No. It couldn’t be. It was impossible to think clearly while his heart pounded so violently.
It couldn’t be. Yet it was.
‘Hello, John.’
‘It’s … it’s you,’ was all he could manage to say.
THE FOURTH QUARTER
CHAPTER 31
A Note for Mr Porrott
Freddie Rule had learned a lot since arriving at Combingham Hall yesterday. Much more than he had ever learned at school, in fact. The teachers did their best to stuff useful facts into him, and he was decent at remembering them, but hearing about something that had happened in the past, or about what some long-dead chap had worked out, wasn’t the same as making the discovery yourself. When that happened—and not in a stuffy, almost-silent schoolroom, but in the course of one’s everyday life—whatever it was that one had learned left a much deeper impression. Freddie was certain he would never forget the two lessons that his time at Timothy Lavington’s house (as he thought of it) had so far taught him: the first was that a person only really needed one friend.
Miraculously, Timothy had decided that he liked Freddie. They’d had fun running around the garden together playing hide-and-seek, pinching food from the kitchen when Cook wasn’t looking, and mocking old Dimwit Dockerill and some of the other people in the house: the Old Fossil of a butler who looked as if he might crumble to dust if he moved another inch, the Belgian that both Timothy and Freddie called ‘the Egg with a Moustache’, and the man who looked like a bust in a museum, with curly grey hair and the highest forehead in the world.
‘People are really rather grotesque, aren’t they, Freddie?’ Timothy had said this morning. ‘Especially when lots of them are gathered together in one place, like now—that’s when I really notice it—or at school. I don’t think much of our species, on the whole. You’re all right, Freddie. And obviously I’m all right too. And I love my Aunt Annabel and Ivy and my father …’ Here Timothy had stopped and frowned, as if thinking about his father bothered him.
‘What about your mother, and all your friends at Turville?’
‘I try to think well of Mummy,’ Timothy had sighed. ‘As for my friends at Turville, I loathe them all. They’re the most insufferable dullards.’
‘But then …?’
‘Why do I keep them as friends? Why do I spend all my time with them? Survival: that’s the only reason. School is a savage place, Freddie, wouldn’t you agree?’
‘I … I’m not sure,’ Freddie had stammered, looking down at his lap. ‘My last school was more savage. I got my collarbone broken there, and my wrist.’
‘You haven’t been around long enough to notice Turville’s subtle savagery. No limbs are broken—only spirits. When I started there, I immediately identified that group of boys—the group of which I’m now the leader—as the one most likely to ensure my survival. I chose correctly, I think. The fact is, I knew I wasn’t strong enough to tough it out alone. That’s why I admire you, Freddie.’
Freddie had been too astonished to speak and so had made no response.
‘You don’t feel the need to make the nauseating compromises I make in order to be popular. You spend most of your time with Dimwit Dockerill’s wife, who’s a good egg, all things considered. Taken you under her wing, hasn’t she?’
‘She is kind to me, yes.’
Freddie had found it hard to concentrate, so surprised was he by what Timothy was saying. He had barely managed to answer the question. He would have made endless nauseating compromises in order to be as popular as Timothy, but the opportunity to do so had never presented itself.
‘I could be your friend at school,’ he said. ‘If you don’t like your other friends, I mean. We don’t have to speak to each other, but secretly we could know that we were friends. Only if …’ Freddie had lost his nerve at that point, and started to mumble: ‘It was just an idea. I’ll understand if you don’t want to.’
‘Or we could be friends in the normal way, quite openly, and anyone who doesn’t like it can go to the devil!’ Timothy had said defiantly.
‘No, you don’t want to do that. You can’t be seen to like me. You’d soon be as unpopular as I am.’
‘I don’t think that’s true,’ Timothy had said thoughtfully. ‘I did such a good job of making myself popular when I joined the school, I’m fairly sure I can now take that popularity with me wherever I go, whatever groups I do or don’t belong to. We shall see. Naturally, we’ll need to make a few vital alterations to … well, to you, Freddie. Your demeanour, the way you conduct yourself at school.’
‘Of course,’ Freddie had hastily agreed. ‘Whatever you think best.’
