‘How encouraging,’ said John McCrodden. ‘I am no longer suspected of murder.’
‘Yes, you are,’ said his father. ‘You are not suspected of murdering Kingsbury, but there is still Barnabas Pandy to consider.’
‘Actually, mon ami, there is not,’ said Poirot.
Everyone stared at him in astonishment.
‘Barnabas Pandy died an accidental death,’ he said. ‘He drowned in his bathwater, as everyone first, and correctly, believed. There has been only one murder: that of poor Kingsbury, Monsieur Pandy’s faithful servant. In addition to that, there has been an attempted second murder that will now, I am pleased to say, be unsuccessful. Or perhaps I should call Kingsbury’s death the second murder and the attempted murder the first, since the attempt started long before Kingsbury died.’
‘An attempted murder?’ said Lenore Lavington. ‘Of whom?’
‘Of your sister,’ Poirot told her. ‘You see, madame, the writer of the four letters signed falsely in my name did everything he or she could to ensure—even though, as I have already said, he was not murdered—that Annabel Treadway would hang for the murder of Barnabas Pandy.’
CHAPTER 34
Rebecca Grace
‘May I ask you a question, M. Poirot?’ said Annabel Treadway.
‘Oui, mademoiselle. What is it?’
‘The killer of Kingsbury, the writer of the four letters, and the person who wanted me to hang for the murder of Grandy—are these three different people?’
‘No. Only one person is responsible.’
‘Then … I have unwittingly helped that person,’ said Annabel. She had stopped crying. ‘I have colluded in the attempted murder of myself by going to Scotland Yard and confessing to drowning Grandy in his bath.’
‘Let me ask you now: did you murder your grandfather, Barnabas Pandy?’
‘No. No, I did not.’
‘Bien. Now you tell the truth. Excellent! It is time for the truth, finally, to be told. Mademoiselle Ivy, you believe very strongly in the power of the truth, do you not?’
‘I do,’ said Ivy. ‘Did you really confess to a murder you did not commit, Aunt Annabel? A murder that was not even a murder? That was foolish of you.’
Poirot said to Ivy, ‘The murderer of Kingsbury told you the truth, yesterday, about his or her attempt to frame Annabel Treadway, your aunt, for the murder of your great-grandfather. You refuse to reveal that person’s name. You protect a remorseless killer. Why? It is because of the power of the truth they told you!’
‘Why do you assume that the person in question lacks remorse?’ said Ivy.
‘A contrite person would confess here and now,’ said Poirot, looking around the room. Nobody spoke up, until Eustace Campbell-Brown said, ‘Isn’t it peculiar how, in circumstances such as these, one feels madly tempted to confess? I’m innocent, but I can’t bear the silence. I feel an urge to cry out that it was I who killed Kingsbury. It wasn’t, naturally.’
‘Then be quiet, please,’ Poirot told him.
‘What if, instead of being remorseless, the person in question is simply more frightened than he or she has ever been?’ Ivy Lavington asked Poirot.
‘It is gratifying to me that you seek to defend the killer of Kingsbury, mademoiselle. It confirms to me that I am right in every respect. The truth told to you by this person, while Kingsbury listened outside the door … it touched your heart, did it not? In spite of the inexcusable acts that you know were perpetrated by this guilty one, you cannot bring yourself to harden your heart against them.’
Ivy Lavington looked away. ‘As I said before: you know everything, M. Poirot. You do not need me to confirm what you know.’
Poirot turned to Sylvia Rule. ‘Madame, with the exception of your daughter and future son-in-law, have you ever before seen the face of anybody in this room?’
‘Of course I have,’ she snorted. ‘I have seen your face, M. Poirot.’
‘I should have added “and apart from Hercule Poirot”! Is there anybody else in this room that you recognize?’
Sylvia Rule looked down at her hands, which were folded in her lap. After a few seconds, she said, ‘Yes. I have met Mrs Lavington before—Lenore Lavington—though I did not know her true name when we met. It was thirteen years ago. She told me her name was Rebecca something. Rebecca Gray, or … no, Grace. Rebecca Grace.’
‘Why do you think Madame Lavington felt it necessary to lie about her name? Please, do not try to hide the truth. Poirot, he knows everything.’
