The Mystery of Three Quarters

by Sophie Hannah

  ‘Now I must go back to when Ivy Lavington was a little girl, and Annabel Treadway took her for a walk by a river,’ Poirot went on. ‘Skittle, the dog, went with them. Mademoiselle Ivy decided it would be entertaining to roll down the river bank. Skittle, immediately alert to the danger, scrambled down the bank to rescue her but failed to stop her rolling into the water. Instead, he scratched her face and caused the scarring that remains to this day. Mademoiselle Ivy was soon afterwards trapped under the water, where she nearly drowned. Annabel Treadway had to climb into these lethal waters and rescue her. The current was very strong. Mademoiselle Annabel risked her own life to save her niece.

  ‘Alors, now we must leap forward in time, mes amis, to the trip to the beach that I have already mentioned. Lenore and Ivy Lavington had taken the dog, Hopscotch, to the beach because Annabel Treadway was confined to her bed with the influenza. Mademoiselle Ivy loves swimming in the sea. She did not allow her near-fatal accident to make her afraid of water.’

  ‘Hopscotch?’ said Eustace Campbell-Brown. ‘I thought the dog was called Skittle.’

  ‘They are two different dogs, monsieur. Skittle is no longer with us. Hopscotch, a dog of the same breed, has replaced him.’

  ‘Replaced him?’ Tears sprang to Annabel Treadway’s eyes. ‘No one could replace Skittle, just as no one will be able to replace Hopscotch when he … when he … Oh!’ She buried her face in her hands.

  ‘Apologies, mademoiselle. I spoke without thinking.’

  ‘Very good, so they’re two different dogs,’ said Rowland McCrodden. ‘But, really, now is no time for us to be thinking about any dogs.’

  ‘You are wrong,’ Poirot told him. ‘Dogs—or, to be precise, the late Skittle—is the very creature about whom we must think.’

  ‘Why, for pity’s sake?’

  ‘I am about to explain. On the day of the trip to the beach, Lenore and Ivy Lavington were sitting near some trees. Hopscotch came running towards them, after first splashing in the waves. The sight of the dog’s wet legs, which looked much thinner than they do when dry, reminded Mademoiselle Ivy of the day she nearly drowned. Memories flooded back to her, memories she had been unaware of until that moment. She told her mother that, as she had struggled under the water in her state of panic, she had mistaken the dog’s wet legs for tree trunks on the river bank—even though they could not have been, because they were far too thin, and moving, not still. Then Annabel Treadway came to her rescue and Mademoiselle Ivy saw the real tree trunks: thick and stationary. She realized that the other things she had seen were the legs of Skittle and not tree trunks at all.

  ‘This memory came back to her most powerfully that day on the beach many years later, thanks to the wet legs of Hopscotch. She told the story to her mother, and, as she listened, Lenore Lavington realized something. It was something of which Mademoiselle Ivy herself was unaware … and she remained unaware of it until her mother confessed everything to her yesterday in the conversation overheard by Kingsbury.’

  ‘What did Mrs Lavington realize?’ asked Rowland McCrodden, by now unable to conceal his desperation to understand. I myself was feeling a similar desperation.

  ‘Is it not obvious?’ said Poirot. ‘Skittle’s legs would only have been on that river-bank—to be observed by Mademoiselle Ivy—if, before saving her niece, Annabel Treadway had first pulled Skittle out of the water. There is no other logical conclusion to be drawn. She must have saved her dog first, and only afterwards saved Mademoiselle Ivy.’

  As soon as Poirot had said it, I saw precisely what he meant. ‘If Skittle tried to stop Ivy Lavington from rolling into the water and failed, he wouldn’t simply give up and go and wait on the bank,’ I said. ‘No loyal dog would do that. He would leap into the water. He wouldn’t ever stop trying to save whichever family member was in danger.’

  ‘Exactly, mon ami,’ said Poirot. He sounded rather proud of me, which I appreciated, though we both knew I would never have worked it out on my own. ‘And once his mistress, Mademoiselle Annabel, jumped into the water also, Skittle would only have become more intent upon his rescue mission. He would not have left the water by choice, not with two people he loved still in peril. His own life would have been in danger, therefore, from the strong and fast-moving current. All three of them might have died.’

