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

direction of Poirot. ‘I was sorry to see the newspapers ridicule you so cruelly. It was almost as if they didn’t notice the part you played in wrapping up that nasty Bloxham affair. I hope you don’t object to the mention of it?’
    ‘Not at all,’ I was obliged to say.
    ‘I read all about it, you see. The whole story. I found it fascinating—and without your brilliant deduction in the graveyard, the case might never have been solved. It seems to me that everybody missed that aspect of the matter.’
    ‘They did, rather,’ I mumbled.
    Scotcher had left me with no alternative: I was forced to think once again about the killings that were known at the time—and doubtless always would be—as the Monogram Murders. The case had been solved most ingeniously by Poirot, but it had also attracted much unfortunate publicity—unfortunate if you were me, at any rate. Poirot came out of it all very well, but I was not so lucky. Newspapermen had accused me of being inadequate as a detective and relying too much on Poirot to get me out of a tight spot. Naïvely, I had made some remarks when interviewed that were a little too honest, about how I would have been lost without Poirot’s help, and these had appeared in the papers. A few letters were published asking why Edward Catchpool was employed by Scotland Yard if he couldn’t handle the work without bringing in a friend of his who was not even a policeman. In short, I became an object of ridicule for a few weeks, until everybody forgot about me.
    Since then—as I found myself telling Joseph Scotcher, who seemed truly to care about my predicament—my work had brought me into contact with another murder case, one that I was ultimately unable to solve, but this time I was praised for doing everything I could, and doggedly pursuing the elusive truth. I was astonished to read in the letters pages of the newspapers that I was a plucky hero; no one could have been braver or more conscientious than I had been—that was the general consensus.
    I drew the only possible conclusion: that I was better off failing alone than succeeding with the help of Hercule Poirot. That was why I had been avoiding him (I refrained from sharing this particular revelation with Joseph Scotcher): because I could not trust myself not to ask for help with the murder I had failed to solve. There was simply no way to explain this to Poirot that would not lead to him demanding to know all the details.
    ‘I’m sure many people noticed the shoddy way the newspapers treated you and thought it was jolly unfair,’ said Scotcher. ‘Indeed, I wish I had written a letter to the
Times
to that effect. I meant to, but—’
    ‘You must concentrate on looking after yourself and not worry about me,’ I told him.
    ‘Well, you should know that I admire you inordinately,’ he said with a smile. ‘I could never have slotted that piece of the puzzle into place the way you did. It would not have occurred to me, nor to most people. You evidently have an extraordinary mind. Poirot too, of course.’
    Embarrassed, I thanked him. I knew that my mind was nothing special and that Poirot would have solved the Bloxham Hotel murders with or without my solitary moment of insight, but I was nevertheless greatly heartened by Scotcher’s kind words. That he was dying made it all the more touching, somehow. I don’t mind admitting that I was quite overcome.
    A hush began to spread across the room, like a flood of silence. I turned and saw that Hatton the butler was standing in the doorway, looking as if there was something important that he must on no account tell us. ‘Oh!’ declared Lady Playford, who was standing with Sophie next to the writing desk. ‘Hatton has come to announce—or to hear
me
announce—that dinner is about to be served. Thank you, Hatton.’
    The butler looked mortified to be accused of almost saying something to so many people. He gave a small bow and withdrew.
    As everyone moved towards the door, I