Closed Casket. Sophie Hannah

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       CHAPTER 8

       A Stroll in the Gardens

      The first thing I did, as Poirot and I stepped outside, was gulp in air as if I’d been starved of it. There was something stifling about Lillieoak, something that made me want to escape its confines.

      ‘This is the best time of day to walk in a garden,’ said Poirot. ‘When it is dark and one sees no plants or flowers.’

      I laughed. ‘Are you being deliberately silly? No gardener would agree with you.’

      ‘I like to savour the smell of a garden I cannot see. Do you smell it? The pine, and the lavender—oh, yes, very strongly the lavender. The nose is as important as the eyes. Ask any horticulturalist.’ Poirot chuckled. ‘I think that if you and I were to meet the one who created this garden, I would make the more favourable impression upon him.’

      ‘I expect you think that about anyone the two of us might meet, whether they were a gardener or a postman,’ I said curtly.

      ‘Who was at the door?’

      ‘Pardon?’

      ‘Someone was listening at the door—someone who made an unhappy exclamation immediately after Joseph Scotcher asked the nurse Sophie to marry him.’

      ‘Yes, and who then ran away.’

      ‘Who was it, do you think?’

      ‘Well, we know it was nobody in the dining room—so not you, me, Harry, Dorro, Claudia, Kimpton. It wasn’t the two lawyers, Gathercole and Rolfe. It wasn’t poor old Joseph Scotcher, whose running days are over, and nor was it his nurse, Sophie. That leaves Lady Playford, who had left the room by then, Brigid the cook, Hatton the butler, Phyllis the maid. It could have been any of them. I am inclined to believe it was Phyllis—she is besotted with Scotcher. She told me so herself, before dinner.’

      ‘And that is why you arrived late to the dining room?’

      ‘Yes, it was.’

      Poirot nodded. ‘Shall we walk a little?’ he suggested. ‘I can see the path now. It goes all the way around the lawn and will bring us back to the house.’

      ‘I have no wish to be brought back,’ I told him. I did not want to walk a neat square on a paved path. I should have liked to stride out across the grass, with no thought about how or when I would return.

      ‘You are wrong,’ Poirot told me as we set off on the safe route of his choosing.

      ‘About what?’

      ‘The listener at the door who ran away—yes, it could have been Lady Playford, or the maid Phyllis, or Hatton, but it could not have been Brigid the cook. I caught a glimpse of her when I first arrived. I doubt she could move so quickly, and her tread would be heavier.’

      ‘Yes. Now that I think of it, the footsteps had a light and nimble aspect.’

      ‘Nimble is an interesting word. It suggests youth.’

      ‘I know. Which makes me think … It must have been Phyllis. As I said: we know she is enamoured of Scotcher. And she’s young and sprightly, isn’t she? No one else is—no one who might have been listening outside that door. Hatton and Lady Playford are both older and move more slowly.’

      ‘So it was Phyllis,’ Poirot seemed content to agree. ‘Let us move on to our next question. Why would Lady Playford decide to change her will in such a peculiar way?’

      ‘She told us why. She hopes that Scotcher’s unconscious mind will exert its powerful influence—’

      ‘That is senseless,’ Poirot dismissed my answer, only half-expressed. ‘Kidney failure is kidney failure. The prospect of all the riches in the world cannot reverse a terminal illness that has nearly run its course. Lady Playford is a woman of considerable intelligence, therefore she knows this. I do not believe that was her reason.’

      He stopped walking in order to disagree with himself. ‘Although the ability of people to believe what they hope is true is without limit, mon ami. If Lady Playford loves Joseph Scotcher very much, perhaps …’

      I waited to see if he would say more. When it was clear he did not intend to, I said, ‘I think you were right the first time. If there’s one thing I know about Athelinda Playford from her books, it’s that she thinks of all kinds of peculiar motives and schemes that no one else would ever dream up. I think she was playing a game at the dinner table. She strikes me as the sort who would enjoy games.’

      ‘You think it is not real, this will that leaves her entire estate to Scotcher?’ We had started to move again.

      ‘No, I think it is,’ I said. What did I mean? I considered it carefully. ‘Making it real is part of her game. She’s serious, all right—but that doesn’t mean she isn’t toying with everybody.’

      ‘For what reason, mon ami? For revenge, perhaps? The desire to punish—though not so severely as she might? A most interesting allusion was made to the late Viscount Playford’s will. I wonder …’

      ‘Yes, I have been wondering about it too.’

      ‘I think I can guess what happened. Usually the family estate passes to the son, the new Viscount. Yet in this instance that evidently did not happen. Lady Playford, as we heard this evening, is the owner of the Lillieoak estate and of several houses in London. Therefore … an unusual arrangement must have been made by the late Viscount Playford. It is possible that he and Lady Playford did not believe the young Harry to be capable of taking on such a responsibility—’

      ‘If that was their worry, one could scarcely blame them,’ I interjected. ‘Harry does rather give the impression of having a suet pudding between his ears, doesn’t he?’

      Poirot murmured his agreement, then said, ‘Or perhaps the reluctance of Lady Playford and her late husband had more to do with their daughter-in-law, who has shown her vicious streak most clearly in the short time we have known her.’

      ‘What СКАЧАТЬ