  ‘And if Skittle’s legs were thin and wet when Ivy Lavington saw them on the river bank, then they must at some point have been in the water,’ said Rowland McCrodden. ‘You’re right, Poirot. No dog would decide to save only himself and scramble back up the bank in that situation. Someone must have dragged him out of the water and … tethered him to something.’

  ‘Oui. Annabel Treadway tethered him securely, to prevent him from leaping back into the river and placing himself in danger once more. Only then did she return to the water to save Mademoiselle Ivy. You did not realize the significance of your memory, mademoiselle, when you described it to your mother—but she knew. She knew instantly. She pictured the wet legs of Skittle on the river bank as he struggled against whatever restraint his mistress had imposed upon him. She understood exactly what it meant. But here is the dilemma …

  ‘Did Lenore Lavington ask herself if her sister might have dealt with the dog first only because he was flailing so wildly in the water that her attempt to rescue her niece was impeded? If that had been the case, would not Mademoiselle Annabel have told the truth? She would have—so it must have been otherwise. Annabel Treadway must have valued the life of her dog more than that of her niece, and chosen to save Skittle first—thereby taking the most enormous risk with Mademoiselle Ivy’s life. She could so easily have drowned in the time that it took for Skittle to be carried to safety.’

  By now, Annabel Treadway was weeping. She made no attempt to deny any of what Poirot had said.

  Poirot spoke softly to her. ‘You, mademoiselle, the first time we met, told me that nobody minds when very old people die, whereas if a child dies it is seen as a tragedy. That was your guilt speaking. It pained you that the life you had risked was that of a little child with such potential and so many years ahead of her. You knew society would judge you all the more harshly for that. It is a strange coincidence … When I spoke to the daughter-in-law of Vincent Lobb, your grandfather’s lifelong enemy with whom he sought, finally, to be reconciled, she told me that it is a most terrible thing to do the right thing too late. That is what you did, mademoiselle: you saved the life of your little niece, but you did it too late.’

  ‘And I have suffered ever since,’ sobbed Annabel.

  ‘You told me in our very first conversation that you had “saved lives”. You then quickly corrected yourself, or so it seemed, and suddenly it was only one life that you had saved: the life of Mademoiselle Ivy. I thought you were embarrassed to have exaggerated—that you wanted to be strictly, scrupulously accurate, and not to claim any more credit than was your due. Only much later did it occur to me that there was another possibility, equally plausible: that you had saved more than one life, but wanted to conceal the fact. Your initial pronouncement—lives, plural—was the truth.

  ‘It was during a conversation with Mademoiselle Ivy that this struck me. Knowing that somebody had plotted to bring about the death of Annabel Treadway, I had spoken of the need to save lives. Ivy Lavington asked me if it was one life or more that needed to be saved, and I admitted that it was only one that was in danger. Of course, I did not know then that Kingsbury would be killed. I noticed that my conversation with Mademoiselle Ivy reminded me of something, and wondered what it could be. It took me only seconds, after that, to solve the mystery: it was my first encounter with Annabel Treadway of which I had been reminded, and our exchange about saving lives, or perhaps it was only one life. Suddenly, in the light of what I had deduced about the day Mademoiselle Ivy nearly drowned, Mademoiselle Annabel’s remarks about saving lives made perfect sense to me.’

  I could not help shaking my head, amazed at how Poirot’s brain worked. Other people looked similarly
impressed. We all sat transfixed as he continued with his account.

  ‘The first time we met, after she had received a letter that she believed was from me, accusing her of the murder of Monsieur Pandy, Annabel Treadway said something else that struck me as unusual. She said, “You cannot know …” then stopped herself before she said any more. She felt, you see, as if morally she deserved to receive a letter accusing her of murder, even though she had murdered nobody and Mademoiselle Ivy had not, in fact, died that day in the river. What she meant to say was that I, Hercule Poirot, could not know that she was guilty; it was impossible.

  ‘She will never stop thinking of herself as guilty, ladies and gentlemen. She has tried so hard to atone. Monsieur Dockerill, you told me that she declined your offer of marriage. She said that she would not be well suited to looking after the boys of Turville College. This, too, now makes sense: she did not believe she should be entrusted with the welfare of children, and so she did not allow herself to marry and have any of her own. At the same time, she doted upon her sister’s two children and poured into them all the love that she could, to compensate for her secret failure all those years ago.’

