Hercule Poirot's Silent Night (New Hercule Poirot Mysteries, #5)

by Sophie Hannah

Hercule Poirot is not a man who can tolerate anything in his immediate vicinity being in the wrong place for more than . . . how long? If I did nothing, would it be seconds or minutes before he asked me to tidy up the mess I had made?

Whatever you most wish to keep hidden, steel yourself for the ordeal ahead and then tell it to the whole world. At once, you will be free.’ This is, I think, great wisdom.”

“You men really are determined to complicate matters, aren’t you? Here I am—Vivienne’s best friend in the whole world—and yet none of you has thought to ask me. Ah, well. You will ask Vivienne instead and you will get your explanation, Monsieur Poirot. She will tell you what she long ago confided to me: that she knows there is no logic to it. It is naïve to imagine our worst fears must have a rational basis. Often they have none whatever. At the risk of provoking you, Dr. Osgood—”

“Who were the five Lauriers?” Poirot asked again. Mother reeled them off: “Vivienne; her and Arnold’s two sons, Douglas and Jonathan; and their wives, Madeline and Janet.”

Madeline and Janet were the two sisters at Frellingsloe House who hated each other.

Mr. and Mrs. Surtees were the parents of Madeline and Janet Laurier, nées Surtees.

By his own account, Dr. Robert Osgood had been in as close proximity to Stanley Niven’s murder as all of the other people he had just named.