‘Your clothes are a little too … I mean, there’s school uniform and then there’s school uniform, Freddie.’
‘I see. Yes, of course.’
‘Still, we needn’t worry about the details now. It’s funny, you know: I’ve always envied you. The rumours about your mother … I hope you don’t mind my mentioning them?’
‘I don’t mind,’ Freddie had said, though he did, very much.
‘It’s just that everybody thinks your mother’s a baby-killer and a monster, and they all say so, while they all think my mother is the soul of respectability. Which she is. But that means nobody ever calls her a horror, which means I can’t join in and say, “Yes, I think you might be right. I think she drove my father away with her cold-heartedness.” I should like to say that, loudly and to a large crowd. I should like it very much. But my mother’s deficiencies get no official recognition. And if I tried to explain, no one would understand or feel sorry for me.’
‘The rumours about my mother are completely untrue,’ said Freddie quickly and quietly. He could not have forgiven himself if he hadn’t said it at all.
‘As are the lack of rumours about mine,’ said Timothy.
‘How can a lack of rumours be untrue?’
‘You are too literal-minded, Freddie.’ Timothy smiled. ‘Come on, let’s see if we can find any tasty scraps in the kitchen. I’m starved!’
And so—although he feared his new-found state of delirious happiness might last only as long as he and Timothy were at Combingham Hall together, with no other boys of their age present—Freddie’s life had changed beyond all recognition in the space of mere minutes. He had a friend! Mrs Dockerill, kind though she was, couldn’t be his friend. She could only ever be a grown-up who pitied him and took care of him—but that didn’t matter, because now Freddie had Timothy.
This was what had taught him that nobody needed more than one friend. He had only one, and it turned out to be the perfect number. He felt absolutely no need for more.
The second lesson Freddie had learned at Combingham Hall was that definitions of size, like ‘big’ and ‘small’, were relative. Until he had come here, Freddie had always thought of his own home in London as large. He knew he would not be able to think of it in this way ever again, not now that he’d seen Timothy’s house, which was a mansion of the sort that a royal or aristocratic person might own, and had more extensive grounds even than Turville College. The Hall was so big, it was almost like being outside in the open air, except inside. One could run past as many doors as one would normally only see side by side on a long street, and still find new corners to turn, new staircases to climb.
Freddie had now been running for some time, looking for Timothy in their latest game of hide-and-seek. He had checked dozens of empty bedrooms and every nook and cranny he could find, and was now at the stage of simply dashing around calling out, ‘Timothy! Timothy!’
He raced around another corner and nearly banged into the Old Fossil. ‘Mind yourself, laddie!’ the old man said. What was his name? Kingswood? Kingsmead? ‘You nearly knocked me to the ground!’
‘Sorry, sir,’ said Freddie. Kingsbury: that was it!
‘I should think so too. Now, have you by any chance seen Mr Porrott?’
‘Who?’
‘The French gentleman.’
The Fossil was talking
about the Egg with a Moustache, Freddie realized. ‘He’s Belgian, isn’t he? Not French.’
‘No, he’s French. I’ve heard him say French-sounding things since he got here.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Have you seen him, laddie?’
At that moment, Timothy Lavington ran up behind the Fossil, shouting, ‘Freddie! Found you!’
The old man staggered back. He steadied himself against the wall and put his hand on his chest. ‘You boys’ll put me in an early grave,’ he said. Freddie nearly laughed at his use of the word ‘early’. He must have been at least eighty years old.
‘Why’d you have to tear around like wild things, and leap out at each other like monkeys from trees?’
‘Sorry, Kingsbury,’ Timothy said cheerfully. ‘It won’t happen again, I promise.’
‘Oh, but it will, Master Timothy. I know it will.’
‘You’re probably right, old boy.’
‘I thought I was supposed to be finding you?’ Freddie said.
‘And I need to find Mr Porrott, the Frenchman,’ said Kingsbury. ‘I’ve looked everywhere.’
‘He’s Belgian! His name’s pronounced Poirot and he’s in the drawing room,’ said Timothy. ‘That’s where we all ought to be. It’s ten minutes after two. I completely forgot that we were all supposed to be there at two o’clock. Poirot sent me to round everyone up, so here I am. Consider yourselves rounded!’
