eyes cleared and his back straightened. He invited Poirot inside.

  Once uncomfortably seated on a hard chair in a room that clearly served as both sitting room and kitchen, Poirot asked Kingsbury if he thought it possible that Barnabas Pandy had been murdered.

  The old man shook his head—a movement that rearranged the white strands on his scalp. ‘Couldn’t have been,’ he said. ‘The girls were all in Miss Ivy’s room having a to-do, causing a commotion, and the only other person around was me.’

  ‘And you, naturally, had no reason to want Monsieur Pandy dead?’

  ‘Not him,’ said Kingsbury, with a strong emphasis on the last word.

  ‘There is, then, somebody else that you wish to kill?’

  ‘Not to kill. But I’ll not lie to you, Mr Porrott: I’ve thought to myself many times since Mr Pandy’s been gone, it’d be a mercy if the Lord were to take me too.’

  ‘He was a good friend as well as your employer, n’est-ce pas?’

  ‘Best friend a man could have. He was a fine fellow. I don’t do much of anything, now he’s gone. Doesn’t feel like there’s a point to doing anything. I do my work, of course,’ he added hurriedly. ‘But I never go up to the Hall when I’m not needed, not now he’s gone.’

  Watching the fluttery, bird-like movements of Kingsbury’s hands as he spoke, Poirot doubted he would have the strength to drown anybody. How had he helped an even older man into his bath? Perhaps Pandy, though older, had been physically stronger and able to get in and out of the tub without assistance.

  Kingsbury leaned towards Poirot and said confidingly, ‘Mr Porrott, I can promise you that Mr Pandy wasn’t murdered. If that’s the only reason you’ve come to Combingham Hall … well, you could have saved yourself the bother.’

  ‘I hope that you are right. All the same, if you will permit me to ask you a few questions …?’

  ‘Ask if you want, but there’s no more I can tell you than what I’ve just said. There’s nothing more to tell.’

  ‘Where were you while Monsieur Pandy took his bath and the ladies of the house were in Mademoiselle Ivy’s bedroom causing the commotion?’

  ‘I was here, unpacking my suitcase after having been away for a short spell. I drew Mr Pandy’s bath for him, and put in the oil of olives like I always did, and then knowing he liked to soak in the tub for a good forty, forty-five minutes, I thought to myself, “I know what I’ll do: I’ll unpack that case.” So that’s what I did. Then I went back over to the Hall, thinking Mr Pandy would be wanting to get dried and dressed round about then. That’s when I found him.’ The old man’s chin trembled at the memory. ‘He was lying under the water. Dead. It was a terrible sight, Mr Porrott. His eyes and mouth were open. I’ll not forget that in a hurry.’

  ‘I am told that the front door to the Hall is usually left ajar,’ said Poirot.

  ‘Oh, yes. Dog won’t stand for it being shut, not before nine o’clock at night, which is his bedtime, and Miss Annabel’s. He doesn’t mind it being shut then.’

  ‘Could a stranger have entered the house and drowned Monsieur Pandy while the ladies were in Ivy Lavington’s room and you were here unpacking your suitcase?’

  Kingsbury shook his head.

  ‘Why not?’ asked Poirot.

  ‘Dog,’ said the old man. ‘He’d have gone wild. I’d have heard him from over here. A stranger, creeping around the Hall? They wouldn’t get out alive, not if Hopscotch had anything to do with it.’

  ‘I have met Hopscotch,’ Poirot told him. ‘He seemed to me to be an affectionate creature.’

  ‘Oh, yes, if you’re a friend to the family, or an invited guest … but he’s quick to take fright, and he’d know something was wrong if he got wind of an intruder prowling around.’

  ‘I understand that you have been left a significant sum of money in the will of Monsieur Pandy?’

  ‘I was left it, but I’ll not be spending it—not so much as a farthing of it will I spend. It can go to one of that Dr Barnardo’s homes for poor children. Mrs Lavington’s said she’ll arrange it all for me. What would I do with it? Money can’t bring Mr Pandy back, and if he weren’t gone, I’d not have had it as a worry. And now I won’t again, as I’ll be giving it all away.’ Kingsbury spoke with apparent sincerity and conviction, but Poirot had encountered many talented liars in the past. It would be prudent, he decided, to check in due course that the sum intended for Dr Barnardo’s had ended up there and not gone astray en route.

  ‘Alors, you found a most distressing scene when you returned to the bathroom. When you cried out in shock and the three ladies soon afterwards appea
red in the bathroom, were their clothes wet or dry?’

  ‘Dry. Why would they be wet? It wasn’t any of them that was in the tub, was it?’

  ‘You are certain you would have noticed if, for example, somebody’s sleeves or dress had been wet?’

  The old man shook his head. ‘A flock of geese could have wandered in and I’d not have noticed—not with Mr Pandy staring up at me from under the water.’

  ‘Then …’ Poirot sighed quietly. ‘Never mind. There is a more important question I must ask you. The loud commotion that the three ladies were making while Mr Pandy bathed—’

  ‘It was hard on the ears, I don’t mind telling you,’ said Kingsbury. ‘Mrs Lavington and Miss Ivy were screaming at each other, and Miss Annabel was screaming at them to stop, and crying her heart out. And then Mrs Lavington shouted at her that she wasn’t Miss Ivy’s mother and she’d do well to remember that. It was a terrible to-do. Mr Pandy didn’t like it and I can’t say as I blame him. He shouted at them to be quiet.’

  ‘You were still in the main house when you heard this?’ asked Poirot.

  ‘No, I was outside the cottage, just about to let myself in. The bathroom window was open—he always had it open. Liked his bathwater hot, he did, and the air in the room cold. Said the two balanced each other out. Oh, I heard him loud and clear.’

  ‘After his plea for peace and quiet, were you able to hear if the argument ended?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. Miss Ivy’s bedroom is at the front of the house. But I don’t think it had finished. No, I’m sure it hadn’t. Or else it stopped and then started again, ’cause it was still going when I returned to the main house. Mr Pandy’s death was what stopped it. They all saw him under the water and that was that.’

  ‘If the dog was in a room full of people screaming at one another, and if he saw his mistress was upset, is it not possible that Hopscotch might, just this once, have failed to notice that a stranger had entered the house?’ Poirot asked. ‘The door to Ivy Lavington’s bedroom was closed, according to Mrs Lavington. Might the dog not have failed to smell or hear the intruder, preoccupied as he must have been by his mistress’s unhappy state?’