“My name is Cynthia Catchpool, Monsieur Poirot. I am Edward’s mother, for my sins. I’m afraid I had to resort to dishonesty in order to secure an audience with you. Enid Surtees is an acquaintance of mine.”
Of course. That was where I had heard the name before. It was recited to me amid a flurry of others as part of Mother’s lobbying for me to spend Christmas with her and a collection of complete strangers in a tiny village in Norfolk that “really does feel as if it’s beyond the end of the world, Edward. It’s so charming.”
As far as I could see, there was no “beyond” once one had reached the end of the world. It sounded appalling. Lately I had noticed that I was growing ever more reluctant to leave London. Life and vitality seemed to stop, or at least to struggle for breath, when one strayed too far outside that great city.
And life contained no greater struggle, for me at least, than time spent in the company of my mother. I was already trapped in the cast-iron tradition of joining her for a summer holiday in Great Yarmouth each summer. Nothing would induce me to add a winter ordeal to my filial burden. I knew that if I indulged her once, Mother would expect it to happen every year without fail. I had not spent a Christmas Day with either of my parents since I was eighteen years old and I had no wish to start now.
My first firm “No, thank you” had apparently gone unheard. Eagerly, Mother had continued with her campaign, speaking loudly over my attempts to draw my dissent to her attention. She had listed the people who would be there, in Munby-on-Sea—Enid Surtees was one of them—and hooted about what a marvelous Christmas we would all spend together, playing games I had never heard of before (“Much more mischievous and provocative than anythingIcould invent, I’m sure!”) in what had to be the most beautiful mansion in England: “Truly stunning. A jewel! A work of art, one might say. Frellingsloe House, known as Frelly to its friends—and soon you’ll be one of them, Edward! Its position is at the very farthest tip of the Norfolk coast, on the edge of a rather dramatic cliff. There’s a path that leads directly from the back door to steps that take you down to a little beach. Perfect for you! I know how you love to plunge yourself into icy cold water. Oh, and the views from the house are splendid. You can see all the way to... whichever country is over there, across the sea.” She had waved in a random direction. Then her face had contorted. “This might be your last chance to see Frelly, darling.”
“Seeing a house I didn’t know existed until a moment ago is not a particular ambition of mine,” I had told her.
“It’s awfully sad,” Mother went on. “Poor old Frelly is doomed, I’m afraid—though only because everybody is giving up far too easily. The coastal disintegration in that part of Norfolk is simply atrocious. It has something to do with the clay of the cliff. I can’t think why no one has made it their mission to replace the faulty clay with a better kind. There must be some somewhere. It is surely not past the wit of man to find it and bring it to Munby. They all need to stop shilly-shallying and jolly welldosomething, or else poor Frelly will soon tumble into the water and be washed away. I would sort it out myself, except... well, it’s hardly my place. Besides, I don’t know the first thing about clay. And it’s so hard to know how to raise the matterfor a proper discussion when no one in the family ever mentions it. They’re all thinking about it, though, every minute of the day. Dread of the approaching tragedy hovers over everything. The experts have said Frelly has three to four years left at most.”
Nothing she said had sounded remotely enticing—not the ill-fated house that was about to be swallowed up by the waves, nor the atmosphere of looming disaster that, according to Mother, pervaded the endangered building’s every crevice and cubbyhole. Assuming I would find her dramatic descriptions as irresistible as she herself did (she contrived not to notice that I had my own mind and tastes and was not merely a younger, male replica of her), she went on to list every delectable, gruesome detail that she could think of in connection with Frellingsloe House and its inhabitants: one member of the family was dying of a rare kind of cancer; two sisters lived in the house who hated each other; their parents would never forgive the parents of their husbands (I did not ask why. Too many generations of too many clans seemed to be involved. One would have needed to be a genealogist to keep up.) And the local doctor, who had taken a room at Frellingsloe House, was probably in love with the matriarch of the family, “or at least, he is evidently not in love with the woman to whom he is engaged to be married. It’s very peculiar, Edward.” Meanwhile, the matriarch, whose name I could not recall (perhaps she was Enid Surtees) was “definitely up to something” with the house’s other lodger, a young curate.
Mother had also muttered something about a financial predicament, the cause of which was mysterious, she had implied—though it perhaps explained the presence in the house of two paying lodgers.
Listening in horror to the details of the venal-sounding muddle that she hoped to inflict upon me for the entirety of the Christmas holiday, I had quickly hatched a scheme to fend her off. I invented a prior arrangement that I hoped would act as an obstacle of immovable solidity: I had been invited to spend Christmas with Poirot, I told her. Furthermore, I had accepted. It was all arranged. (This became true soon afterwards, once I had dropped a hint or two.)
