“Yes, and not only that. Invasion of territory too. Oh, she saw it all, did Enid, long before it happened. She said, ‘If Janet marries Jonathan Laurier, she will immediatelythink of everything about his family as entirely hers by right. She will be all the more furious with Maddie for having got there first, and she’ll blame her for all of it as if Maddie were the encroacher, quite forgetting that the order of events proves her wrong.’”
Surtees lowered himself into the nearest armchair. “There is something about a severe danger warning that goads a person into disregarding it,” he said. “‘Surely not,’ one thinks to oneself, feeling oh-so-reasonable and measured. ‘Surely it is an exaggeration, and things will not be as bad as all that.’ And if the warning is delivered with great certainty, well, we are naturally suspicious of those who are too certain of anything—often with good reason. I took Arnold’s advice and gave Jonathan my permission to ask for Janet’s hand in marriage.”
“Arnold advised you?” I said.
“Oh, he was full of the joys of spring, as he always is. He thought it would be wonderful for all four of our children to be married to each other. Vivienne was delighted too. She said we would soon all be able to be one big, happily family, all eight of us. In fact...” Surtees frowned. “Yes, she did, if I recall correctly—and I think I do. Vivienne immediately invited Enid and me to move in with them, here at Frelly. For once Arnold was the more cautious of the two of them. He said, ‘Do not be too hasty, dear. Jonathan has not yet proposed and Janet has not yet said yes.’ We all laughed, then. I was touched by Vivienne’s kindness. She comes from a large family herself—one of five siblings, like me. It was understandable, I thought, thatshe wished to create a new, big, happy family. I had no idea how soon afterwards she would seek to turn some of her newly acquired relatives into servants.”
Surtees grimaced. “Maybe Janet gets her unreasonable streak from me.”
“I don’t follow,” I told him.
“Enid and I agreed to Arnold and Vivienne’s offer of residence here in exchange for our work. And here we still are, when we could easily have left, and even though we hate our subservience more and more with each passing day. Anyway, all of that is beside the point,” he said brusquely. “You asked if Arnold advised me. He did. And five minutes into my discussion with him, I was convinced that Enid’s doom-laden predictions were wildly unrealistic. I told her I would give Jonathan permission to marry Janet if he asked for it. When my wife wept and begged me to reconsider, I quoted Arnold’s words: ‘Why would I wish to take the side of fear against love?’ And now, every day, I pay the price for my foolishness. I inhabit—Enid and I both do—the nightmare scenario that she was so desperate to avoid. My greatest fear...” He faltered and his voice shook. “My fear is that I shall go to my grave, and Enid to hers, knowing that Maddie and Janet are still not reconciled. If they could only love each another as they did before, I would happily die today. So would Enid.”
“I’m sorry,” I told him. “It must be very hard for you and for your wife.”
“I know I had a hand in creating the problem, yet I blame Arnold for all of it. Is that not wicked of me?Sometimes I think I hate him. “Why would you wish to take the side of fear against love?’’ Surtees muttered. “For a very good reason, as it turned out. If Arnold had not asked me that question... May he suffer the torments of the damned for uttering those words in my presence!”
Chapter 19
Unanswered Questions
This was how Poirot described to me, later, his journey back from Duluth Cottage: “It was unbearable, Catchpool. I suffered the agonies of the damned—and it was not helped by the ceaseless chatter ofl’imbécileMackle, in whose presence no restful silence can flourish. He wished to speak only of the murder of Stanley Niven, because he knew of no other murder, nosecondmurder, connected to that case. I, meanwhile, was certain that Arnold Laurier, missing from Frellingsloe House, had been murdered too—and I was to blame! I should not have left him unattended, fearing as I did that Vivienne Laurier was right about him being the killer’s next victim. I was a blind fool who had not listened when my intuition spoke to me more clearly than it ever had before! Catchpool, I had no doubt that Monsieur Laurier’s body would have been found by the time I returned.”
As I say, it was much later that Poirot allowed all of his pent-up anguish to pour out. I do not wish to get aheadof myself, so I will return to an earlier point in the story: the moment of his arrival back at Frellingsloe House. I was on my knees, putting the final decorative touches to the Christmas tree in the entrance hall, when I heard a car pull up on the gravel outside. Then came the sound of fast, impatient footsteps. “This cannot be Poirot,” I thought. My Belgian friend was neither habitually nor by preference a fast mover.
