The Monogram Murders (40 page)

famous Hercule Poirot cannot create a flower in mud

while keeping his hand clean. It will come off, the dirt

—do not fear. There is always the manicure, later.”

“Of course there is.” I smiled. “I’m glad to hear

you so sanguine on the subject.”

Poirot had produced a handkerchief. I watched in

fascination as he used it to wipe the footprints from

the gravestone, huffing and puffing as he rocked back

and forth, nearly losing his balance once or twice.

“There!” he declared. “
C’est mieux!
”

“Yes. Better.”

Poirot frowned down at his feet. “There are sights

so dispiriting that one wishes one did not have to see

them,” he said quietly. “We must trust that Patrick and

Frances Ive rest in peace together.”

It was the word “together” that did it. It brought to

mind another word: apart. My face must have been a

picture.

“Catchpool? Something is the matter with you—

what is it?”

Together. Apart.

Patrick Ive was in love with Nancy Ducane, but in

death, in their shared grave, he was with the woman

to whom he had rightfully belonged in life: his wife,

Frances. Had his soul found peace, or was it pining

for Nancy? Did Nancy ask herself this? Did she wish,

loving Patrick as she did, that the dead could speak to

the living? Anybody who had loved and lost someone

precious to them might wish that . . .

“Catchpool! What is in your mind at this moment? I

must know.”

“Poirot, I’ve had the most preposterous idea. Let

me tell you, quickly, so that you can tell me I am

crazy.” I babbled excitedly until he had heard the

whole of it. “I’m wrong, of course,” I concluded.

“Oh, no, no, no. No,
mon ami,
you are not wrong.”

He gasped. “Of
course
! How,
how
did I fail to see it?

Mon Dieu!
Do you see what this means? What we

must now conclude?”

“No, I’m afraid I don’t.”

“Ah.
Dommage.
”

“For pity’s sake, Poirot! It’s hardly fair to make me

lay out my idea and then withhold yours.”

“There is not time for discussion now. We must

hurry back to London, where you will pack up the

clothes and personal effects of Harriet Sippel and Ida

Gransbury.”

“What?” I frowned in confusion, wondering if my

ears were deceiving me.

“
Oui.
Mr. Negus has already had his belongings

removed by his brother, if you recall.”

“I do, but . . .”

“Do not argue, Catchpool. It will take you hardly

any time to pack two ladies” cases with the clothes in

their hotel rooms. Ah, now I see it, I see
all
of it, at

last. All the solutions to the many little puzzles, they

are in place! You know, it is rather like the crossword

puzzle.”

“Please don’t make the comparison,” I said.

“You’re likely to put me off my favorite pastime if

you compare it to this case.”

“Only when one sees all the answers together does

one know for certain that one is right,” Poirot went

on, ignoring me. “Until then, for as long as some

answers are missing, one may yet discover that a

detail that seems to fit in fact does not fit at all.”

“In that case, think of me as an empty crossword

grid, with no words filled in,” I said.

“Not for long, my friend—not for long. Poirot, he

will require the dining room of the Bloxham Hotel

one last time!”

The Monogram Murders

THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON AT a quarter past four,

Poirot and I stood at one end of the Bloxham Hotel’s

dining room and waited as people took their places at

the various tables. The hotel staff had all arrived

promptly at four o’clock as Luca Lazzari had

promised they would. I smiled at the familiar faces:

John Goode, Thomas Brignell, Rafal Bobak. They

acknowledged me with nervous nods.

Lazzari was standing by the door, throwing his

arms around in wild gesticulation as he spoke to

Constable Stanley Beer. Beer kept having to duck and

step back in order to avoid being clonked in the face.

I was too far away to catch most of what Lazzari was

saying, and the room was too noisy, but I did hear

“these Monogram Murders” more than once.

Was that what Lazzari had decided to call them?

Everybody else in the country was calling them by the

name the newspapers had chosen from the first day:

the Bloxham Hotel Murders. Evidently Lazzari had

come up with a more imaginative alternative, in the

hope that his beloved establishment would not be

forever tarnished by association. I found this so

transparent as to be irritating, but I knew that my

mood was colored by my failure on the suitcase-

packing front. I am easily capable of packing for

myself before a trip, but that is because I take as little

as possible when I travel. Ida Gransbury’s clothes

must have expanded during her short stay at the

Bloxham; I had spent an infuriating time pressing and

leaning down with my full weight, and still I could not

fit many of her clothes in her case. No doubt there is a

feminine knack to these things that oafish men like me

will never master. I was exceedingly relieved to be

told by Poirot that I must stop trying and make my way

to the hotel’s dining room at the appointed hour of

four o’clock.

Samuel Kidd, in a smart gray flannel suit, had

arrived with a pale-faced Jennie Hobbs on his arm at

five minutes past four, followed two minutes later by

Henry Negus, Richard’s brother, and ten minutes after

that by a group of four: a man and three women, one

of whom was Nancy Ducane. The skin around her

tear-filled eyes was red raw. As she entered the

room, she tried unsuccessfully to conceal her face

behind a scarf made of diaphanous material.

