Closed Casket: The New Hercule Poirot Mystery (Hercule Poirot Mystery 2) by Sophie Hannah Read Free Book Online Page A

where she has disappeared to!’ A flush had spread across Dorro’s cheeks. ‘Was she not only just with us? We were all in the drawing room together. She was there. You all saw her! And I didn’t notice her go anywhere else. Did anybody?’
    Still looking at me, Kimpton said loudly out of one side of his mouth, ‘Do not answer, I warn you.’
    The door opened and Lady Playford entered the room with her hair in a different arrangement from before—one I could not begin to describe if I tried for a hundred years. She looked as elegant as the room we were in, which was perfectly square with a high ceiling and red and gold curtains and chandeliers. It was considerably more aesthetically pleasing than the drawing room. This must have been intended by the architect as the main room of the house, I thought. I wondered if Lady Playford agreed.
    Harry waited until his mother was halfway to the table before saying, ‘Look, here she is! Hello, old girl.’
    ‘Yes. Here she is,’ said Claudia. ‘Isn’t it fortunate that nobody panicked?’
    ‘Panic?’ Lady Playford laughed. ‘Who would panic, and why?’
    ‘I simply wanted to know where you had got to,’ Dorro said stiffly. ‘Dinner is delayed, and we have had no explanation.’
    ‘Well, that’s easy enough,’ said Lady Playford. ‘The cause of the delay is what it always is: Brigid and Phyllis have had another pointless squabble. I heard the distant and sadly familiar sound of a mewling maid and, since I knew it would mean no food for the foreseeable future, I took the opportunity to do something different with my hair. It was too tight before.’
    ‘Then why wear it in that style in the first place?’
    ‘Is that another question, Dorro?’ said Kimpton. ‘You know, I might keep a tally tonight. And every night. How else will we know when you set a new record?’
    Dorro said quietly, ‘One day, Randall, you will learn that being foul and being amusing are not the same thing.’
    ‘Come now, let us not carp at one another,’ said Joseph Scotcher. ‘We have guests, after all—some who have not visited Lillieoak before. Monsieur Poirot, Mr Catchpool, I do hope you are enjoying your stay so far.’
    I made the appropriate response. I certainly was not bored at Lillieoak, and I was pleased to encounter Poirot again now that I was over the shock of it, but was I
enjoying
this evening? I felt as if I would have had to stand outside myself and watch for clues in order to attempt an accurate answer.
    Poirot replied to the effect that he was having the most wonderful time, and it was not every day that one received an invitation from a famous writer.
    Lady Playford said, ‘I cannot abide the word “famous”.’
    ‘She prefers “popular”, “esteemed”, “acclaimed” or “renowned”,’ said Kimpton. ‘Don’t you, Athie?’
    ‘I am certain that all of those adjectives apply.’ Poirot smiled.
    ‘I prefer a simpler one,’ said Scotcher.
    ‘Is that because using long words aggravates your kidneys?’ Claudia asked him.
    What an unpleasant remark! I thought. Vicious, really. Astonishingly, no one reacted to it at all.
    ‘I prefer the adjective “best”,’ Scotcher went on as if nothing had happened, looking at Lady Playford.
    ‘Oh, Joseph!’ She pretended to scold him, but it was plain to see that she was delighted by the compliment.
    I was startled to find Claudia staring at me. The longer she did so, the more I felt as if I had unwittingly fallen into a dangerous machine and might never climb out. She said, ‘Joseph has told us all that he does not wish to be treated as an invalid. Therefore, I treat him as I treat everybody else.’
    ‘Yes, appallingly,’ said Kimpton with a grin. ‘Sorry, dearest one—you know I don’t mean a word of it. And your treatment of me is exemplary, so who am I to complain?’
    Claudia smiled coquettishly at him.
    I made up my mind: no, I was not enjoying myself.
    While Scotcher explained to Poirot that it was