are their good friend, monsieur,’ Poirot reminded him gently.
‘Quite! I am! Do you think I would continue a friendship with a family that contained a murderer? Barnabas was not murdered. I can prove it. He …’ Vout stopped. A new pinkness suffused his cheeks.
‘Anything you are able to tell me will be most helpful,’ said Poirot.
Vout looked glum. Having said something he hadn’t intended to say, he now lacked the gumption to find an ingenious way out of it.
‘Well, I suppose it won’t do any harm if I tell you.’ He sighed. ‘I can’t help thinking Barnabas knew he was going to die. I saw him shortly before his death and … well, he seemed to know that his time was coming to an end.’
‘What gave you this impression?’
‘The last time I saw him, he struck me as a man from whose shoulders a great weight had been lifted. It was as if he was at peace. He smiled in a particular way, made certain oblique remarks about the need to set certain matters straight now before it was too late. I had the sense that he thought death was imminent, and it turned out to be so, sadly.’
‘Dommage,’ Poirot agreed. ‘Still, it is better to meet the inevitable end with a peaceful spirit, is it not? Which matters did Monsieur Pandy wish to set straight?’
‘Hmmph? Oh, there was a man who had been his … well, his enemy really, if the word doesn’t sound fanciful. Vincent Lobb, the chap’s name was. At our last meeting, Barnabas announced that he wished to send a letter to this fellow and suggest that the two of them might perhaps be reconciled.’
‘A sudden urge to forgive an old enemy,’ muttered Poirot. ‘That is interesting. If someone wanted this making of peace not to take place … Was this letter to Monsieur Lobb ever sent?’
‘It was,’ said Vout. ‘I told Barnabas I thought it was an excellent initiative, and he sent it off that very day. I don’t know if he received a reply. It was really only a few days later that he … passed on. Very sad. Though he’d had a good innings at ninety-four! I suppose an answering letter might have arrived after his death, but I think Annabel or Lenore would have told me if it had.’
‘What was the cause of the ill will between Messieurs Pandy and Lobb?’ Poirot asked.
‘I’m afraid I can’t help you there. Barnabas never told me.’
‘I should be grateful if you could tell me about the family,’ said Poirot. ‘Was it—is it—a happy household at Combingham Hall?’
‘Oh, very happy. Very happy indeed. Lenore is a tower of strength. Both Annabel and Ivy admire her enormously. Annabel adores Lenore’s children—and her beloved dog, of course. Hopscotch. He’s a character! A big beast. Likes to leap up and lick you! Stubborn, mind you, but very affectionate. And as for young Timothy—that boy will go far. He is possessed of a shrewd mind and heaps of determination. I can see him being Prime Minister one day. Barnabas often said so. “That boy could be anything he set out to be,” he often said. “Anything at all.” Barnabas was devoted to them all, and they to him.’
‘Truly you describe the perfect family,’ said Poirot. ‘Yet no family is without its troubles. There must have been something that was less than perfect.’
‘Well … I wouldn’t say … I mean, obviously life is never without its infelicities, but for the most part … As I said before, M. Poirot: it is ladies who enjoy scurrilous gossip. Barnabas loved his family—and Kingsbury—and they loved him back. That is all I shall say. As there is no question of the death being anything but an accident, I see no reason to delve into a good man’s private life and that of his family in search of unsavoury morsels.’
Seeing that Vout had resolved to disclose no more, Poirot thanked him for his help and left.
‘But there is more to be disclosed,’ he said to nobody in particular as he stood on the pavement of Drury Lane. ‘Most certainly, there is more, and I shall find out what it is. Not one unsavoury morsel will escape from Hercule Poirot!’
Poirot Issues Some Instructions
I found Poirot waiting for me in my office when I returned to Scotland Yard. He appeared to be lost in thought, muttering soundlessly to himself as I entered the room. He looked as dandified as ever, his remarkable moustaches appearing particularly well tended.
‘Poirot! At last!’
Startled out of his reverie, he rose to his feet. ‘Mon ami Catchpool! Where have you been? There is a matter I wish to discuss with you that is causing me much conster-nation.’
‘Let me guess,’ I said. ‘A letter, signed in your name although not written or sent by you, accusing Rowland McCrodden’s son John of the murder of Barnabas Pandy.’
Poirot looked dumbfounded. ‘Mon cher … Somehow, you know. You will tell me how, I’m sure. Ah, but you say “letter”, not “letters”! Does that mean you are unaware of the others?’
‘Others?’
‘Oui, mon ami. To Mrs Sylvia Rule, Miss Annabel Treadway and Mr Hugo Dockerill.’
Annabel? I knew that I had heard the name recently, but could not think where. Then I remembered: Rowland McCrodden had told me that one of Pandy’s granddaughters was called Annabel.
‘Quite correct,’ said Poirot, when I asked. ‘Miss Treadway is indeed the granddaughter of Monsieur Pandy.’
‘Then who are the other two? What were their names again?’
‘Sylvia Rule and Hugo Dockerill. They are two people—and Annabel Treadway is a third, and John McCrodden a fourth—who received letters signed in my name, accusing them of the murder of Barnabas Pandy. Most of these people have presented themselves at my home to berate me for having sent these letters that I did not send, and failed to pay attention when I explained that I did not send them! It has been enervating and discouraging, mon ami. And not one of them has been able to show me the letter they received.’
‘I might be able to help on that front,’ I told him.
His eyes widened. ‘Do you have one of the letters? You do! You must, then, have the one sent to John McCrodden, since his was the name you mentioned. Ah! It is a pleasure to be in your office, Catchpool. There is no unsightly mountain of boxes!’
‘Boxes? Why should there be?’
‘There should not, my friend. But tell me, how can you have the letter that John McCrodden received? He told me he tore it into pieces and sent those pieces to his father.’
I explained about the Super’s telegram and my meeting with Rowland Rope, trying to omit nothing that might be important. He nodded eagerly as I spoke.
When I had finished, he said, ‘This is most fortuitous. Without realizing it,