There was a frantic pounding on the front door. “Catchpool! Let me in,immédiatement!”
I had no idea why he was so agitated, and assumed the cause was something that had occurred while he was at the police station or the hospital; I did not know, at this point, that he had visited neither. Nor did I know that anybody had telephoned first to the local police station and then, after hearing from one of his men where Inspector Mackle had taken the famous Hercule Poirot, to Duluth Cottage to ask Poirot to return as a matter of urgency. Certainly no one had mentioned to me anything about Arnold Laurier having gone missing.
I tried to stand up quickly, stumbled and ended up back on the floor.
“Catchpool! It is I, Poirot! Let me in.” He banged on the door again.
As I moved in the direction of the front door, I heard footsteps above me, on the staircase. “Do not fret! I shall be there in jiffy!” a merry voice called out. I calculated that the voice’s owner would reach the door before I did, so I turned back to my tree, which—though I say it myself—wasby now looking positively regal. It was a king among trees, festooned with an abundance of shiny, beautiful objects, each of which had been placed in its optimal position with great delicacy and skill.
The front door was opened for Poirot seconds later—by none other than Arnold Laurier. Yes, it was he who had skipped down the stairs, calling out reassurances as he went.
Poirot’s face was a picture. It made me think of a goldfish that had fallen out of its bowl and could not understand why there was suddenly no water for it to breathe. Behind him, through the open door, I saw the same car parked in front of the house that had come to collect him this morning. Once he had recovered himself, Poirot turned and gestured at the vehicle, indicating that it was free to leave.
“I owe you an apology, Monsieur Poirot,” said Arnold Laurier. “You have been inconvenienced and no doubt greatly alarmed, and all for no reason. As you can see, I have not disappeared.” He performed a full turn where he stood, allowing Poirot—and me, though only in parentheses, no doubt—to view him in the round. “I am not missing. I never was missing. I simply went out without informing anyone—something I have done all my life, I might add—but I should have taken into account my wife’s baseless fear that I am about to be murdered by the beast of St. Walstan’s, whoever he might be. Haha! No doubt she believes he has grown tired of waiting for me to turn up at the hospital and is now set on seeking me out here at Frelly to administer a grisly punishment.” Laurier laughed, apparently finding it all immensely entertaining. Then heremembered Poirot’s recent experience and adopted a more sober expression. “I am very sorry if we gave you a shock, old boy.”
“I am delighted to find you alive and in such good spirits,mon ami.”
“Why don’t you ask him where he has been, Monsieur Poirot?” came Vivienne Laurier’s voice from the back of the hall. “He refuses to tell me.” She sounded sad and resigned as usual.
“All will be revealed, dearest,” said Arnold. “When I am ready, I shall tell you every last delectable morsel. I would far rather present you with a problem nicely solved, not one that is still proving to be rather a headache. And I know just the man who can help me solve it. Monsieur Poirot, may I speak to you for a moment in private?”
“Of course.”
“Thank you. Let us go to my study. Vivienne, I am confident that, after a brief confabulation with our good friend Poirot, I shall have some happy news for you... for all of us; the children too.”
Vivienne and I watched the two of them leave. “What do you think of my decorative efforts?” I asked her.
She made no response and did not even look at the tree. I watched as she moved slowly and aimlessly around the hall as if she were sleep-walking, first in the direction of the front door and then back toward the foot of the stairs, where she came to a standstill. “It is not fair,” she said. She was talking not to me but to herself—that much was apparent.
“What is not fair?” I asked.
“We imagine it is the injustice that stings, but the worst pain is caused, always, by the idea that things should be fair, when they never have been and never will be. If only I could see things differently... but how?” She looked at me suddenly. “Does it not strike you as horribly, awfully unfair, Edward, that something as morally irrelevant as biological accident—the hereditary physical traits one is born with, that one has done nothing to earn—should be of such consequence? If spirit, courage or faith counted for anything, if creativity or determination had any bearing upon what becomes of a person, Arnold would live forever and I would waste away into nothingness.”
