“I hate to spoil the fun, but I was very aware of Ma’s presence at every single moment,” said Douglas. “She entered Pa’s room ahead of me, in fact, and was by my side throughout.”
“That is a lie,” said Poirot.
“Vivienne would never hurt Arnold,” said Maddie. “I refuse to believe it. She was devoted to him. She would rather have died than harm him.”
“Yet harm him she did,” Poirot said. “For the same reason that she murdered Stanley Niven.”
“I have told you all: Iris Haskins is the murderer,” said Vivienne, looking at Mother as if in hope of support.
“What rot!” Dr. Osgood snapped. “Look here, Poirot, I have been patient so far, but do not insult our intelligence, please. You have just asked us to accept that Stanley Niven was killed only because the murderer wished to hide from Bee Haskins. Since Bee Haskins was not here at Frellingsloe House when Arnold was killed, there would have been no need to hide from her on that occasion. Therefore, the two men cannot have been killed for the same reason.”
“They can and they were,” Poirot told him. “Catchpool, please explain to the doctor why it must be so.”
“I... don’t know,” I said. “Unless...” A jolt of realization shot through me.
“Ah! Light dawns! Go on,mon ami.”
Convinced I would turn out to be wrong, I began tentatively, “Now that Arnold Laurier is dead, he cannot be admitted to St. Walstan’s Hospital in January. His wife would have been expected to visit him in the hospital every day, until he died—expected to by Arnold himself and by the whole family. Maddie, you said so several times: Vivienne would be at Arnold’s bedside day and night. Yet how could she risk going anywhere near the place and coming face to face with Bee Haskins, her sister? The game would have been up: Vivienne Laurier would have been revealed as Iris Haskins. That was an intolerable prospect—as was allowing Arnold to be admitted to the hospital and then never visiting him there.”
Vivienne had started to nod slowly.
“She wanted to be by his side until the end, every second that she could,” I went on. “The thought of Arnold in hospital, wondering why his beloved wife never came to visit—”
“Dear heavens,” said Mother. I saw from her expression that she was now convinced.
“Excellent, Catchpool.” Poirot beamed at me. “Most excellent indeed. Quite correct.”
Yes, well, I thought to myself, it was lucky I had tumbled to the explanation at the very moment he expected me to announce it to the room; had I failed to, I would have looked like a prize chump and felt extremely embarrassed.
“This theory is as shaky as one of Enid’s disgusting blancmanges,” said Douglas. “If Ma was so desperate to be able to visit Pa at St. Walstan’s—desperate enough to commit murder—then why did she not kill this Nurse Bee person instead of Pa?”
“Her own sister?” said Poirot. “A healthy woman who still has many years left to live, whom she has betrayed once already in the most vicious way?Non, non. Besides, it is not easy to kill someone without them catching a glimpse of your face—and that, for Vivienne Laurier, would have meant exposure as Iris Haskins.”
“It was easy for Iris to kill Arnold,” said Vivienne. Everyone stared at her. “He had fallen asleep on his desk. He didn’t know anything about it.”
“What was the vicious betrayal?” Zillah Hunt asked. “Please may I be allowed to know, Monsieur Poirot? My mother and Aunt Bee have told me so very little, and... well, I am not a child any more. All I know is that Aunt Bee had a sweetheart who took his own life, and that her sister had loved him too—the same man.”
Poirot said to Inspector Mackle. “Please go and fetch Mademoiselles Verity Hunt and Bee Haskins, inspector.”
“Oh, no, no,” Vivienne said in a sing-song voice, as if talking to an infant. “Stay where you are, inspector. We do not want to admit those people to our sanctuary.”
“Douglas, make her stop talking like that.” Maddie blinked back tears. “She sounds like a madwoman. Vivienne, stop it at once. Remember who you are. I am sure we can sort this out. Can we, Douglas?”
Her husband said nothing. I wondered if he would still insist, if asked again, that his mother had been by his side in the room next door while Stanley Niven was getting murdered. He looked as if he might have been asking himself that very question.
“Inspector. Please.” Poirot gestured at Mackle, who stood up and left the room. I inhaled as much air into my lungs as they would hold. Vivienne Laurier was about to come face to face with Bee Haskins, her estranged sister, and I was not looking forward to witnessing the scene. I found myself hoping that Mackle might return full of apologies and bearing the news that Verity Hunt and Bee Haskins had left unexpectedly.
“That is why you were so frightened,” Robert Osgood said to Vivienne. “Your terror was sincere, but you lied about its cause. You pretended to be afraid the murderer would kill Arnold next, or had meant to kill him in the first place. That never made any sense—because you were lying.”
“Madame Laurier was frightened because she had just met the sister she had never dreamed she would see again—also, she had just murdered a man,” Poirot told the doctor. “Both events must have been an enormous shock to her system. And she was afraid of what would happen once her husband was brought to the hospital. As Catchpool has said, she knew she would not be able to visit him there, yet how could she fail to visit him? That would have broken his heart. If only she had been willing to confide in him the guilty secret of her past, her true identity... But no.Iris Haskins had been left behind and could never be thought of again. Her existence had to be denied in the past, the present and the future. Only in this way could Vivienne Laurier continue to exist. There was no place even for a conversation about Iris Haskins in the new life and world of Madame Laurier.”
I forced myself to look at her: the murderer at the table. She gave the impression of not listening at all. It was as if she were (and I appreciated the irony of this observation as I made it to myself) in a different room from the rest of us.
“Earlier, I asked you to describe this gesture made by Zillah Hunt.” Poirot covered his face with his hands. “‘Burying the head in the hands’ was the consensus. And this, I learned, was what Vivienne Laurier did while standing in the ward corridor after she was told that Stanley Niven had been killed. She was so distraught, sheburied her head in her hands. In other words, she covered her face. She had no way of knowing when Bee Haskins might reappear on Ward 6, and she had to get herself out of the hospital without being seen or recognized. Dr. Osgood, you quickly ushered her out of the hospital and brought her back here. Nurse Olga Woodruff, your fiancée, saw the two of you standing by your car outside the hospital. Then, too, Vivienne Laurier had her face hidden in her hands—still hiding.”
Osgood nodded. “I wondered why she refused to look at me. I thought, ‘She must not want me to see that she is crying,’ though that made no sense. I had seen her cry manytimes since the day I told her Arnold did not have long to live.” He turned to Nurse Woodruff. “Olga, dearest, I have been a fool—such a colossal fool.”
She reached over and patted his hand. “Do not worry, Robert.” The relief on his face was quite something.
