The Mystery of Three Quarters: The New Hercule Poirot Mystery

The caller would not have minded telling McCrodden who she was, but she had been given explicit instructions not to do so. She had in front of her, on small cards, the precise words she was supposed to say and she intended to stick to them.

‘I’ve got a few questions I’d like to ask you, questions to which Inspector Catchpool would like to know the answers. If you—’

‘Then why doesn’t he ask me himself? What is your name? Tell me at once, or this conversation is at an end.’

‘If you provide me with satisfactory answers, then Inspector Catchpool hopes it won’t be necessary for him to interview you at the police station. All I want to know is this: where were you on the day that Barnabas Pandy died?’

McCrodden laughed. ‘Kindly tell my father that I’m not willing to put up with his campaign of harassment for one second longer. If he will not cease his devious persecution of me, then he is strongly advised to take precautions to ensure his own safety. Tell him I haven’t the slightest clue when Barnabas Pandy died because I know no Barnabas Pandy. I don’t know that he lived, died or joined the circus as a trapeze artist, and I don’t know when he did those things, if he did them at all.’

The caller had been warned that John McCrodden might respond uncooperatively. She listened patiently as he continued to address her with icy disgust.

‘Additionally, you may tell him I’m not as stupid as he thinks I am, and that I’m quite certain that if Scotland Yard employs an inspector by the name of “Edward Catchpool”—which I very much doubt—then that man knows nothing about this telephone call, and that you are in no way authorized to make it. Which is why you refuse to tell me your name.’

‘Barnabas Pandy died on the seventh of December last year.’

‘Did he? I’m delighted to hear it.’

‘Where were you on that date, sir? Inspector Catchpool believes that Mr Pandy died at his home in the country, Combingham Hall—’

‘Never heard of it.’

‘—so if you can tell me your whereabouts on that date, and if anyone can vouch for you, then Inspector Catchpool might not need—’

‘My whereabouts? Why, of course! Seconds before Barnabas Pandy breathed his last, I was standing over his prone body with a carving knife in my hand, ready to plunge it into his heart. Is that what my father would like me to say?’

There was a loud banging sound, and then the line went dead.

On the back of one of her question cards, the caller made a note of what she felt were the essential points: that John McCrodden believed his father to be behind the telephone call, that he had questioned the existence of Edward Catchpool and—most importantly, the caller thought—that he had not known, or had claimed not to know, the date of Barnabas Pandy’s death.

‘No alibi given,’ she wrote. ‘Said he was standing over Pandy with a knife just before Pandy died, but he said it like I was not supposed to believe it.’

After twice reading through what she had written, and after thinking for a few minutes, the caller picked up her pencil again and added, ‘But maybe it was true, and the lie was the way he made his voice sound when he said it.’

‘Is that Mrs Rule? Mrs Sylvia Rule?’

‘Yes it is. To whom am I speaking?’

‘Good evening, Mrs Rule. I’m telephoning on behalf of Inspector Edward Catchpool. From Scotland Yard.’

‘Scotland Yard?’ Sylvia Rule sounded instantly frightened. ‘Has something happened? Is it Mildred? Is Mildred all right?’

‘This isn’t about anything to do with any Mildred, ma’am.’

‘She was supposed to be home by now. I was starting to worry, and then … Scotland Yard? Oh, dear!’

‘This is about something different. There’s no reason to think anything’s happened to Mildred.’

‘Wait!’ Sylvia Rule barked, causing the caller to jerk her head away from the telephone mouthpiece. ‘I think that’s her. Oh, thank the heavens! Let me …’ A few grunts and panted breaths later, Mrs Rule said, ‘Yes, it’s Mildred. She’s safely home. Do you have children, Inspector Catchpool?’

‘I said I was telephoning on behalf of Inspector Catchpool. I am not, myself, Inspector Catchpool.’ Damned fool! Did Mrs Rule not know that women could not be police inspectors, no matter how much they might want to be or how talented they were? The caller resented being compelled to reflect upon this unwelcome fact and how unfair it was. She harboured a secret belief that she would make a better police inspector than anyone she knew.

