Closed Casket: The New Hercule Poirot Mystery. Агата Кристи

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       CHAPTER 4

       An Unexpected Admirer

      A phenomenon I have had cause to notice time and again in both my professional and my social life is that when one meets a large group of people all at once, one somehow knows—as if by otherworldly instinct—which of them one will enjoy speaking to and which are worth avoiding.

      So it was that when I returned, after dressing for dinner, to a drawing room full of many more people, I knew instantly that I should endeavour to end up standing next to the lawyer Poirot had described to me, Michael Gathercole. He was taller than even the average tall man, and stood slightly stooped as if to minimize his height.

      Poirot was quite right: Gathercole did indeed look as if his physical self was a cause of discomfort to him. His arms hung restlessly by his sides, and each time he moved even slightly, it looked as if he was trying rather clumsily and impatiently to shake something off—something unfortunate that had attached itself to him, but that no one else could see.

      He was not handsome in the usual sense of the word. His face made me think of a faithful dog that had been kicked too often by its owner and was certain it would happen again. All the same, he looked by far the cleverest of my new acquaintances.

      The other newcomers to the drawing room were also as Poirot had advertised, more or less. Lady Playford was telling a complicated anecdote to nobody in particular as she entered. She made as imposing an impression as I had expected, with a loud, melodic voice and her hair in a sort of coiled leaning tower. After her came the planet-sized lawyer, Orville Rolfe; then Viscount Harry Playford, a blond-haired young man with a flat, square face and an amiable if distant smile—as if he had felt chipper about something once and had been trying ever since to recollect the cause of his good cheer. His wife Dorro was a tall woman with features that brought to mind a bird of prey and a long neck with a deep hollow at its base. One could have set down a teacup in that hollow and it would have nestled there quite satisfactorily.

      The last two to arrive for drinks were Joseph Scotcher, Lady Playford’s secretary, and a dark-haired, dark-eyed woman. I assumed she was the nurse, Sophie Bourlet, for she had pushed Scotcher into the room in a wheelchair. She had a kindly smile that looked, at the same time, efficient—as if she had decided that a smile of this exact sort would be suitable for the occasion—and a modest manner. Of everyone in the room, she was the one to whom one might go with a practical problem. She carried a bundle of papers under one arm, I noticed, and as soon as she had the chance, she put them down on a small writing desk by one of the windows. Having done so, she approached Lady Playford and said something to her. Lady Playford looked over at the papers on the desk and nodded.

      I wondered if, in the face of Scotcher’s declining vigour, Sophie had taken over some of the secretarial duties at Lillieoak. She was dressed more like a secretary than a nurse. All the other women wore evening gowns, but Sophie looked as if she had dressed smartly for a meeting at the office.

      Scotcher was as light, in his physical appearance, as his nurse was dark. His hair was the colour of spun gold, and his skin was pale. He had delicate features, almost like a girl’s, and looked dangerously thin: a fading angel. I wondered if he had been sturdier before his health failed.

      I managed to put myself in front of Gathercole reasonably swiftly, and the usual introductions followed. He turned out to be friendlier than he had looked from a distance. He told me he had first discovered Athelinda Playford’s Shrimp Seddon books in the orphanage that had housed him for most of his childhood, and that he was now her lawyer. He spoke of her with admiration and a little awe.

      ‘You are evidently extremely fond of her,’ I remarked at one point and he replied, ‘Everybody is who has read her work. She is, I believe, a genius.’

      I thought about the profoundly unconvincing Sergeant Halfwit and Inspector Imbecile, and decided it would be injudicious to criticize the creative efforts of my host when she was standing only a few feet away.

      ‘A lot of the big houses belonging to English families were burnt to the ground in the recent … unpleasant business over here.’

      I nodded. It was not something that an Englishman at the beginning of a week’s holiday in Clonakilty cared to discuss.

      ‘No one came near Lillieoak,’ said Gathercole. ‘Lady Playford’s books are so well loved that even the lawless hordes could not bring themselves to attack her home—or else they were restrained by those better than themselves, to whom the name Athelinda Playford means something.’

      This sounded unlikely to me. What lawless horde, after all, would cancel its plans to wreak havoc on account of Shrimp Seddon and her fictional chums? Was young Shrimp really so influential? Could her fat, long-haired dog, Anita, bring a smile to the face of an angry rebel and make him forget all about the cause? I doubted it.

      ‘I see you are unconvinced,’ said Gathercole. ‘What you forget is that people fall for Lady Playford’s books as children. That sort of attachment is difficult, later, to talk yourself out of, no matter what your political affiliation might be.’

      He spoke as an orphan, I reminded myself; Shrimp Seddon and her gang were probably the closest thing he had had to a family.

      An orphan …

      It struck me that this was another connection between a guest at Lillieoak and death. Michael Gathercole’s parents had died. Did Poirot know? Although of course Gathercole was already connected—by his firm’s specialism, the estates of the wealthy. And—I was a fool!—everybody in the world has a relative who has died. Poirot’s idea of a death-themed gathering was ludicrous, I decided.

      Gathercole left me to go and refill his glass. Behind me, Harry Playford was talking enthusiastically to Orville Rolfe about taxidermy. I did not care to hear a step-by-step account of his method, so I crossed the room and listened instead to Randall Kimpton’s conversation with Poirot.

      ‘I hear you set great store by psychology in your solving of crimes, what?’

      ‘I do.’

      ‘Ah! Well, if you will permit me, I should like to disagree with you. Psychology is so intangible a thing. Who knows if it is even real?’

      ‘It is real, monsieur. Let me assure you, it is real.’

      ‘Is it? I do not deny that people have thoughts in their heads, of course, but the notion that one can deduce anything from one’s assumptions about what those thoughts might be and why they are there—I’m not convinced by that, I’m afraid. And even when a murderer confirms that you’re right—even when he says, “Quite so. I did it because I was wild with jealousy, or because the old lady I coshed over the head reminded me of a nanny who was cruel to me”—how do you know СКАЧАТЬ