The Monogram Murders (37 page)

“Yes. I assumed that he would not be content to die

without knowing why I didn’t come to the hotel as

planned.”

“Yet he was,” I said, thinking furiously.

Jennie nodded.

I could see now that it all made sense: the identical

positioning of the three dead bodies for one thing—in

a perfectly straight line, feet pointing toward the door,

between a small table and a chair. As Poirot had said,

Harriet Sippel, Ida Gransbury and Richard Negus

were unlikely all to have fallen naturally into that

exact position.

There was a suspicious amount of similarity

between the three murder scenes, and at last I thought

I understood why: the conspirators needed the police

to believe there was only one killer. In fact, any

detective worth his salt would have assumed this

purely from the cufflinks in the mouths and the fact of

all three bodies having turned up at the same hotel on

the same night, but the killers were in the grip of

paranoia.
They
knew they were more than one person,

and so they feared, as the guilty tend to, that the truth

might be apparent to others. So they went to great

lengths to create three murder scenes that were
more

similar to one another than they needed to be.

The laying out of the bodies, perfectly straight and

identical, was also consistent with the notion that the

killings at the Bloxham Hotel were not murders but

executions. There are procedures that one follows

after an execution—formalities and rituals. It would

have felt important, I thought, to do
something
with

the bodies rather than simply leave them lying exactly

as they fell, as a common or garden-variety murderer

would.

An image of a much younger Jennie Hobbs came to

my mind: at Cambridge University’s Saviour College,

moving from one room to another, making beds. She

would have made each one identically, following the

prescribed pattern . . . I shuddered, then wondered

why a vision of a young woman innocently making

beds in a college should give me such a chill.

Beds, and deathbeds . . .

Patterns, and the disruption of patterns . . .

“Richard Negus committed suicide,” I heard

myself declare. “He must have. He tried to make it

look like murder—the same pattern as the other two,

so that we would suspect the same killer—but he had

to lock his door from the
inside.
Then he hid the key

behind a fireplace tile to make it look as if the

murderer had taken it, and opened a window to its full

extent. If the hidden key was ever found, we would

have wondered, as we did, why the murderer chose to

lock the door from the inside, hide the key in the room

and escape via the window, but
we would still have

believed there was a murderer
. That was all that

mattered to Negus. Whereas if the window was shut

and by some chance the key was found, we would

draw the only possible conclusion: that Richard

Negus had taken his own life. He couldn’t risk our

arriving at that conclusion—do you see? If we did,

then the framing of Nancy Ducane for all three deaths

would fail. We would be more likely to assume that

Negus killed Harriet Sippel and Ida Gransbury before

killing himself.”

“Yes,” said Jennie. “I think you are right.”

“The different positioning of the cufflink . . .”

Poirot murmured before raising his eyebrows at me,

indicating that he wished me to continue.

I said, “The cufflink was close to Negus’s throat

because his death convulsions from the poison caused

his mouth to open. He had carefully positioned

himself in a straight line on the floor and placed the

cufflink between his lips, but it fell to the back of his

mouth. Unlike Harriet Sippel and Ida Gransbury,

Richard Negus did not have a killer present when he

died, and so the cufflink could not be carefully

positioned in the agreed place.”

“Mademoiselle Jennie, you believe that Mr. Negus

would swallow the poison, lie down and die without

first attempting to discover why you had failed to

arrive at the hotel?” Poirot asked her.

“I did not think he would, until I read of his death

in the newspaper.”

“Ah.” Poirot’s expression was unreadable.

“For so long, Richard had been expecting to die on

that Thursday night, looking forward to the end of his

guilt and torment after so many years,” said Jennie. “I

believe that all he wanted, once he arrived at the

Bloxham, was for it to be over for him, and so, when I

did not arrive to kill him as planned, he did it

himself.”

“Thank you, mademoiselle.” Poirot rose to his

feet. He wobbled a little to find his balance after so

long in a seated position.

“What will happen to me, Monsieur Poirot?”

“Please stay here in this house until I or Mr.

Catchpool return with more information. If you make

the mistake of running away a second time, things will

go very badly for you.”

“As they will if I stay put,” said Jennie. There was

a blank, faraway look in her eyes. “It’s all right, Mr.

Catchpool, you needn’t be sorry for me. I am

prepared.”

Her words, no doubt intended to reassure me,

filled me with dread. She had the manner of one who

had looked into the future and seen terrible events

contained within it. Whatever they were, I knew that I

was not prepared and did not wish to be.

All the Devils Are Here

APART FROM TELLING ME twice that we must go to

Great Holling without delay, Poirot remained silent

all the way home. He looked preoccupied, and it was

clear that he did not want to talk.

We arrived at the lodging house to find young

Stanley Beer waiting for us. “What is the matter?”

Poirot asked him. “Are you here about the work of art

I created?”

