I was thinking that not all blood relatives could accurately be described as loved ones.
“You are about to tell me, as so many others have, that Arnold will soon die of his illness whether he is murdered or not,” said Vivienne. “That it hardly matters if he dies or is killed, and so why not let him have his bit of sleuthing fun? I will tell you why: because every second that he is alive, each moment I can spend with him, means more to me than you could possibly imagine. I will not lose him any sooner than I have to.”
“Quite right too,” I said. “And also, quite wrong: I was not going to say that it would not matter if your husband were murdered.
“That is what most people seem to think,” said Vivienne. “And I am cast as the killjoy wife, set on thwarting her dying husband’s last wish to have fun solving a crime. I don’t care! I refuse to allow Arnold to become a second victory for a murderer. It matters how a person dies, Edward. If anything violent were done to Arnold, anything evil, I should not be able to grieve in the only way that I can imagine grieving. I could not go on. Not even for my children’s sake.”
“I understand,” I told her.
“Dr. Osgood says Arnold has no more than six months left, but he cannot know for certain. No one can. What if he has another eight months, or a year? What if he has two years left? Instances of this sort are rare, but Dr. Osgood admits it can happen—though he also tells me I should not expect such a miracle. Why not, I want to know, when Arnold is exceptional in so many other ways? You have seen how he is: fizzing withjoie de vivre, even now. Which is why I do not wish to argue with him any more. He will not be persuaded; I must accept that. Tell me truthfully, Edward: do you believe that Hercule Poirot can solve Stanley Niven’s murder before Arnold moves to St. Walstan’s?”
“I hope so,” I said. “That is why we are here.”
“You have plenty of time,” said Vivienne. “Arnold will remain at Frelly until the beginning of January. That will be long enough, surely, if Monsieur Poirot is as talented a detective as everyone says he is.”
“I have watched him untangle the most baffling mysteries with astonishing speed,” I told her. “If anyone can do it, he can.”
This did not seem to mollify her. “If the police have failed, why should Monsieur Poirot succeed? What will he be able to discover that they could not? No one had a reason to kill Stanley Niven. By all accounts, he was a good, kind man. It seems likely to me that his death will never make sense to anybody but his killer. Then there is no chance that even Monsieur Poirot will solve it.”
It would have been futile to tell her to try not to worry.
“And Inspector Mackle is determined to pin the blame on one of the Nivens, for which he should hang his head in shame,” Vivienne went on. “They are a lovely, happyfamily.” She said the last word as if she truly believed it to be sacred. “None of them would dream of committing a murder.”
“Do you know the Nivens personally?” I asked her.
“No. I know only what Robert—Dr. Osgood—has told me. I trust his judgement far more than I trust that of Inspector Gerald Mackle.”
“Well, you can trust Hercule Poirot,” I told her. “I have never known him to fail. May I ask you a question?”
She nodded warily.
“Why are you afraid that Stanley Niven’s killer will try to kill your husband?”
“Is it not obvious? If Arnold is determined to find out who did it, and if you were the murderer—a person who has already killed once—what on earth would stop you trying it again?”
I took a risk. “Forgive me,” I said, “but were you not frightened for Arnold even before he announced his intention to investigate Stanley Niven’s murder?”
Vivienne’s eyes widened. “Ah. You have been speaking to Robert, I see. Very well, then: yes. Yes, I was afraid for Arnold from the moment I was told that Mr. Niven had been murdered. And now you will ask me why, and I shall get my hopes up that perhaps at last someone will listen to me and take the threat to Arnold seriously—only to have you tell me, no doubt, that I imagined it all and there is nothing to worry about.”
“Whatever you say, I shall not dismiss it out of hand,” I assured her.
“Thank you. It was the other patient—what he said to me, and the way he looked when he said it. There was no mistaking it: he meant to warn me. He was trying to tell me that Arnold would be next. No one will believe me, because he did not use those words, but—”
“Wait,” I said. “I am a little lost. Start at the beginning. Which other patient are you talking about?”
“Mr. Hurt-His-Head,” said Vivienne.
“Dinner is ready!” a voice called up from the hall below. I looked down and saw a small woman: an elderly, bespectacled, bird-like creature. Her hair was grey and sparse; patches of pink scalp were visible between the meagre strands. She wore a dirty blue kitchen apron that was several sizes too large for her. Her bare hands were a livid red that indicated recent scrubbing. Had Maddie not said that her mother, Enid Surtees, was presently occupyingthe role of cook at Frellingsloe House? I suspected this was Enid.
“We had better join the others,” Vivienne said quickly. She lowered her eyes as she turned away from me, as if we had been jointly involved in a shameful activity. Soon she was at the bottom of the stairs and hurrying away, leaving me alone with many questions, unasked and unanswered, about the man she had referred to as “Mr. Hurt-His-Head.” Who was he, and what did he have to do with the murder of Stanley Niven? And what had he said or done to make Vivienne believe that her husband would be the hospital killer’s next victim?
Chapter 8
At Dinner
I found Frellingsloe House’s empty drawing room by accident while looking for its dining room. Once I had succeeded in finding that, I reached the conclusion that someone had deliberately arranged things the wrong way round. The room that plainly ought to have been the drawing room had been designated as the dining room, and vice versa. I wondered which contrarian member of the Laurier family, belonging to which generation, had decided he wanted a long, rectangular drawing room with only a few small windows, and this large, square dining room with wide French doors at one end.
Both rooms boasted tall, undecorated Christmas trees of the sort that seemed to bede rigueurat Frellingsloe House. The dining room’s tree stood wretched and forlorn against a backdrop of red velvet: one half of a pair of curtains that had not yet been drawn against the night. The many windows revealed only blackness and the blurred reflection of the scene at the center of the room: a long, narrow tableof dark wood (it would have been perfectly suited to the shape of the rectangular drawing room, alas!) with people positioned around it and three empty chairs. Poirot was at the far end of the table, next to my mother. I took a seat between Dr. Osgood and the curate, Felix Rawcliffe