‘Oh, yes. Yes, quite,’ said Sylvia Rule, who sounded as if she was not fully listening. ‘Well, if you have children, then you’ll know as well as I do that whatever age they are, one frets about them constantly. They might be anywhere, and how would one know? And with the most despicable degenerates! Do you have children?’

‘No.’

‘Well, I’m sure you will one day. I hope and pray you never suffer what I’m suffering now! My Mildred is engaged to be married to the most detestable man …’

The caller looked down at the notes she had been given. She guessed that, imminently, she was about to hear the name Eustace.

‘… and now they’ve set a wedding date! Next June, or so they say. Eustace is more than capable of persuading Mildred to marry him in secret before that date. Oh, he knows I’m going to spend every waking moment from now until next June trying to make the wretched girl see sense—not that she will! Who ever listens to their mother? I think he’s taken the opportunity to play a cruel trick on me.’

‘Mrs Rule, I have a question—’

‘He wants me to believe I have a full sixteen months to talk Mildred out of marrying him, so that I won’t set about it in a hurry. Oh, I know the way his disgusting mind works! It wouldn’t surprise me if he and Mildred were to turn up already married in a month’s time and say, “Surprise! We’ve tied the knot!” That’s why I’m a bag of nerves whenever she leaves the house. Eustace could make her do anything. I don’t know why the silly girl is so comprehensively unable to stand up for herself.’

The caller had some ideas about why this might be.

‘Mrs Rule, I need to ask you a question. It’s about the death of Barnabas Pandy. If you can give me a satisfactory answer then it might not be necessary for Inspector Catchpool to interview you at the police station.’

‘Barnabas Pandy? Who is he? Oh, I remember! The letter Eustace induced that dreadful continental detective to send to me—what a reprehensible little toad he is! I used to hold Hercule Poirot in high esteem, but anyone who would allow himself to be bent to Eustace’s will in that way … I refuse even to think about him!’

‘If you can give me a satisfactory answer then it might not be necessary for Inspector Catchpool to interview you at the police station,’ said the caller patiently. ‘Where were you on the day that Barnabas Pandy died?’

A gasp came down the telephone line. ‘Where was I? You are asking me where I was?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you say that Inspector—what name did you say?’

‘Edward Catchpool.’

It sounded as if Sylvia Rule was making a note of the name: ‘And Inspector Edward Catchpool of Scotland Yard wishes to know this?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why? Doesn’t he know that Eustace and that foreigner have cooked up this nonsense between them?’

‘If you could just tell me where you were on the day in question?’

‘What day? The day a man named Barnabas Pandy was murdered—a man I don’t know, whose name was unknown to me until I received that odious letter? How should I know where I was when someone killed him? I have no idea when he died.’

The caller made a note of three things: first, Sylvia Rule seemed to accept that Pandy was murdered; second, this was understandable if she believed this telephone call to have hailed from Scotland Yard; third, she professed not to know when Pandy died, which might indicate that she had not killed him.

‘Mr Pandy died on the seventh of December,’ said the caller.

‘Wait a moment and I shall go and look at last year’s diary,’ said Mrs Rule. ‘Incidentally, whether or not Inspector …’ There was a pause. The caller pictured Mrs Rule glancing down at a piece of paper. ‘Whether or not Inspector Catchpool judges it necessary to interview me, I should very much like to speak to him. I wish to make it clear that I have murdered nobody and am not the kind of person who would do such a thing. Once I’ve explained to him about Eustace, I’m sure he will see this unsavoury business for what it is: an attempt to frame me for a crime of which I am innocent. He will find it as shocking as I do, I have no doubt—a woman of my reputation and distinction! I’m rather pleased that this has happened, for I expect it to be Eustace’s downfall. Obstructing the proper investigation of a murder with slanderous accusations is a crime, is it not?’

‘I would have thought so,’ said the caller.