24 December 1931
Chapter 37
A Letter in My Pocket
It was late by the time we arrived back in London on Christmas Eve. I had things to attend to at home, so I took my leave of Poirot at the railway station and told him I would see him at eleven the following morning.
When I opened my suitcase, I saw that there were two items in it that I had not put there. One was a white envelope, sealed, with my name written on the front. I recognized the handwriting, or thought I did, from the Christmas presents list that I had found in the crown notebook at Frellingsloe House. If I was correct, then this was Vivienne Laurier’s handwriting. I grimaced. How had she managed to...? Before I could finish asking myself the question, the answer became evident. Sitting on top of the envelope was a small, crumpled piece of paper on which were written a few words:
Dear Edward,
Vivienne wrote this letter to you yesterday. She gave it to Inspector Mackle who brought it last night and askedme to give it to you. I did not wish to disturb you, so I put it in your suitcase. Happy Christmas, Darling. I might not be perfect, but I do my best, and I do adore you, you know. I could not be prouder of you than I am. Your father is proud of you too.
All my love, Mother.
I groaned, firmly dismissed the idea that I should probably offer to spend next Christmas with her, and opened Vivienne Laurier’s letter. It was dated 23 December 1931: yesterday. I read it once, then again, then a third time. It was without doubt the most extraordinary communication I had ever received.
Finally, I stuffed it back into its envelope and left the house immediately with it in my pocket. Poirot would want to see it straight away, I thought. Unpacking could wait.
As I made my way to Whitehaven Mansions, I found myself replaying Vivienne Laurier’s words in my mind...
Dear Edward,
I, Vivienne Laurier, am writing this letter. In the shock of everything that happened earlier today, I was, temporarily, not myself. Now I have returned to full mental strength and I wish to make clear that I know exactly who I am. There can be no doubt about it. (Please share this letter with Hercule Poirot, if you would not mind. I should like him to know all this too.)
As a police inspector, you no doubt have a tendency to see and understand things from a legal perspective. In astrictly factual analysis, I have only ever been one person. That person changed her name from Iris Haskins to Vivienne March, and then later, when she married, to Vivienne Laurier. According to the law, therefore, the same person betrayed her sister Beatrice, ran away from home to avoid the guilt and shame caused by her actions, and then later met and fell in love with a man called Arnold and bore him two sons, Douglas and Jonathan, whom she loved with all her heart. According to the law, the same woman who devotedly nurtured and dedicated her life to her new family also destroyed her original family—and then, later still, murdered a stranger in a hospital room and then killed her husband.
I have no desire to claim that I (by which I mean the entity I am for legal and criminal purposes) was not responsible for the two crimes committed. The same hand writing this letter was one of two that lifted those vases and brought them down on the heads of two innocent victims. I am perfectly prepared to pay the price for this.
Now that I have made that clear, I wish to explain something else, something that is equally important to me, and I beg that you and M. Poirot try to understand: Vivienne Laurier did not commit those murders. She never would have done such a thing. What I know to be true, as the only expert, the only person who has lived my life, is that Iris Haskins is the killer. It was Iris who did not want to be recognized by her sister Bee. Iris did not want to exist any more at all, you see. And the moment Bee saw her, she would have no choice but tocome back into existence. That would have meant that Vivienne Laurier had nowhere to live—no body to live in. Iris knew she was a loathsome, self-centered monster of a person. She was intelligent and honest enough to find her own existence unbearable, and she willingly disappeared so that Vivienne, a completely different person, could take her place. Iris did not want to come back to life—and, being ruthless and depraved, she was willing to kill to ensure that she did not.
I ask you to consider the following: before 8 September, I, Vivienne Laurier had lived a virtuous life of love and service to my family for many, many years. I had hurt nobody, given as much love as possible, and never even raised my voice in anger, not once. Thanks to Iris’s self-sacrifice, I was able to be a good, useful person in the world. If I, Vivienne, were a ruthless, violent character, it would have been impossible for me to hide it for so long. The truth is that I am innocent. Iris is the guilty one. As I say: I am of course willing to pay the price for her terrible crimes in a way that she absolutely would not have been, because I recognize that this is what justice demands. (If Iris were still present, which she absolutely is not, then she would pretend not to be in her right mind in order to dodge the hangman. I, Vivienne, wish to behave as honorably as I can, and so have no intention of trying to escape whatever punishment is coming.)
Iris deserves it, there is no doubt. If only she were here to receive it... but I am confident that none of us willsee her again. I am pleased, at least, that Vivienne has emerged triumphant, even after the shock of today. That, I intend to believe to the last, represents the triumph of good over evil.
I should like to tell you a little about Iris, if I may: what she did to her sister Bee and, as a result, to Zillah Hunt. As you already know from the scene in the library earlier, Bee is not Zillah’s second cousin. She is her mother. Until today, Zillah believed that her parents had both contracted tuberculosis while traveling overseas and died while Zillah was still a tiny baby. Verity Hunt had then taken her in, or so went the tale.