‘Mrs Lavington was in the family way, and did not want to be,’ said Sylvia Rule. ‘When I was younger, I … helped women who found themselves in situations of that kind. I was good at what I did. I offered a service that was safe and discreet. Most of the ladies who came to me used other names, not their real ones.’
‘Madame?’ Poirot turned to Lenore Lavington.
‘It’s true,’ she said. ‘Cecil and I were unhappy together, and I thought it would only make things worse if we were to have another baby. In the end, however, I couldn’t bring myself to go through with the procedure. At our first meeting, Mrs Rule told me that she too was expecting a baby. She wanted hers, but she said she could well imagine the distress of having to bear an unwanted child. When I heard those words—“an unwanted child”—I made my excuses and left. I never went back. My child, I realized, was not unwanted after all. I certainly could not bring myself to do away with it.’
Lenore Lavington threw a vicious look in Sylvia Rule’s direction. She said, ‘Mrs Rule tried to force the procedure upon me, once she saw I had changed my mind—so desperate was she not to lose a customer.’
Timothy Lavington rose unsteadily to his feet. There were tears in his eyes. ‘The baby you didn’t want was me, wasn’t it, Mother?’ he said.
‘She didn’t go through with it, Timmy,’ said Ivy.
‘I knew I would love you and want you as soon as I met you, Timmy,’ Lenore told him. ‘And I did. I truly did.’
‘Did you tell Father that you were thinking of disposing of me in this barbaric fashion?’ Timothy asked, his voice full of disgust.
‘No. I told nobody.’
‘Indeed,’ said Poirot. ‘You told nobody. This is very important.’
He gestured to me. This was my cue. I left the room, and returned a few moments later, carrying a small table, which I placed in the middle of the room so that everyone could see it. It was covered with a white sheet. Poirot had refused to tell me what was beneath the sheet, but I was pretty certain I knew what he was up to. So, from the look on his face, did Rowland McCrodden. Sure enough, Poirot lifted the sheet to reveal another slice of Church Window Cake, on a small china plate. Next to the plate was a knife. How many slices of that confounded cake, I wondered, had he brought with him to Combingham Hall? Fee Spring must have been delighted to have sold so many.
‘Is this your way of telling us that solving the mystery has been a piece of cake, Poirot?’ said Hugo Dockerill. ‘A piece of cake, eh? That’s a good one, isn’t it?’ He guffawed. His wife told him to be quiet and he fell silent, looking suitably chastened.
‘I will now demonstrate to you, ladies and gentlemen, that when we solve the Mystery of Three Quarters, we are well on our way to solving the entire puzzle!’
‘What is the Mystery of Three Quarters, Mr Poirot?’ Inspector Thrubwell asked.
‘I will explain, Inspector. You see here, as do we all, that there are four quarters to this slice of cake. On the top row, if I may call it that, we have the little yellow square and then the pink, and on the bottom row there is the pink and then the yellow. But we also have, because we have not yet used the knife, the whole slice, undivided.’
Dramatically, Poirot cut the slice into two halves, which he pushed to opposite edges of the plate. ‘At first I thought that the four people who received letters from someone pretending to be me, accusing them of the murder of Barnabas Pandy, were two pairs of two: Annabel Treadway and Hugo Dockerill, who were connected to Monsieur Pandy, and Sy
lvia Rule and John McCrodden, who did not at first appear to be. Both told me they had never heard of Barnabas Pandy. Then I discovered from Hugo Dockerill that Madame Rule’s son, Freddie, is a pupil at Turville College, the same school attended by Timothy Lavington. So! Then it appears to Poirot to be like this!’ He took the knife and cut one half-slice of cake in half again.
He made a new arrangement of the yellow and pink squares on the plate: three of them close together and one alone and separate. ‘This, mes amis, is what I referred to as the Mystery of the Three Quarters! Why is Monsieur John McCrodden the exception? Why was he—a stranger to Barnabas Pandy, a man who has never heard his name and has no obvious link to him—why was he chosen, when the other three choices were all people with visible connections to Monsieur Pandy or his family? Why should our composer of fraudulent letters choose these three and then this one?
