Closed Casket: The New Hercule Poirot Mystery

I think my mouth might well have fallen open.

Before I could protest, Brigid was marching away at speed, shaking the ground as she went.

CHAPTER 6 (#ulink_a1c9482f-28d3-5408-9bd8-70cd89cbc9e7)

The Announcement (#ulink_a1c9482f-28d3-5408-9bd8-70cd89cbc9e7)

I had expected to be last to the dining room, but I arrived to find everybody speculating about what had become of Athelinda Playford. Her place at the head of the table was unoccupied. ‘Were you not with her?’ Dorro Playford demanded of me, as if I jolly well ought to have been. I told her that I had been talking to Phyllis and had not seen Lady Playford.

‘Dorro, stop being a harridan,’ said Randall Kimpton as I sat down between Orville Rolfe and Sophie Bourlet. ‘Piece of advice, Catchpool: never answer one of Dorro’s questions—she will quickly come up with another nineteen at least. Whistle and look the other way. It’s the only sensible approach.’

I took a sip from my water glass to avoid having to respond. I would have reached for one of the wine glasses, but they had not yet been filled.

‘Well, I would like to know where she has disappeared to!’ A flush had spread across Dorro’s cheeks. ‘Was she not only just with us? We were all in the drawing room together. She was there. You all saw her! And I didn’t notice her go anywhere else. Did anybody?’

Still looking at me, Kimpton said loudly out of one side of his mouth, ‘Do not answer, I warn you.’

The door opened and Lady Playford entered the room with her hair in a different arrangement from before—one I could not begin to describe if I tried for a hundred years. She looked as elegant as the room we were in, which was perfectly square with a high ceiling and red and gold curtains and chandeliers. It was considerably more aesthetically pleasing than the drawing room. This must have been intended by the architect as the main room of the house, I thought. I wondered if Lady Playford agreed.

Harry waited until his mother was halfway to the table before saying, ‘Look, here she is! Hello, old girl.’

‘Yes. Here she is,’ said Claudia. ‘Isn’t it fortunate that nobody panicked?’

‘Panic?’ Lady Playford laughed. ‘Who would panic, and why?’

‘I simply wanted to know where you had got to,’ Dorro said stiffly. ‘Dinner is delayed, and we have had no explanation.’

‘Well, that’s easy enough,’ said Lady Playford. ‘The cause of the delay is what it always is: Brigid and Phyllis have had another pointless squabble. I heard the distant and sadly familiar sound of a mewling maid and, since I knew it would mean no food for the foreseeable future, I took the opportunity to do something different with my hair. It was too tight before.’

‘Then why wear it in that style in the first place?’

‘Is that another question, Dorro?’ said Kimpton. ‘You know, I might keep a tally tonight. And every night. How else will we know when you set a new record?’

Dorro said quietly, ‘One day, Randall, you will learn that being foul and being amusing are not the same thing.’

‘Come now, let us not carp at one another,’ said Joseph Scotcher. ‘We have guests, after all—some who have not visited Lillieoak before. Monsieur Poirot, Mr Catchpool, I do hope you are enjoying your stay so far.’

I made the appropriate response. I certainly was not bored at Lillieoak, and I was pleased to encounter Poirot again now that I was over the shock of it, but was I enjoying this evening? I felt as if I would have had to stand outside myself and watch for clues in order to attempt an accurate answer.

Poirot replied to the effect that he was having the most wonderful time, and it was not every day that one received an invitation from a famous writer.

Lady Playford said, ‘I cannot abide the word “famous”.’

‘She prefers “popular”, “esteemed”, “acclaimed” or “renowned”,’ said Kimpton. ‘Don’t you, Athie?’

‘I am certain that all of those adjectives apply.’ Poirot smiled.

‘I prefer a simpler one,’ said Scotcher.

‘Is that because using long words aggravates your kidneys?’ Claudia asked him.

What an unpleasant remark! I thought. Vicious, really. Astonishingly, no one reacted to it at all.

‘I prefer the adjective “best”,’ Scotcher went on as if nothing had happened, looking at Lady Playford.

‘Oh, Joseph!’ She pretended to scold him, but it was plain to see that she was delighted by the compliment.

I was startled to find Claudia staring at me. The longer she did so, the more I felt as if I had unwittingly fallen into a dangerous machine and might never climb out. She said, ‘Joseph has told us all that he does not wish to be treated as an invalid. Therefore, I treat him as I treat everybody else.’

‘Yes, appallingly,’ said Kimpton with a grin. ‘Sorry, dearest one—you know I don’t mean a word of it. And your treatment of me is exemplary, so who am I to complain?’

Claudia smiled coquettishly at him.

I made up my mind: no, I was not enjoying myself.

While Scotcher explained to Poirot that it was an honour for a humble man like himself to be secretary to the great Athelinda Playford, Claudia rather pointedly started a conversation of her own with Kimpton. Dorro took the opportunity to berate Harry for having failed to intercede on her behalf when Kimpton had attacked her—‘Steady on, old girl! Hardly an attack, eh? Little bit of harmless teasing!’—and soon we were not one large group but many small ones, all conducting separate conversations.

Mercifully, the first course arrived not long afterwards, served ineptly by a red-eyed Phyllis. I noticed that Scotcher made a point of breaking away from his conversation with Poirot and turning to thank her fulsomely as she put down his portion of what Lady Playford described as ‘good old traditional English mutton broth’. The way she said it made me think it must be her favourite thing to eat in the world. It smelled delicious, and I tucked in as soon as was decent.

The conversation died down as we applied ourselves to eating. Beside me, a loud creak came from Orville Rolfe’s chair as he adjusted his position. ‘Is your chair all right, Catchpool?’ he asked. ‘Mine is wobbly. There was a time when a chap making a chair would build it to last. Not any more! Everything made nowadays is flimsy and disposable.’

‘Many people say so,’ I replied tactfully.

‘Well?’ said Rolfe. It was evidently a habit of his to demand an answer immediately after receiving one.

‘I agree with you,’ I said, hoping that would put an end to the matter. I felt as uncomfortable as I would have if we were discussing his size, and irritated that I should be embarrassed while he seemed perfectly all right.

He finished his soup before anybody else, looked around and said, ‘Is there more? I don’t know why modern bowls are made so small—do you, Catchpool? This one’s shallow enough to be a side plate.’

‘I think they are probably a standard size.’

‘Well?’ Rolfe adjusted his position again, giving rise to more loud creaking. I prayed his chair would last for the duration of the meal.

Joseph Scotcher was still talking to Poirot about Lady Playford’s books. ‘As a detective, you more than most will find them a delight,’ he said.

‘I am looking forward to reading many during my stay here,’ Poirot told him. ‘It was my intention to read one or two before I arrived, but alas, it was not to be.’

Scotcher looked concerned. ‘I hope you have not been unwell,’ he said.

‘No, nothing of that sort. I was engaged to offer my opinion on a case of murder in Hampshire and … let us say, it became complicated and frustrating.’

‘I trust your efforts were successful in the end,’ said Scotcher. ‘A chap like you is surely a stranger to failure.’

‘Which novel of Lady Playford’s would you recommend that I read first?’ Poirot asked.

That was interesting, I thought. Like Scotcher, I could not imagine Poirot failing to solve a case, and I had expected him to say something about the business in Hampshire having reached a satisfactory conclusion. Instead, he had altogether changed the subject.

‘Oh, you must start with Shrimp Seddon and the Lady in the Suit,’ said Scotcher. ‘It’s not the first, but it’s the most straightforward and, in my humble opinion, the best introduction to Shrimp. It’s also the first one I read, so I am sentimental about it for that reason.’