The True Pattern
“Ah, Catchpool? Here you are. Your mother said I would find you here in the library. Ah—and there is mysirop!”
“I wondered when Arnold would set you free,” I said. It is hard to describe how I feel whenever Poirot walks into a room I am in. It is the mental equivalent of light being transformed into color by a diamond’s fluorescence.
“What is that notebook?” he asked.
I told him about Maddie Laurier’s Morality Game notes, Arnold’s gravestone drawing and Vivienne defacing it. Then I asked him how close he was to solving the murder of Stanley Niven.
“Not at all close,” he said. “But this thought, it encourages me.” He walked to the farthest end of the room and lowered himself into the green leather chair in the corner by the window. “I have told you before, though you might not remember: it is when the mystifying details of a case start to proliferate, when the contradictions begin to amass and each new fact that comes to light explodes the emergingpicture instead of helping to make it whole... that is when I know I am moving inexorably toward the moment of full understanding.”
“Yes. You have said that before.”
Poirot smiled. “And you believe me no more now than you did then, but it is true. Nothing is truer. Most people believe that making progress entails feeling as if one is moving forward.They think they will be able to say to themselves all along the way, ‘Ah, yes, now I see. How perfectly it all comes together!’Non, non, non!One perceives only chaos and the absence of progress until the one or two final elements make themselves visible. Only then does the apparent mess resolve itself into a story that makes sense, in which everything fits together.”
“What did Arnold Laurier wish to say to you that he could not say in front of his wife?” I asked him. “And what happened today at the hospital and the police station? What did you find out?”
“I went to neither St. Walstan’s nor the police station. I went to Duluth Cottage.”
“What is that?”
“A most delightful little house. Its owner is a Mademoiselle Verity Hunt. She lives in the cottage with two other women: Nurse Bee Haskins and Nurse Zillah Hunt. I will tell you all about it, but first, tell me about your day. What has happened at Frellingsloe House since I left it this morning? Omit no incident or conversation, please.”
“I have decorated five Christmas trees, including the onein this room,” I told him. “They all look splendid, I must say. Each one has a distinctive style.”
Poirot regarded me with evident impatience.
Once I had described in detail the various events and interactions of my day, I told him about the two things that were bothering me. “One of them was said by Arnold Laurier and another by his wife. Arnold’s came first. You heard it too. It was just after he let you in, when you came back to the house. He was poking fun at Vivienne’s theory that the St. Walstan’s killer might kill him next. He said, ‘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.’ Do you remember?”
“I do,” said Poirot. “What of it?”
“Well, it made me think. For as long as Stanley Niven’s murderer is out there and at large, Vivienne wants Arnold to avoid the hospital, yes? She thinks he will be killed if he is admitted there, and she wants him to stay here at home where he will be safe. She has also, according to Dr. Osgood, expressed the opinion that it was Arnold the killer intended to murder, not Stanley Niven. In which case... why does she think that this person will only kill Arnold once he has arrived at St. Walstan’s? Why would this chap—or lady, if the killer is a female—not travel to Frellingsloe House, which is a relatively short distance from the hospital, and murder him here? How many homicidal criminals have you known whose attitude has been ‘I am going to kill my enemy, or the person who threatens me, but only if he presents himself at this particular location.Otherwise, I will not make the effort to go and kill him elsewhere’? It makes no sense. Does this miscreant wish to finish off Arnold Laurier or not? Surely the answer cannot be ‘Only if no traveling is involved?’”
“Yes. I see.” Poirot stroked his moustaches with his index finger. “If the murderer works at the hospital, it would be hard for them to enter this house and kill Arnold Laurier without getting caught. Far easier to do it at St. Walstan’s. Though you raise an interesting possibility: what if the killer would feel threatened by Monsieur Laurieronlyif he were to take up residence at St. Walstan’s?”
“Poirot, I am about to make a bold claim. I would not be at all surprised to learn that Vivienne Laurier knows exactly who the killer is and the precise nature of his or her grudge against Arnold. When she and I spoke earlier, she said, ‘Arnold knows nothing of the danger he courts.’ I would not have been suspicious if she had said, ‘He cares not a jot about the risk,’ or something of that sort. But she did not say that. It very much sounded to me as if she knew more specific details about the danger—details of which her husband is unaware.
Poirot nodded slowly. “If that is so, and she fears for his life, why does she not tell him? She must be too afraid of something or somebody.”
“Or she is protecting somebody,” I said. “One of her sons, maybe.” Poirot’s smile of admiration told me that he was considering the very same theory.
I asked him again about the recent private conversation in Arnold Laurier’s study to which only he had been invited.
Immediately, his eyes clouded with sadness. “Monsieur Laurier wanted to talk to me about Frelly.”
“Must you call it that?”
“It is what he calls it, with a voice that is full of emotion.” Poirot sighed. “It is concerning to me. To love a building as if it were a person with emotions and a soul when it is no such thing... When Monsieur Laurier went out this morning without telling anyone, it was to attend a meeting. Over a period of months, he has conducted a series of secret meetings. Today’s was the last one—with a geologist from Norway. Gudbrand Klemesrud is his name. He is a world expert in a discipline I had not, I confess, heard of before: geomorphology. It is the study of landforms and how they change in response to the activity of air, ice and water.”
“The land being worn away by the sea,” I said.
Poirot nodded. “For several months now, Arnold Laurier has, at great expense and without the knowledge of any member of his family, been bringing to Norfolk one world expert after another. One by one, they have dashed his hopes by telling him the unalterable truth: that nothing can be done to save his beloved family home. Determined to believe that what he wants is possible, he has sought out opinion after opinion. Today, Gudbrand Klemesrud told him the same thing: there is no hope of saving the house.”
“One has to admire his persistence,” I said.
“Non. He has wasted time and money on this foolhardiness. This is why the paid servants were let go, so that the money could instead be spent on this fantasy. Vivienne Laurier has no idea how much has been squandered.Monsieur Laurier believes she will be overjoyed, one day, when he tells her how he spent it, and this he intends to do only once the problem has been solved and a happy outcome secured. Do you know what he said to me, Catchpool? ‘The great victories come only if one is willing to risk losing everything.’’ Poirot cursed under his breath. “Between them, he and the dim-witted Inspector Mackle are enough to put a person off optimism altogether. And now you tell me that Jonathan Laurier has requested that I lie to his father and promise to save the house when I have no expertise at all in the field of geomorphology.”
“Do you mean... Did Arnold Laurier askyouto save Frellingsloe House from the forces of coastal erosion?”
