Osgood’s mouth moved, but he said nothing. He might have been chewing a tough piece of gristle; it was hard to tell.
“Monsieur Poirot, may I ask you a question?” said Maddie before Osgood could respond. “If you were in aprivate room in a hospital, receiving the best possible care, would you mind if your room overlooked a small courtyard full of lovely trees and plants, if other patients’ rooms were on the other side of that courtyard? Would you think it was worth the risk of one of those other patients glimpsing you in your hospital room now and then—and bear in mind, these rooms all have curtains, so you could close them whenever you wanted to—and risk catching sight of other patients yourself—at a safe distance, of course—if in exchange you had the beautiful courtyard as your view?”
“Why are you asking Monsieur Poirot?” Jonathan snapped at her. “He is not the patient in question, therefore his opinion is irrelevant.”
“The opinion of Poirot is never irrelevant, monsieur. But...” My friend shrugged. “To answer this question, I would need to see the precise distances involved. If there were a reasonable amount of space between my room and any other, and if the beauty of the courtyard pleased me greatly... why, then it might suit me. To be able to watch people from a distance, but not have to listen to them; to try to understand them when all they are to me is a silent, moving image—this I would find fascinating. And as Madame Maddie says: there are the curtains that one can always close if one does not wish to see or be seen.”
I waited for Maddie to crow, but she did not. She said to Jonathan, “As you say, Monsieur Poirot is not the patient in question. Arnold is. Why, then, did neither you nor Janet think to ask forhisopinions about courtyards and privacy?”
“Because they were not thinking of him at all,” said Douglas. “They were thinking of themselves.Theydid not want to be seen by the patients in the rooms across the courtyard when they visited Pa in hospital, so they sought to deprive him of the best view St. Walstan’s has to offer.”
“Oh, I think they are far too selfish to visit Arnold in hospital,” said Maddie, as if the people she was denigrating were not present in the room. “You watch, once he gets there: Vivienne will be there all day every day, and you and I will visit often. Janet and Jonathan, meanwhile, will make excuses and avoid the place.”
“Such hatred,” Janet murmured. “When did you become so wicked, Madeline?”
“I simply want our father to have the best... situation that I can create for him,” Jonathan said quietly. “That includes a reasonable amount of privacy.”
Douglas leaned forward, resting both his elbows on the table. “You know perfectly well that Pa cares not a jot about privacy and would love to spy on his fellow patients. If you deny it, you are a liar.”
“Will you all please stop provoking each other?” said my mother. “You have already driven Vivienne from the room, and goodness knows how Enid and Terence must feel. What is to be gained by carrying on in this way? And might I remind you that we have guests?”
“‘We?’” said Douglas. “Are you not also a guest, Cynthia?”
“Why, of course. I simply meant—”
“I am going to bed,” said Enid Surtees, standing up. She had eaten every last bit of food on her plate. So had herhusband, who mumbled something indecipherable and followed her out of the dining room.
Janet watched them go, looking stricken. Jonathan shook his head slowly. I feared the stultifying silence might stretch on endlessly, but Dr. Osgood broke it. “What is that noise?” he said. “Can you hear it?”
“All I can hear is a barrage of needlessly unpleasant—” Mother began.
“Listen!” Osgood cut her off. “There: crying. Almost howling. You must be able to hear it.” He stood up and walked over to the window. “It’s Vivienne,” he said. “She is out there alone in the dark and the rain, weeping.”
“Brave, strong doctor to the rescue...” Douglas Laurier made a gesture with his arms that suggested running—moving his arms back and forth vigorously—though he remained in his seat. Whatever his remark had meant, it had made him smirk.
“I hear nothing,” said Felix Rawcliffe with a trace of impatience in his voice. “There is, perhaps, no need for a rescue on this occasion.”
“You cannot possibly see her out there in the darkness,” Jonathan told Osgood.
“I can hear her, I tell you,” the doctor snarled at him.
“Well, where is Arnold?” Mother asked impatiently.
“How should I know?” said Osgood. “I am going to bring Vivienne in from the garden.” He marched out of the room.
Poirot, too, had stood up and was on his way to the door. “I shall go and find Arnold Laurier myself,” he said.
Mother had sat down again. “You had better go andrescue Vivienne, Felix,” she told the curate. “Dr. Osgood, in his present state of heightened emotion, is the very last thing she needs—and I shudder to think what he might do to me if I try to intervene. Well, go on! You are the only one of us who has divine protection. Yes, I know He protects us all, but you have the credentials.”
Rawcliffe looked surprised, but he did as he was told.
I had no desire to stay at the table with only Mother and the Fractious Four for company, so I made my excuses, citing my urgent need for an early night, and left the room.
I was at the bottom of the house’s main staircase when Jonathan Laurier caught up with me. “Inspector Catchpool?”
“Hello!”
“I want to say again how sorry I am for my rudeness before. I do not know what possessed me, only that... well, sometimes with my brother and his wife around it is hard to keep one’s cool.”