The truth was this: as a young woman of nineteen, Bee Haskins had fallen in love with a man called Nicholas Streeter. He had loved her back, and they soon made plans to marry. Both families were delighted, all except for Iris, Bee’s older sister by ten years. Iris, still unmarried at twenty-eight, was, unbeknownst to anyone, in love with Nicholas herself and turned bitter and vindictive toward Bee once the engagement was announced. Then one day, a full year before the date of the wedding, Bee discovered that she was pregnant. Both sets of parents, Haskins and Streeter, were devout Christians who would have been shunned by their social circles if a grandchild had arrived who had been conceived out of wedlock.
Bee turned to her former schoolteacher, Verity Hunt, who was the most creative and unconventional person she knew. Neither Bee nor Nicholas could bear theprospect of parting with their baby as soon as it was born, and nor could they bear the thought of their parents’ shame and rage if they were to confess to their predicament. Bee was certain her father would force her to give the child up for adoption, and she knew she would not have the strength of character to stand up to him. There seemed to be no solution, and the couple were filled with despair. How on earth could they have their baby, which they loved already, and keep it without their families finding out?
Verity Hunt came up with the answer: she would take Bee with her to the continent as her paid traveling companion. While abroad, Verity would make sure word reached her friends that the true reason for her trip was to have a baby herself, far away from the prying, judgmental eyes of those who knew her in England. Verity, who was independently wealthy and loved to shock people as much as she possibly could, had never given the slightest damn about what anyone thought of her. Bee could write to her parents expressing her shock at the news of this pregnancy, about which she would say that she had not been told before the travels began. Bee was to express her disapproval of Verity’s deceit as well as of her loose morals—for Verity was also an unmarried woman—in a series of letters to her parents. And then, some time later, the plan was for Verity to turn out to be a most unsuitable mother. Bee and Nicholas, who would have married by then, would offer to take in the poor child in order to give it a better start in life. None oftheir parents would disapprove of this, Verity assured Bee; it was the good and correct thing for a public-spirited Christian married couple to do.
Bee made a fatal mistake, however: a few days before leaving for the continent, she confided in Iris, who had always been her favorite sister until Iris had turned cold toward her after the arrival of Nicholas in their lives. Bee hoped that this appeal for help would cause Iris to remember that she had once loved her little sister Bee very much indeed. Sadly, Iris’s soul was so rotten by this time that the opposite happened: Iris saw her chance to cause trouble for the young lovers who, as she saw it, had caused her so much pain, and she seized that chance. She told her and Bee’s parents about Verity’s plan and the illegitimate child. Her parents told Nicholas’s parents, who promptly fired him from the family firm and disowned him. Two weeks later, Nicholas took his own life.
Bee’s parents were more forgiving than the Streeters: of Bee, but not of Iris, whom they called cruel, vicious and un-Christian. They said that, while Bee could repent and be forgiven for her sins, she, Iris, would surely burn in hell for what she had done. All of Iris’s other sisters seemed to agree, and Iris found herself in the position of pariah in her family. No one spoke to her or looked at her. It was as if she were a ghost in her own house.
Then one day, she walked away from her family and her life forever. She did not see her sister Bee again until 8 September this year, when she glimpsed her at the far end of a hospital ward’s corridor.
Wrecked by Nicholas’s death, Bee was in no condition to bring up a child, and her parents did not feel able to do so either, so Verity Hunt took over. She adopted Zillah, and then seven years later, when Bee was finally well enough to look after herself again and live a normal life, Verity invented the “second cousin” story so that Bee could become a regular presence in Zillah’s life and have a close relationship with her daughter. Regularly in the years that followed, Verity advised Bee to tell Zillah the truth, but Bee refused. She feared Zillah would reject her altogether if she knew that, for seven years, Bee had neglected her motherly duties—that was how Bee put it to herself, at any rate. No matter how often Verity told her to stop being ashamed of herself when she had done nothing wrong, Bee chose to remain the unsullied aunt in Zillah’s life rather than risking presenting herself as the mother who abandoned, however involuntarily, her daughter.
Verity, Bee and Zillah all lived together in South Devon until about two years ago. It was only in November 1929 that Verity visited a friend in Norfolk, saw Duluth Cottage with a “For Sale” sign outside it, and fell in love. She and Zillah had soon moved to their new home, and of course Bee followed them a few weeks later. Bee and Zillah, both nurses, found work at St. Walstan’s hospital. None of them had the slightest idea that Iris, the monstrous sister who disappeared all those years ago, had become Vivienne Laurier and lived only a short distance away, in Frellingsloe House.
One thing I would like you to know, Edward, is that Bee can see that I am no longer the Iris she knew. She has a new sister now: me, Vivienne. She loves me, and I love her. It is a wonderful blessing to have this happen at the end of my life, and it is a great comfort to Bee to know that I was so shocked by Iris’s behavior toward her that I took the steps I did to ensure that wicked creature would cause no harm to others in the future.
I am glad, in spite of everything, that your mother persuaded me to invite you and M. Poirot to Frellingsloe House. My darling late husband, with whom I am constantly in communication (no, I do not expect you to believe it, but it is true nonetheless), is tickled pink that his murder was solved by the great Hercule Poirot.
Yours sincerely