“If you will permit me to say, Madame Catchpool...” The hard edge in Poirot’s voice brought me back to our present predicament. “Many people would object to a visitor who gains entry under false pretenses. I am one such person.”
“And for that I commend you.” Mother beamed her approval at him. “I too would object most strongly.” She sat herself down in the chair nearest to the fire. “I much prefer to tell the truth wherever possible, but... well, I know you understand how complicated life can be, Monsieur Poirot. You of all people! I’ve read every word Edward has written about your exploits together, so I know you’re not above bending the truth if it furthers your cause. If I had given my real name, my son would have urged you to shoo me away. I’m sure you are unaware, but I have been asking to meet you for years. Edward has given me all manner of excuses as to why it cannot happen. He likesto keep everything separate. I imagine he thinks that you might find me a little...de trop, as you and your French compatriots would say.”
“I am not French, madame. I am—”
“Shall we arrange for your man to bring us some tea?” Mother rattled on. She turned and looked expectantly at the closed drawing-room door. “And perhaps a little bite of something delicious? And then we can get down to business—for we must soon be on our way.”
“On our way where?” I said. “What business?”
“Christmas. You can stamp your foot all you like, Edward, but there is nothing to be done about it: you and Monsieur Poirot will not, I am afraid, be able to spend Christmas together here in this... room.” She looked up at the ceiling, then over at the window. I wondered if she was comparing the size of Poirot’s living quarters with the larger and grander Frellingsloe House, or perhaps with her own home: the vast, damp farmhouse in Kent where I spent my childhood, whose wooden beams might as well have been prison bars.
“Never mind,” she said brightly. “There will be plenty of other Christmases when you will both be able to do as you please—Edward likes to suit himself and I expect you do too, Monsieur Poirot. This year, however, you shall spend Christmas with me in Munby-on-Sea.”
Out of the question, I said silently and forcefully to myself. Christmas with Poirot at Whitehaven Mansions was the part of my two-week holiday to which I was most looking forward.
“Do not bother to cavil, Edward,” said Mother. “You will both come back with me this afternoon, once we have finished our tea and cakes. Monsieur Poirot will insist upon it, once he has heard my story.”
I wondered if she expected Poirot to conjure up a selection of cakes from a desk drawer.
“Quelle histoire, madame? What story?”
“The one about Stanley Niven,” Mother said pointedly, as if we ought to know who this was. As far as I could remember, his had not been one of the names on the list of those participating in the Norfolk Christmas ordeal. “It is causing great distress to everybody, and I mean to put a stop to it,” she went on. “What was I supposed to do? Sit and stare out of my window at the endless, crashing waves, knowing that in London my son was in the company of the very man—the only man in the world, I dare say—who is sure to be able to help us?”
From this, I gathered that Mother was already installed at Frellingsloe House well in advance of Christmas, since no waves were observable from her home in Kent. I wondered if she and my father had given up spending any time at all together under the same roof. I would not, I thought, blame either of them if that were the case.
“Who is Stanley Niven?” Poirot asked. “Of what problem is he the cause?”
“Oh, the man himself is no longer bothering anyone—though he must have done so at one time or another, or he would not have been bashed about the head with a heavy vase,” said Mother.
“Monsieur Niven was attacked?”
“More than attacked. He was murdered. Now, Mr. Niven himself is not important at all. He is a complete stranger, and neither here nor there. However, by getting himself murdered where he did—in that room on that ward—he has created a substantial problem for a very good friend of mine. For her whole family, in fact.”
How typical of Mother, I reflected, to believe that a man’s murder only mattered if it adversely affected her and her friends.
“Monsieur Niven was murdered in a hospital?” asked Poirot.
“Yes, a little place just outside Munby-on-Sea: St. Walstan’s Cottage Hospital. Where lives are supposed to be saved,” Mother added pointedly, as if Stanley Niven’s unfortunate fate proved the fundamental unsoundness of the whole institution. “As far as I can tell, the staff at St. Walstan’s have come up withnoideas that might result in the catching of the murderer, and neither have the Norfolk constabulary.” She threw up her hands. “Both are hoping the other lot will sort it out. Munby people are peculiar, Monsieur Poirot. They don’t seem motivated todoanything about anything. I wonder if it’s living so near to the sea that makes them that way. On the coast, one is constantly reminded that one cango no further.” She nodded, in full agreement with herself as usual. “What could be more dispiriting? Human life is forced to stop where the land stops.”