  ‘There must have been a considerable amount of fear, as well as guilt,’ said Rowland McCrodden. ‘At any moment, Miss Lavington might have remembered what happened that day at the river.’

  ‘Indeed she might have,’ Poirot agreed. ‘And of that, Annabel Treadway was terrified. Then, after many years, her worst fears were realized. During the disastrous dinner, Mademoiselle Ivy told the story about the tree-trunks remark, and Annabel Treadway saw in her sister’s face that she knew the truth—that she had known it since the day on the beach. Monsieur Pandy also quickly understood the meaning of Mademoiselle Ivy’s newly unearthed memory—and Annabel Treadway saw that too.’

  Poirot turned to Ivy Lavington. ‘You, mademoiselle, were the only one seated at the dinner table that night who thought that it was only legs and potatoes and your mother’s opinions about your size and shape that, together, were causing such trouble. The other three people at the table were thinking about something quite different.’

  ‘Yes, and I had no idea,’ said Ivy. ‘None whatsoever. Aunt Annabel, you should have told me the truth as soon as I was old enough to understand. I would have forgiven you. I do forgive you. Please do not feel guilty any longer—I should not be able to bear it. It’s such a waste of time, and you have made yourself suffer quite enough already. I know you are sorry, and I know you love me. That is all that matters.’

  ‘Your aunt’s guilt will not, I’m afraid, be so easily banished,’ Poirot told her. ‘Without it, I fear she would be quite lost. She would not know herself at all. For most people, that is a prospect too frightening to contemplate.’

  ‘You might forgive me, Ivy, but Lenore never will,’ said Annabel. ‘And Grandy … he couldn’t forgive me either. He was going to cut me out of his will—leave me with nothing.’

  ‘That was the final straw for you, was it not, mademoiselle? It was what made you decide to go to Scotland Yard and confess to the murder of Monsieur Pandy, though you knew you were innocent.’

  Annabel nodded. ‘I thought, “If Grandy has decided to treat me in this way, if all my kindness and devotion in the intervening years counts for nothing … why, then I might as well hang for murder. Perhaps it is no more than I deserve.” But Ivy, darling, I would like you to know this: that day by the river, I was like a mad thing. I only realized that I had made a choice after I had secured Skittle to a post by his leash. It was like waking from a dream. A nightmare! And you were still thrashing around in the water, and I saved you then, of course, but … I couldn’t remember, and can’t remember, deciding not to save you first. I truly can’t.’

  ‘How old was Skittle then?’ Lenore Lavington asked.

  I heard a few people gasp. It was so long since she had said anything.

  ‘He was five, wasn’t he? At most he could only have lived for another seven or eight years, and I believe he died when he was ten, in fact. You risked my daughter’s life, your own niece’s life, to save a dog who only went on to live for another five years.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Annabel said quietly. ‘But … you mustn’t pretend that you don’t understand about love, Lenore, and what it can make a person do. After all, we have all heard about your Mr McCrodden, with whom you spent only three days. Yet you loved him passionately, did you not? And I can see—though no one else can, because no one knows you as I do—that you still love him. I loved Skittle, however short his life was doomed to be.

  ‘Love!’ Annabel turned to Poirot. ‘Love is the true culprit, M. Poirot. Why did my sister try to frame me for murder? Because of her determination to avenge a wrong done to her daughter many years ago—because of how much she loves Ivy. So many sins and crimes are committed in the name of love.’

  ‘That may be so,’ said Rowland McCrodden, ‘but can we postpone our discussion of emotional matters and stick to the facts for a little longer? In his note to you, Poirot, Kingsbury wrote that he had overheard Miss Lavington saying to her interlocutor—and we now know that person was her mother, Mrs Lavington—that ignorance of the law is no defence. What, if I may ask, is the relevance of that? At what point, and in relation to what, might Mrs Lavington have pleaded ignorance of the law? I’m sorry if the question is a pedantic one.’

  ‘Ah, my friend.’ Poirot smiled at him. ‘It is Hercule Poirot who must be the greater pedant. What Kingsbury wrote in his note to me was that he had heard Mademoiselle Ivy saying words to the effect that ignorance of the law is not an acceptable defence. That means, does it not, that the point might have been made with different words? Words that conveyed the same meaning. Remember, Kingsbury also wrote “John Modden” instead of “John McCrodden”. He was not a person who concerned himself with precision of language or nomenclature.’

