Poirot nodded. “I am his last hope.”
This seemed absurd beyond belief.
“In Monsieur Laurier’s estimation, it is ideal that I have never before solved a problem of this sort. It has for him the appeal of the unconventional. Besides, he says, I am the only person he can think of who never fails. The sum of money he offered to me...” Poirot blinked several times. “I cannot and will not take it, naturally.”
“You must tell him at once that even you, the great Hercule Poirot, cannot suspend the forces of nature.”
“You are sure, then, that honesty is the correct course of action,mon ami? All I need do in order to ensure Monsieur Laurier dies a happy man is tell him I will put my little grey cells to work—”
“No, Poirot. That would be quite wrong.”
“I agree,” he said with a sigh. “It is only that I do notwish to make a happy man unhappy.” He stood up, walked over to the table and took a sip of his sirop, then another. “The happiness of Arnold Laurier...” he murmured, staring out the window. I was about to ask him what his special interest was in Laurier’s happiness and also in Stanley Niven’s, but I was not quick enough. He had drained his glass and was now in action mode—which for Poirot means assigning actions to me. “Do you have your notebook and pencil to hand, Catchpool?”
“I can get them.”
“Do so, please. I wish to transfer from my head to paper everything I have learned about what occurred on the day Stanley Niven was killed.”
Chapter 22
I Take Notes
I was hurrying back to the library when someone stepped in front of me without warning, apparently not minding if I barreled into him. It was Jonathan Laurier. His face was red, his mouth set in a hard line. “I have just spoken to my father,” he said. “He tells me that he has now asked for Poirot’s help, but as yet he has received no assurance that your Belgian friend will do whatever it takes to save Frelly.”
“What your father wants is impossible,” I said. “It cannot be achieved, not even by Hercule Poirot.”
“What is wrong with you people?” Jonathan demanded. “Have you no compassion? My father will soon be dead. After that, he will be completely ignorant of the fate of this house. Poirot must tell him what he wants and needs to hear, so that he can go to his grave with a peaceful heart.”
“Poirot will do no such thing. He has made up his mind.” There was something about this man’s unshakeable conviction that everyone ought to put aside their own principles and do his bidding without question that made me happyto challenge him directly, though normally I preferred to enact a much quieter sort of rebellion. “Misleading people about the things that matter most to them is not the best solution to any problem. I am surprised you cannot see that.” I walked away at a brisk pace, leaving Jonathan Laurier floundering in the fug of his unjustified anger.
When I entered the library armed with my notebook and pencil, I caught Poirot with a grimace on his face that he tried to hide when he saw me. “Is something the matter?” I asked him.
“Nothing important,” he said. “The air in this house does not agree with me.”
“Sea air is meant to be extremely invigorating. Good for a variety of ailments.”
“Maybe so. It is, I think, the atmosphere here and not the air that is the problem. Someone in this house intends harm to another, Catchpool. Murderous harm. If only we could leave immediately... But we cannot. Not until we have ensured that whoever killed Stanley Niven does not also kill Arnold Laurier.”
I laughed. “Poirot, Stanley Niven’s killer might never even have heard of Arnold Laurier. Alternatively... the killer mightbeArnold Laurier.”
“That is a good point,” he conceded, “and one I had, of course, considered. We have been told that only five members of the Laurier family went to St. Walstan’s on 8 September, but what if one more person from Frellingsloe House was also there that day? Do we know for certain that Arnold Laurier was at home, too sick to leave the house?”
“Here’s another one for you,” I said. “What if Vivienne Laurier’s fear is real, but the reason she has given for it is a lie? What if she knows it was her husband who killed Niven, and knows, furthermore, that the murder was very probably witnessed by Mr. Hurt-His-Head—?”
“Who might still be at St. Walstan’s when Arnold Laurier arrives there at the start of January!” Poirot looked rather excited by the notion. “What, Madame Laurier asks herself, will happen when this witness points to her husband and says ‘Hurt his head, hurt his head’ so many times that even Inspector Mackle starts to question his conviction that the killer must be Clarence Niven? This would terrify Madame Laurier, would it not? That her husband might be convicted of murder and live long enough to be hanged? Or have his reputation forever tarnished?
“It would, but—”
“Naturally, she cannot say this is what frightens her so much, not without revealing her husband as a murderer. Yet she is powerless to hide her fear. It is the hardest emotion to conceal,la crainte. It spills out of the eyes, the mouth, even the skin.”
“Arnold Laurier has no earthly reason to have wanted Stanley Niven dead,” I pointed out. “Unless he particularly wanted Niven’s room on Ward 6. I wonder if it was better appointed in some way.”
“Another inspired notion, Catchpool,” Poirot said breathlessly.
“It was a joke.”
“Please, continue in this vein. You inspire me to question everything. Write it down, all of it.”
Feeling extremely foolish, I wrote down my two ridiculous ideas as follows:
