Closed Casket: The New Hercule Poirot Mystery (Hercule Poirot Mystery 2) Read Online Free Page B

Bourlet, lives here—to tend to his needs as an invalid.’
    ‘I see. So the secretary and the nurse both live at Lillieoak?’
    Poirot nodded. ‘Now we have three people gathered here who, one way or another, are involved closely with death. And then there is you, Catchpool. And me. We both have encountered many cases of violent death in the course of our work. Mr Randall Kimpton, who plans to marry Claudia Playford—what work do you think he does?’
    ‘Does it involve death? Is he an undertaker? A chiseller of gravestones?’
    ‘He is a pathologist for the police in the county of Oxfordshire. He too works closely with death.
Eh bien
, do you wish to ask me about Mr Gathercole and Mr Rolfe?’
    ‘No need. Lawyers deal with the affairs of the dead every day.’
    ‘That is particularly true of the firm of Gathercole and Rolfe, which is well known for its specialism:
the estates and testamentary dispositions of the wealthy.
Catchpool, surely you see by now?’
    ‘And what of Claudia Playford and Dorro, the Viscount’s wife? What are their connections to death? Does one of them slaughter livestock while the other embalms corpses?’
    ‘You joke about this,’ said Poirot gravely. ‘You do not think it is interesting that so many people with a particular interest in death, either private or professional, are gathered here at Lillieoak at the same time? Me, I would like to know what Lady Playford has in mind. I cannot believe it is accidental.’
    ‘Well, she might have some sort of game planned for after dinner. Being a writer of mysteries, I imagine she wants to keep us all in suspense. You did not answer my question about Dorro and Claudia.’
    ‘I can think of nothing appropriate to our theme that applies to them,’ Poirot admitted after a moment.
    ‘Then I call it a coincidence! Now, if I’m to wash my face and hands before dinner—’
    ‘Why do you avoid me,
mon ami
?’
    I stopped inches from the door. It had been foolish of me to suppose that, since he had not mentioned it at once, he would not raise the matter at all.
    ‘I thought you and I were
les bons amis.
’
    ‘We are. I have been confoundedly busy, Poirot.’
    ‘Ah, busy! You would like me to believe that is all it is.’
    I glanced towards the door. ‘I am going to track down that silent butler and threaten him with all manner of mutiny if he does not show me to my room immediately,’ I muttered.
    ‘You Englishmen! However strong the emotion, however fierce the fury, stronger still is the desire to smother it, to pretend it was never there at all.’
    At that moment the door opened and a woman of between—at a guess—thirty and thirty-five walked in, wearing a sequined green dress and a white stole. In fact, she did not so much walk as slink in, making me think instantly of a cat on the prowl. There was a supercilious air about her, as if walking into a room in an ordinary fashion would be beneath her. She seemed to be using every movement of her body to indicate her superiority over whomever else happened to be in the vicinity—in this instance, Poirot and me.
    She was also almost unnaturally beautiful: exquisitely arranged hair of a rich brown colour, a perfect oval of a face, mischievous cat-like brown eyes with thick lashes, shapely eyebrows, and cheekbones as sharp as knives. She was an impressive sight to behold, and obviously aware of her charms. There was also a viciousness about her that communicated itself before she had spoken a word.
    ‘Oh,’ she said, hand on hip. ‘I see. Guests, but no drinks. Would that it were the other way round! I suppose I am early.’
    Poirot rose to his feet and introduced himself, and then me. I shook the woman’s chilly, elegant hand.
    She did not respond with a ‘Delighted to meet you’ or anything of that sort. ‘I am Claudia Playford. Daughter of the famous novelist, sister of Viscount Playford. Older sister, as it happens. The title landed on my younger brother and not me, simply