Like Timothy, Freddie had forgotten about the drawing room meeting at two o’clock. So, it seemed, had the Fossil, who nodded and said, ‘It’s quite true that I haven’t looked for Mr Porrott in the drawing room since the clocks struck two. I looked for him in there nearly an hour ago, but not since. In fact, I despaired of ever finding him, so I ended up writing it all down in a note. If only I’d remembered … Yes, he did say two o’clock! Shall I get the note and take it to him, I wonder?’
‘I should go straight to the drawing room if I were you,’ Timothy advised. ‘He’s waiting for us all to turn up. Also, aren’t you excited to hear what he has to say? I am! We’re about to find out who murdered Grandy.’
‘Do you think he was murdered?’ Freddie asked. ‘Mother says he died a perfectly innocent death and someone’s trying to stir up trouble.’
‘Well, let’s hope not,’ said Timothy. ‘I miss him, of course, but … well, if people have to die, and it seems they do, it’s far better if they’re murdered. It’s so much more interesting.’
‘Hush, Master Timothy!’ Kingsbury scolded. ‘That’s a wicked thing to say.’
‘No, it’s not,’ said Timothy. ‘Honestly, Freddie, every time I say anything that’s true, somebody gripes about it. I sometimes feel as if the whole world is conspiring to turn me into a liar.’
CHAPTER 32
Where is Kingsbury?
Finally, all the chairs in Combingham Hall’s drawing room were occupied apart from two. Since the number of chairs set out (by me, at some cost to my back) corresponded exactly to the number of people who ought to have been present for Poirot’s meeting, there was no doubt that the emptiness of one of those two chairs constituted a problem. The other chair belonged to Poirot himself, because, unable to keep still on account of his mounting impatience, he was pacing up and down, looking every few seconds at the door, then at the empty chair opposite his own, then at the grandfather clock beside the window that looked on to the gardens. ‘Soon it will be three o’clock!’ he cried out in frustration, startling everybody. ‘Why do people in this house not comprehend the importance of being punctual? I have been all the way to London and back, yet still I arrived here in good time.’
‘M. Poirot, we need not wait for Kingsbury,’ said Lenore Lavington. ‘There is no question of his having murdered anybody or sent those foul letters. Could we not proceed without him? Perhaps you would like to tell us all why we are gathered here?’
Those gathered, aside from Poirot and me, were: Rowland McCrodden, John McCrodden, Sylvia Rule, Mildred Rule, Eustace Campbell-Brown, Lenore Lavington, Ivy Lavington, Annabel Treadway, Hugo Dockerill, Jane Dockerill, Timothy Lavington and Freddie Rule. Hopscotch the dog was also with us; he was lying on the carpet and had draped himself over Annabel’s feet.
‘Non,’ said Poirot in a tone of grim determination. ‘We wait. I called this meeting and it will not begin until I say so! It is essential for everyone to be here.’
‘I’m so sorry, M. Poirot,’ said Ivy Lavington. ‘It was terribly rude of us all to keep you waiting. I am not normally late for anything. Neither is Kingsbury. This is most unlike him.’
‘You, mademoiselle, were the first to arrive … twenty minutes after two o’clock. May I ask what delayed you?’
‘I … I was thinking,’ said Ivy. ‘I must have lost myself in my thoughts more fully than I had realized.’
‘I see. And the rest of you?’ Poirot’s eyes moved slowly from one person to another. ‘What caused you all to be elsewhere at two o’clock, when you were supposed to be here?’
‘Timothy and I were playing hide-and-seek. We forgot the time,’ said Freddie.
‘I was helping Hugo to find a pair of shoes that he eventually remembered he had left at home,’ said Jane Dockerill.
‘I could have sworn I packed them, darling. Beats me how I could have made a silly mistake like that.’
‘I was looking after Mildred,’ said Sylvia Rule. ‘She had a most peculiar turn. For a long time she would not stop singing.’
‘Singing, madame?’ said Poirot.
‘Mother, please,’ murmured Mildred.
‘Yes, singing,’ said Sylvia Rule. ‘When Eustace and I finally managed to make her stop, she was in a most irregular state and needed to lie down.’
‘I was with Mildred,’ Eustace told Poirot. ‘I am eager to hear what you have to tell us, M. Poirot, and I would have been here as the clocks struck two, but Mildred seemed unable to speak or move for a while, and I’m afraid that was all I could think about. It put this little meeting right out of my head. I might have forgotten about it altogether if Timothy hadn’t whizzed past and reminded me.’
‘Well done for remembering, Timmy.’ Ivy smiled at her brother.
‘I didn’t remember,’ he said. ‘I was hunting for Freddie. I thought I’d try the drawing room, even though I’d tried it already. I didn’t find Freddie, but—’
‘He found me,’ said Poirot. ‘It was past two o’clock and nobody was here. Only Catchpool and me. I sent Timothy to hunt not only for Freddie but for all of you.’
‘I was looking for John,’ said Rowland McCrodden. ‘I left my bedroom with the intention of coming straight here, in fact, but as I made my way along the landing, I decided I would like to speak to my son privately first, before we joined the bigger group.’
‘Why?’ asked John.
‘I don’t know.’ Rowland McCrodden lowered his eyes.
‘Was there something particular that you wanted to say to me?’
‘No.’
‘You must have had a reason,’ John insisted.
‘You were perhaps hoping that you and Monsieur John could come to the meeting together, Monsieur McCrodden?’ said Poirot.
‘Yes. I was.’
‘Why?’ John asked again.
‘Because you’re my son!’ bellowed Rowland McCrodden.
Once the shock of his outburst had subsided, John said to Poirot, ‘If you’re about to ask me why I was late, I decided at the last minute that perhaps I wouldn’t indulge you—perhaps I would simply return home without hearing your explanation.’
‘You came all the way here from London only to return home, monsieur?’ Poirot raised an eyebrow.
‘I did not return home, as you can see. I considered doing so, then decided against it.’
‘What about you, Mademoiselle Treadway? And you, Madame Lavington? Why were you late?’
‘I was out with Hoppy,’ said Annabel Treadway. ‘We were playing with his ball. He was having so much fun that I didn’t want to disappoin
t him by coming inside. I … well, I suppose when you said two o’clock, I assumed you meant “or thereabouts”. I was only a little bit late, wasn’t I?’
‘You were twenty-five minutes late, mademoiselle.’
‘I was outside looking for Annabel,’ said Lenore Lavington. ‘I knew there was a danger she’d forget all about the time—she’s far too soft on Hopscotch, and I knew he would want to play ball for hours. He always does.’
‘And so, in order to prevent your sister from being late, you made yourself late.’
‘As a matter of fact, I glanced in through that window when I heard the church clock strike the hour …’—Lenore pointed—‘… and I saw all the empty chairs, and only you and Inspector Catchpool in here, and I thought, “Oh, well, plainly the meeting won’t be starting on time.” Which it didn’t. I missed nothing. Now, may we please hear whatever it is that you have to say this afternoon, M. Poirot? Kingsbury is probably fast asleep in his bed. He often has a sleep in the middle of the afternoon. He is old and tires easily. Annabel and I will make sure he is informed of any developments.’
‘He isn’t in his cottage, or asleep,’ said Timothy. ‘Freddie and I talked to him upstairs, didn’t we, Freddie? I told him Poirot was looking for him, and he said he’d forgotten all about this meeting, but when I reminded him, he set off for the drawing room.’
‘He did,’ Freddie Rule confirmed. ‘He seemed upset about having forgotten and being late, and hurried off towards the stairs. I’m sure he was on his way here. He also said—’
‘Stop, Freddie. Hush,’ said Timothy suddenly. He stood up. ‘M. Poirot, might I talk to you alone for a few moments?’
‘Oui, bien sûr,’ said Poirot.
The two of them left the drawing room together, closing the door behind them.
With Poirot gone, everyone looked at me as if they expected me to take over the proceedings. I hadn’t the faintest notion of what to say, so I made a cheery remark about the fire, and how necessary it was on a cold day like today. ‘I hope there’s enough fuel at Combingham Hall to keep it going!’ I said.
The Mystery of Three Quarters Page 23