‘I asked myself if the writer of the letters wanted me to notice John McCrodden in particular. Then something occurred that puzzled me. I happened to be present when mademoiselle Ivy mentioned the name of Freddie Rule to her mother. I noticed that Lenore Lavington looked aghast. Horrified. Almost frozen by shock. Why, I wondered, would she react so dramatically to the mention of a boy at her son’s school?’
Poirot probably wanted to answer the question himself, but I could not help piping up with the one that struck me at that moment: ‘Because she had not known, until you referred to Freddie Rule being at Turville College, that he was. She had no idea that the son of Sylvia Rule was at the same school as her son.’
‘Précisément! She knew about a boy whom she described as “strange, lonely Freddie”, but she did not know his family name. He had only been a pupil at Turville for a few months. Lenore Lavington was unaware that the Madame Rule she had met thirteen years earlier was the mother of strange, lonely Freddie until her daughter told her it was so. Then, in order to put me off the scent, she pretended at once to have a strong objection to Freddie, and to have warned Timothy not to associate with him. She did not wish me to suspect that it was Freddie’s mother, and not Freddie himself, who had caused her to feel such horror. Later, she seemed to forget altogether that she had told me she disliked Freddie. When I next mentioned him, she displayed no animosity at all and seemed to have no interest in criticizing him. She has not objected to her son spending time with him here at Combingham Hall.
‘I should say, ladies and gentlemen, that it was only once I was certain that the writer of the four letters was Lenore Lavington that this piece of the puzzle fell into place.’
‘Wait,’ said John McCrodden. ‘If you believe that the same person killed Kingsbury, and tried to have Miss Treadway here hanged for murder … Are you accusing Mrs Lavington of those things too?’
‘For the time being, I am saying that Madame Lavington wrote the letters accusing four people—including you, monsieur—of murder, and signed them in the name of Hercule Poirot. Madame Lavington, you were shaken by the mention of Freddie Rule because you had been so sure that the link between you and Sylvia Rule could never be known or guessed by anyone. You consulted her thirteen years ago in order to procure an illegal medical procedure. Of course, it would be in both of your interests to mention this to nobody. Then, in a most casual and coincidental manner, your daughter informs you that Mrs Rule’s son, Freddie, is at school with your own son. Suddenly, a link between Sylvia Rule and Barnabas Pandy is plain for all to see.
‘This, for you, was a disaster. You wanted the two-halves arrangement of the slice of cake, did you not? You wanted the recipients of your letters to be two people connected to your grandfather, and two who were completely unconnected. That way, no one would stand out. It would have been almost impossible to work out what was the aim of the letter-writer in those circumstances. However, thanks to the accident of Freddie Rule being a pupil at Turville, you realized to your dismay that you had unintentionally directed my attention towards John McCrodden as the special one, the different one. I knew then that there were only two possibilities: he was either the odd one out, or there was no odd one out—only the whole, undivided slice of cake.’
Poirot pushed the cake back together so that all four squares were once again touching. ‘When I talk about the undivided slice of cake, I am referring to the possibility that the letter-writer might have had a personal connection to all four people who received the letters, including John McCrodden.
‘You chose to sign your letters in my name, Madame Lavington. Why? You know that I am the best solver of crimes, n’est-ce pas? There is none better! And you wanted my attention. You wanted Hercule Poirot, after involving himself in the matter, to go to the police with a stiffened, pungent dress wrapped in cellophane and the opinion that your sister Annabel must have murdered your grandfather. Who else would sound so authoritative when saying all the things you thought you could manipulate me to say? Madame, I have never been at the same time and by the same person so flattered and so underestimated! You were foolish to believe that you could distract Hercule Poirot from the truth with a dress soaked in water and oil of olives.’
Inspector Thrubwell said, ‘Mr Poirot, I’m a little confused. Are you suggesting that Mrs Lavington did not want you to think that Mr John McCrodden was the odd one out?’