  ‘Quite, quite,’ said Rowland McCrodden, ‘but however Miss Lavington might have phrased it, she must have known that her mother would have been as aware as anybody in the land that to falsely accuse someone of murder and attempt to plant evidence incriminating them is unlawful. It’s hardly the sort of thing about which one might plausibly say, “Sorry, M’lud, I had no notion that such behaviour was not permitted and viewed by everybody as entirely above board.”’

  ‘Wasn’t that the very point Miss Lavington was overheard making to her mother?’ said Jane Dockerill. ‘That ignorance of the law would not be accepted by any court of law as a valid defence?’

  ‘I can see why you might think so, Madame Dockerill—just as I can see the wisdom of the point made by Monsieur McCrodden. Both sides of this particular argument are, however, irrelevant, since Lenore and Ivy Lavington did not discuss at all the defence of not knowing the law and whether or not it might work in this instance. Not even for a moment did they discuss it!’

  ‘What do you mean by saying that they didn’t discuss it, Mr Poirot?’ asked Inspector Thrubwell. ‘Mr Kingsbury wrote in his note to you that he heard—’

  ‘Yes, yes. Let me explain what Kingsbury heard. It is startlingly simple: he heard Mademoiselle Ivy warning her mother that she would soon be found out, for she was the only person connected to all four letter-recipients. I imagine she said something of this kind: “It will soon be discovered that you and John McCrodden know one another, and Sylvia Rule’s son Freddie is at school with Timothy, so it will be pointless to say that you don’t know the Rules. That will get you nowhere. No one would believe you.”’ Poirot stopped and shrugged. ‘Or, as Kingsbury wrote in his most helpful note, “words to that effect”.’

  ‘The Rules,’ I repeated in a whisper. ‘Ivy wasn’t talking about the law, she was talking about the Rule family.’

  ‘I see,’ said Rowland McCrodden. ‘Thank you for clearing that up, Poirot.’

  ‘You are most welcome, my friend. And now there remains only one more thing that must be cleared up. Madame Lavington, there is something that I must tell you. It will, I think, be
of great interest to you. You have patiently sat and listened as I explained to everybody else things that you knew only too well already. But now I have a surprise for you …’

  CHAPTER 37

  The Will

  ‘Let’s hear it then, Poirot,’ said John McCrodden. ‘What is this final revelation?’ He spoke tauntingly, as if everything Poirot had told us so far might have been a lie.

  ‘Barnabas Pandy had no intention of cutting off Mademoiselle Annabel. None at all! The granddaughter he planned to disinherit was Lenore Lavington.’

  ‘That can’t be true,’ said Annabel. ‘He adored Lenore.’

  ‘I performed a little experiment,’ said Poirot. ‘Not with the typewriters this time. I used, instead, human beings. There is a woman working in the offices of Rowland McCrodden—a woman he has detested for some time, with, one might say, little cause.’

  ‘She’s not the easiest of people to deal with,’ I felt obliged to say.

  ‘Her name is Emerald Mason,’ said Poirot. ‘To test my theory about Barnabas Pandy’s attitude to Annabel Treadway and how it might have affected his behaviour towards his old enemy Vincent Lobb, I played a little trick on Monsieur McCrodden. I told him that Emerald Mason had been in a terrible motorcar accident and was to lose both her legs. This was not true, and I soon revealed that I had created this little deception. Before I did so, however, Monsieur McCrodden apologized to Catchpool for having been uncongenial when they travelled here together from London. Having been not at all amiable for the duration of the journey, Rowland McCrodden transformed himself, immediately upon hearing about poor Mademoiselle Emerald’s lost legs, into a humble and contrite man who could see exactly how trying he had been until that moment.

  ‘Why did this change take place? Because Rowland McCrodden felt terribly guilty. He realized that he had been unduly harsh towards this relatively harmless woman, and now a terrible fate had befallen her. He felt, almost, responsible—as if her tragic fate had been his fault. This led him, directly, to think of other people whom he might have treated harshly. Catchpool came immediately to mind, and so Rowland McCrodden apologized to him—something that would not have happened had I not invented the story about the legs of Mademoiselle Emerald Mason.’