I muttered to Poirot, “She doesn’t want people to

see that she has been crying.”

“No,” he said. “She wears the scarf because she

hopes not to be recognized, not because she is

ashamed of her tears. There is nothing reprehensible

in allowing a feeling to show outwardly, contrary to

what you Englishmen seem to believe.”

I had no wish to be diverted to the topic of myself

when I had been talking about Nancy Ducane, in

whom I was far more interested. “I suppose the last

thing she wants is to be set upon by eager fans, all

falling in an adoring heap at her faraway feet.”

Poirot, as a somewhat famous person himself who

should have liked nothing better than a pile of

admirers draped all over his spats, looked as if he

was about to take issue with this point as well.

I distracted him with a question: “Who are the

three people who came in with Nancy Ducane?”

“Lord St. John Wallace, Lady Louisa Wallace and

their servant Dorcas.” He looked at his watch and

tutted. “We are fifteen minutes late in starting! Why

cannot people arrive on time?”

I noticed that both Thomas Brignell and Rafal

Bobak had risen to their feet, both apparently wanting

to speak, although the proceedings were not yet

officially underway.

“Please, gentlemen, sit down!” Poirot said.

“But Mr. Poirot, sir, I must—”

“But I—”

“Do not agitate yourselves,
messieurs
. These

things that you are so determined to tell Poirot? You

may be assured that he knows them already, and that

he is about to tell you, and everybody gathered here,

those very same things. Be patient, I beg of you.”

Mollified, Bobak and Brignell sat down. I was

surprised to see the black-haired woman sitting next

to Brignell reach for his hand. He squeezed hers, and

they allowed their hands to remain entwined. I saw

the look that passed between them, and it told me all I

needed to know: they were sweethearts. This,

however, was definitely not the woman I had seen

Brignell canoodling with in the hotel gardens.

Poirot whispered in my ear, “The woman Brignell

was kissing in the garden, beside the wheelbarrow—

she had fair hair,
non
? The woman with the brown

coat?” He gave me an enigmatic smile.

To the crowd, he said, “Now that everyone has

arrived, please may I ask for silence and your full

attention? Thank you. I am obliged to you all.”

As Poirot spoke, I cast my eyes over the faces in

the room. Was that . . . Oh, my goodness! It was! Fee

Spring, the waitress from Pleasant’s, was sitting at the

back of the room. Like Nancy Ducane, she had made

an effort to cover her face—with a fancy sort of hat—

and like Nancy she had failed. She winked at me as if

to say that it served me and Poirot right for stopping

in for a drink and telling her where we were going

next. Confound it all, why couldn’t the little minx stay

in the coffee house where she belonged?

“I must ask for your forbearance today,” said

Poirot. “There is much that you need to know and

understand that you do not at present.”

Yes, I thought, that summed up my position

perfectly. I knew scarcely more than the Bloxham’s

chambermaids and cooks did. Perhaps even Fee

Spring had a stronger grasp on the facts than I; Poirot

had probably invited her to this grand event he had

arranged. I must say, I did not and never would

understand why he required such a sizeable audience.

It was not a theatrical production. When I solved a

crime—and I had been lucky enough to do so several

times without Poirot’s help—I simply presented my

conclusions to my boss and then arrested the

miscreant in question.

I wondered, too late, if I ought to have demanded

that Poirot tell me everything first, before staging this

spectacle. Here I was, supposedly in charge of the

investigation, and I had no inkling of what solution to

the mystery he was about to present.

“Whatever he is about to say, please let it be

brilliant,” I prayed. “If he gets it right and I am

standing by his side, no one will suspect that I was

once, and so late in the day, as unenlightened as I am

now.”

“The story is too long for me to tell it without

help,” Poirot addressed the room. “My voice, I would

wear it out. Therefore I must ask you to listen to two

other speakers. First, Mrs. Nancy Ducane, the famous

portrait painter who has done us the honor of joining

us here today, will speak.”

This was a surprise—though not to Nancy herself,

I noticed. From her face, it was apparent that she had

known Poirot would call upon her. The two of them

had arranged it in advance.

Awed whispers filled the room as Nancy, with her

scarf wrapped round her face, came to stand beside

me where everyone could see her. “You’ve blown her

cover with the adoring fans,” I whispered to Poirot.

“
Oui.
” He smiled. “Yet still she keeps the scarf

around her face as she speaks.”

Everyone listened, rapt, as Nancy Ducane told the

story of Patrick Ive: her forbidden love for him, her

illicit visits to the vicarage at night, the wicked lies

about his taking money from parishioners and, in

exchange, passing on communications from their dead

loved ones. She did not mention Jennie Hobbs by

name when she referred to the rumor that had started

all the trouble.

Nancy described how she finally spoke out, at the