Madeline and Janet were the two sisters at Frellingsloe House who hated each other. And... had not Mother just said that each one was married to a son of Arnold and Vivienne Laurier? Yes, it was truly coming back to me now: Madeline and Janet Laurier were sisters who had been close, but then Janet had fallen in love with and married the younger Laurier son, several years after her sister hadmarried the older one. Madeline had not taken kindly to her little sister following her into the Laurier family, Mother had said.
Suddenly, the full picture came to me. I knew who Enid Surtees was, also, and her husband, though I could not dredge up his Christian name. Mr. and Mrs. Surtees were the parents of Madeline and Janet Laurier,néesSurtees.
I was about to ask Mother to confirm I was right about all this when Poirot said, “What about Arnold Laurier? He did not also go to the hospital that day, to see the room that was soon to be his?”
“No,” said Dr. Osgood. “He had very much hoped to go, but he was particularly unwell that afternoon, so he stayed at home.”
“So Nurse Zillah Hunt and five members of the Laurier family were close by when Stanley Niven was murdered,” Poirot said slowly. “Who else?”
“Other doctors and nurses,” said Osgood. “Nurse Olga Woodruff and Nurse Bee Haskins. Dr. Wall. And all the patients on Ward 6, though I can assure you that none of them is the guilty party.”
There was one name he had not mentioned, perhaps because he thought it too obvious to be worth saying. Still, since he had added the ward’s patients to his list in an apparent desire to be as thorough as possible, I found it interesting that he had not included himself. By his own account, Dr. Robert Osgood had been in as close proximity to Stanley Niven’s murder as all of the other people he had just named.
Chapter 5
At Frellingsloe House
Once inside Frellingsloe House, I saw that Mother’s description had been not so much an exaggeration as an outright lie. This was no stunning jewel of unparalleled beauty, though the stained-glass windows offered a pleasing pattern of circles with crosses inside them. The circles were blue glass, and the cross-shapes were composed of small green and pink flowers. There were cracks in two of the panes of glass nearest to the front door.
Poirot and I stood facing two ornate archways that looked as if they had been clumsily dropped into the middle of the wide entrance hall. One led to a staircase and the other to a corridor. They looked as if they had been placed incorrectly and should have been, respectively, further to the left and to the right.
This was a substantial building, but it did not feel to me like a mansion—another of Mother’s lies. It lacked the sumptuous abundance that the word implies. Rather, it reminded me of a neglected old rectory. I could see nofurniture at all from this vantage point, not even a small side table. A grand piano with a distinctly abandoned air stood to my left. Did it qualify as furniture? I did not think so. There was no stool in front of it, nor any chairs in sight. To my right was the tallest Christmas tree I had ever seen, but there was not a single decoration on it.
Mother, having ushered us in, had gone off in search of “Darling Vivienne.” Dr. Osgood and Felix Rawcliffe had not followed us into the house. The front door was slightly ajar, left in that position by Mother to enable the doctor and the curate to enter. I could hear no conversation from outside, however—only the roar and foam of waves that sounded close enough to crash in on us. Had the two men gone elsewhere? Did one of them have a cottage in the grounds?
“It is curious,non?” said Poirot. “In this weather, to linger outside the house?”
“Osgood and Rawcliffe?”
He nodded. “They are, I think, continuing their discussion from before. It is of great importance—to one if not to both of them.”
“Vivienne Laurier’s fear that Arnold will be murdered?” I said.
“No, their earlier discussion.”
I laughed. “You surely cannot think they are outside in a lashing gale talking aboutRomeo and Juliet?”
“Not Romeo and Juliet, my friend.” Poirot wagged his finger at me. “You did not pay attention. They were discussing a different pair of lovers: Romeo and Rosaline.”
“I attended perfectly well,” I told him. “I meantRomeo and Julietthe Shakespeare play. In which Romeo and Rosaline feature.”
“Ah, but it was not the play that our new friends were debating so fiercely,” he said. “It was not an argument about a work of literature. They spoke of the characters Romeo and Rosaline as if they were real people who mattered.”
“I am not sure what you mean,” I told him.
“I caught the look that passed between them in the motorcar,” he said. “It was one that sent the message very clearly, ‘We must speak no more of this now. Others are listening. Let us resume the conversation later.’ Then Dr. Osgood started to talk to me about Madame Laurier. You did not notice?”
“The change of topic, yes, but not the look. If it is such a big secret, why did they refer to it at all in our presence?”
“They believed they were safe enough. Romeo and Rosaline are not the real names of those involved. Besides, they did not expect the conversation to become as impassioned as it did. But Dr. Osgood grew agitated, and that, I think, was what made them decide it was not safe to carry on.”
“Poirot, there is something I need to tell you. It’s about this house.”
“Oui, mon ami?”
“It is going to fall into the sea.”
“Pardon?”
