The Mystery of Three Quarters by Sophie Hannah

Author:Sophie Hannah
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780008264475
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2018-05-30T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 19

Four More Letters

‘This is quite a development, isn’t it?’ said Jane Dockerill.

‘It is,’ Poirot agreed.

‘I have known Timothy’s mother for many years. She would certainly lie to protect a member of her family—no question about it. Hugo and I can’t say a word to Timothy without her swooping down upon us in a mist of quiet fury to make a range of exaggerated threats: she’ll see to it that Hugo is fired, she’ll remove Timothy and, with him, the kind donations upon which the school so relies.’

Jane Dockerill uncrossed her legs, then crossed them the other way. ‘Schools are terribly unfair places, you know. There are some boys—the ones whose parents have a suitable respect for authority—who are ordered to tuck in their shirts, straighten their ties, pull up their socks, and we do our well-intentioned ordering around safe in the knowledge that no member of those boys’ families will turn up in due course to make our lives a misery. Other boys—and I’m afraid both Timothy Lavington and Freddie Rule fall into this category—can walk around with their blazers torn and their ties all askew, and we all contrive not to notice. Heaven forbid that we should provoke an avoidable encounter with a parent of Lenore Lavington’s stripe!’

‘Madame, who could have taped the parcel containing the dress to the underneath of Timothy Lavington’s bed?’ Poirot asked her.

‘Almost anybody. Timothy himself—though I know he didn’t do it. He was as surprised to see it as I was. His mother, sister or aunt could have done it during one of their visits. I or my husband could have done it. I didn’t, of course, and neither did Hugo.’ She laughed. ‘The very idea! Hugo would never in a thousand years have been able to find adhesive tape, even if he were to have the bright idea to stick a dress to the frame of a bed.’

‘Is there anybody else?’ asked Poirot.

‘Oh, yes, said Jane Dockerill. ‘As I said: almost everybody. Any of the boys in our house, any boy from one of the other houses who crept in when Timothy’s dorm room was empty. Any teacher. Any parent.’

I heard myself sigh. Poirot murmured, ‘No parameters.’

‘We can narrow it down a bit, you’ll be glad to hear,’ Jane Dockerill said with a wry smile. ‘A person not known at Turville wouldn’t have stood a chance of sneaking in without being stopped and thoroughly interrogated. Like all communities, we suspect outsiders of being bent on our destruction and expel them from the premises whenever we stumble upon them.’ She looked irritated by our lack of reaction. ‘That was a joke.’

Obediently, but too late to please her, Poirot, McCrodden and I all laughed.

‘So it could have been any person from within the school community, including the parent of a pupil?’ Poirot said.

‘It could, I’m afraid.’

‘Have you ever, in this school community or associated with it, encountered a man by the name of John McCrodden?’

At the mention of his son’s name, Rowland McCrodden twitched slightly.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.