“Pardon, sir? Oh, your crest? No, that was

perfectly all right, sir. As a matter of fact . . .” Beer

reached into his pocket and handed over an envelope.

“You’ll find your answer in there.”

“Thank you, Constable. But then it must be that

something else is wrong? You are anxious,
non?
”

“Yes, sir. We’ve had word at Scotland Yard from

an Ambrose Flowerday, the Great Holling village

doctor. He’s asked for Mr. Catchpool to go there

immediately. He says he’s needed.”

Poirot looked at me, then turned back to Stanley

Beer. “It was our intention to go there immediately.

Do you know what has provoked Dr. Flowerday to

request Catchpool’s presence?”

“I’m afraid I do. It’s not a happy business, sir. A

woman by the name of Margaret Ernst has been

attacked. She is likely to die—”

“Oh, no,” I murmured.

“—and she says she needs to see Mr. Catchpool

before she does. After speaking to Dr. Flowerday, I

would advise you to hurry, sir. There’s a car waiting

outside to take you to the station.”

Thinking of Poirot’s methodical nature and his

dislike of any hectic activity, I said, “Might we take

half an hour to ready ourselves?”

Beer looked at his watch. “Five, ten minutes at a

stretch, but no longer, sir—not if you want to catch the

next train.”

I must admit with some shame that, in the event,

Poirot was downstairs with his suitcase before I was.

“Hurry,
mon ami,
” he urged.

In the car, I decided that I needed to speak, even if

Poirot was not feeling talkative. “If I had only stayed

away from that infernal village, Margaret Ernst would

not have been attacked,” I said grimly. “Someone

must have seen me go to her cottage and noticed how

long I stayed.”

“You stayed long enough for her to tell you

everything, or nearly everything. What is achieved by

trying to kill her when she has already shared her

knowledge with the police?”

“Revenge. Punishment. Though, frankly, it makes

no sense. If Nancy Ducane is innocent, and Jennie

Hobbs and Samuel Kidd are behind everything—I

mean, if they’re the only ones still alive who were

behind everything—well, why should Jennie and

Kidd want to kill Margaret Ernst? She said nothing to

me to incriminate either of them, and she never

harmed Patrick or Frances Ive.”

“I agree. Jennie Hobbs and Samuel Kidd would

not wish to murder Margaret Ernst as far as I can

see.”

Rain lashed at the windows of our car. It made it

harder both to hear and to concentrate. “Then who

did?” I asked. “There we were, thinking we had all

the answers—”

“You surely did not think any such thing,

Catchpool?”

“Yes, I did. I expect you’re about to tell me I’m

wrong, but it all seemed to add up, didn’t it? All

pretty straightforward, until we heard about Margaret

Ernst being attacked.”

“He tells me it is straightforward!” Poirot smirked

at the rain-spattered car window.

“Well, it looked simple enough to me. All the

killers were dead. Ida killed Harriet, with Harriet’s

consent, and was then killed by Richard Negus—

again, with her full consent. Then Negus, when Jennie

didn’t arrive to kill him as planned, took his own life.

Jennie Hobbs and Samuel Kidd have killed nobody.

Of course, they conspired to bring about three deaths,

but those deaths were not really murders, as I see it.

They were—”

“Executions by consent?”

“Exactly.”

“It was a very neat plan they made, was it not?

Harriet Sippel, Ida Gransbury, Richard Negus and

Jennie Hobbs. Let us call them A, B, C and D for the

moment, and we will see the neatness of their plan

more clearly.”

“Why should we not call them by their names?” I

asked.

Poirot ignored me. “A, B, C and D—all plagued

by guilt and seeking the redemption of the soul. They

agree that they must pay for a past sin with their own

lives, and so they plan to kill one another: B kills A,

then C kills B, then D kills C.”

“Except that D
didn’t
kill C, did she? D is Jennie

Hobbs, and she didn’t kill Richard Negus.”

“Perhaps not, but she was supposed to. That was

the plan. Also that D would stay alive to see E—

Nancy Ducane—hang for the murders of A, B, and C.

Only then could D . . .” Poirot stopped. “D,” he

repeated. “Demise. That is the correct word.”

“What?”

“For your crossword puzzle. A word that means

death and has six letters. Do you recall? I suggested

‘murder’ and you said that would only work if murder

began . . .” He fell silent, shaking his head.

“If murder began with a D. Yes, I remember.

Poirot, are you all right?” His eyes had that strange

green glow about them that they sometimes acquire.

“
Comment? Mais bien évidemment!
If murder

began with a D! Of course! That is it!
Mon ami,
you

do not know how you have helped me. Now I think

. . . yes, that is it. That must be it. The younger man

and the older woman—ah, but it is so clear to me

now!”

“Please explain.”

“Yes, yes. When I am ready.”

“Why are you not ready
now
? What are you

waiting for?”

“You must allow me more than twenty seconds to

compose and arrange my ideas, Catchpool. That is