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

along.’
    ‘You’re a fine one to be offended by a little deathbed joke, Dorro.’ Claudia narrowed her eyes at her sister-in-law. ‘Mother is sobbing in her room, I am sure, thanks to
your
harsh words. You accused her of trying to turn Joseph into Nicholas and make a substitute son of him. That is quite untrue.’
    ‘Don’t! I could tear out my tongue!’ Dorro crumpled. No longer puffed up with indignation, she began to cry. ‘I was beside myself, and it … it came out of me. I did not choose to say it.’
    ‘Yet say it you did,’ said Kimpton cheerfully. ‘“Stone-cold dead”, I believe it was.’
    ‘Please, let us not speak of it!’ Dorro begged.
    ‘What, of “stone-cold dead” as your description of Nicholas? I noticed at the time that you drew out each syllable to the length of two. It was as if you wanted the saying of it to last as long as possible. What interests me most is this: if you had said “dead” without the “stone-cold”, would Athie have fled as she did? I doubt it. To my estimation, it was the “stone-cold” that did it.’
    ‘You are an unkind man, Randall Kimpton,’ Dorro sobbed.
    Harry Playford finally sat up and took notice. ‘Look here, Randall, is there any need for these jibes?’
    Kimpton smiled. ‘If I believed you really wanted an answer, Harry, I would happily supply one.’
    ‘Well … jolly good, then,’ Harry said doubtfully.
    ‘Jolly,
jolly
good,’ said Kimpton, and Claudia laughed her brittle laugh again.
    I can honestly say that of all the family gatherings I have attended, including my own, I have never encountered a worse atmosphere than the one in the drawing room at Lillieoak that night. I still had not sat down and was not inclined to do so. Poirot, who preferred to be seated whenever possible, stood by my side.
    ‘Why do we allow words to have such power over us?’ Kimpton asked of nobody in particular. He had started to walk slowly around the room. ‘They are lost in air the moment they leave our mouths, yet they stay with us forever if they’re arranged in a memorable order. How can three words—“stone-cold dead”—be so much more upsetting than the wordless memory of a dead child?’
    Dorro rose from her chair. ‘And what about the way Athie has treated her two living children this evening? Why have you nothing to say on
that
subject? How dare you portray me as the aggressor and Athie as the victim, as if she is a frail old thing. She is stronger than any of us!’
    Kimpton had stopped by the French windows. He said, ‘“Grief fills the room up of my absent child,/Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,/Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,/Remembers me of all his gracious parts,/Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form./Then have I reason to be fond of grief?” Are you familiar with Shakespeare’s
King John
, Poirot?’
    ‘I am afraid not, monsieur. It is one of the few that I have not read.’
    ‘It’s sublime. Brimming with love for king and country, and without the dreary structural straitjacket that Shakespeare so often insisted on imposing. Do you have a favourite of his plays?’
    ‘I can attest to the excellence of many, but if I had to choose one … I am fond of
Julius Caesar
,’ said Poirot.
    ‘An interesting and unusual choice. I’m impressed. Do you know, it is only because my favourite is
King John
that I pursued a career in medicine. If it were not for Shakespeare, I would be a man of letters and not a doctor. If ever I meet a dissatisfied patient, I make sure to tell them to blame Shakespeare, not me.’
    ‘Those poor desperately
bored corpses on your autopsy table, darling,’ said Claudia.
    Kimpton laughed. ‘You forget, I encounter the living as well as the dead, dearest one.’
    ‘No one with a beating heart could find you unsatisfactory in any particular. I assumed the dissatisfied patients you referred to were the corpses, therefore—dissatisfied with their own personal outcomes. Luckily