‘Oui, monsieur. She did not want me to wonder how he fitted into the picture. She did not wish me to ask myself: if Sylvia Rule turns out to be connected to Barnabas Pandy’s family, might not the same be true of John McCrodden? Because, my friends, Lenore Lavington is the only one in this room who personally has a link to all four people who received the letters. She made a grave error when she constructed her plan. If she wished to accuse two complete strangers, she easily could have selected them at random from the telephone directory. Instead, she chose two people with whom she has a past connection—in both cases one that she believes is secret enough to be safe. She thinks that Poirot, he will soon discover that Sylvia Rule and John McCrodden could not have murdered Barnabas Pandy because they were strangers to him and his family, and nowhere near Combingham Hall on the day that he died. They had neither motive nor opportunity. Madame Lavington imagines, therefore, that the names Rule and McCrodden will soon be eliminated from consideration.
‘Ah, but this too goes wrong for her! It soon became clear to me that both Madame Rule and Monsieur McCrodden could have come here on the day that Barnabas Pandy died. As could Hugo Dockerill. They could have slipped in while the rest of the household was busy arguing or, in Kingsbury’s case, unpacking a suitcase. They could have entered via the always-open front door, killed Monsieur Pandy, and then left in a hurry, without being seen by anybody. None of the three had strong alibis: a Christmas Fair from which it would have been easy to disappear for an hour or two without anyone noticing; a letter from a Spanish woman who might have been willing to say whatever she had been told to say.’
Poirot stared at John McCrodden. He seemed to be waiting for him to speak.
Eventually McCrodden said in a low voice, ‘I did not know her real name until I arrived at this house. She introduced herself to me as Rebecca Grace, as she did to Mrs Rule. Lenore.’ He looked across the room at her. ‘It’s an unusual name. I am glad to know your name, Lenore.’
‘Monsieur McCrodden, for the benefit of us all, will you please clarify the nature of your relationship to Lenore Lavington?’ said Poirot. ‘You were lovers, were you not?
‘Yes. We were lovers for a short time. Too short. I knew she was married. How I cursed fate, for allowing me to meet her when it was too late and she already belonged to someone else.’ His voice shook. ‘I loved her with all my heart,’ he said. ‘I still do.’
CHAPTER 35
Family Loyalty
‘I’m not ashamed of it,’ said John McCrodden. ‘I cannot be made to feel shame, as I am sure my father will be happy to tell you. Rebecca—Lenore—is the only woman I have ever loved, though we had only three days together. I have spent every hour of every day since then wishing it could have been
longer—’
‘John, please don’t,’ said Lenore. ‘What good will it do now?’
‘—but she insisted on returning to her husband, who, by the sound of it, was an uninspiring individual. She did her duty.’
‘How dare you say that about my father?’ protested Timothy Lavington. To his mother, he said coldly, ‘Did you tell him Father was uninspiring? What other lies did you tell about him?’
Ivy touched her mother’s arm and said, ‘Tell him, Mummy. You have to.’
‘Your father is dead, Timmy,’ said Lenore. ‘The letter that you received … I wrote it. I sent it.’
‘What letter?’ asked Jane Dockerill.
‘Lenore Lavington sent a fifth letter,’ said Poirot. ‘One that most of you do not know about. She typed it on the same machine that she used for the other four: with the faulty letter “e”. This letter was not an accusation of murder, however, and in it, Madame Lavington did not pretend to be Hercule Poirot. Instead, she pretended to be her late husband, Cecil Lavington. The point of the letter was to tell his son, Timothy, that he was not dead, though everybody believed that he was. Instead, he was busy with a secret government mission.’
‘How could you lie about something like that, Mother?’ said Timothy. ‘I believed he was alive!’
Lenore Lavington looked away. Ivy touched her arm, at the same time giving Timothy a look that ordered him to stop.
Poirot continued: ‘When Timothy Lavington showed to Catchpool here this letter that was supposedly from his father, Catchpool noticed at once the “e”s with the tiny white hole in the ink. He knew that the same person had sent the four letters in the name of Hercule Poirot, and that they had been typed on the same machine. You will all understand, I am sure, why we were determined to find it.
‘When I first came to Combingham Hall, I asked Madame Lavington if I might test the typewriter here. She refused to allow it. Since there was no evidence to suggest that a crime had been committed, she was under no obligation to allow me to see anything in the house. Then, when I arrived at Combingham Hall the second time, I found that she had changed her mind and wished to cooperate.’
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