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 King’s Head Inn, and told the villagers of Great Holling about her love affair with Patrick Ive, which was not chaste, though she had pretended at the time that it was. Her voice shook as she told of the tragic deaths by poisoning of Patrick and Frances Ive. I noted that that was all she said about the cause of death: poisoning. She did not specify accident or suicide. I wondered if Poirot had asked her not to, for the sake of Ambrose Flowerday and Margaret Ernst.
Before sitting down, Nancy said, “I am as devoted to Patrick now as I ever was. I will never stop loving him. One day, he and I will be reunited.”
“Thank you, Madame Ducane.” Poirot bowed. “I must now without delay tell you something that I have recently discovered, for I believe it will be a comfort to you. Before his death, Patrick wrote . . . a letter. In it, he asked for you to be told that he loved you and always would.”
“Oh!” Nancy clapped her hands over her mouth and blinked many times. “Monsieur Poirot, you cannot imagine how happy you have made me.”
“Au contraire, madame. I can imagine only too well. The loving message, conveyed after the death of the loved one . . . It is an echo, is it not, of the untrue rumors about Patrick Ive: that he conveyed messages from beyond the grave? And who, I ask you, would not wish to receive such a message from one they have loved very much and lost?”
Nancy Ducane made her way back to her chair and sat down. Louisa Wallace patted her arm.
“And now,” said Poirot, “another woman who knew and loved Patrick Ive will speak: his former servant, Jennie Hobbs. Mademoiselle Hobbs?”
Jennie stood up and went to stand where Nancy had stood. She too looked unsurprised to be asked. In a shaking voice, she said. “I loved Patrick Ive as much as Nancy did. But he did not reciprocate my love. To him, I was no more than a loyal servant. It was I who started the wicked rumors about him. I told an unforgivable lie. I was jealous because he loved Nancy and not me. Although I did not kill him with my own hands, I believe that, in slandering him as I did, I caused his death. I and three others: Harriet Sippel, Richard Negus and Ida Gransbury, the three people who were murdered at this hotel. All four of us later came to regret what we had done. We regretted it profoundly. And so we made a plan to put things right.”
I watched the astonished faces of the Bloxham Hotel staff as Jennie described the same plan that she had described to Poirot and me at Samuel Kidd’s house, as well as how and why it went wrong. Louisa Wallace squealed in horror at the part about framing Nancy Ducane for the three murders and making sure she hanged. “Arranging for an innocent woman to be put to death for three murders she didn’t commit is not righting a wrong!” St. John Wallace called out. “That is depravity!”
Nobody disagreed with him, at least not out loud. Fee Spring, I noticed, did not look as shocked as most people did. She seemed to be listening intently.
“I never wanted to frame Nancy,” said Jennie. “Never! You may believe that or not, as you wish.”
“Mr. Negus,” said Poirot. “Mr. Henry Negus—do you think it likely that your brother Richard would make such a plan as you have heard?”
Henry Negus stood up. “I would not like to say, Monsieur Poirot. The Richard I knew would not have dreamed of killing anyone, of course, but the Richard who came to live with me in Devon sixteen years ago was not the Richard I knew. Oh, the physicality of him was the same, but he was not the same man on the inside. I’m afraid to say that I never got to know the man that he had become. I cannot, therefore, comment on how likely he was to behave in a particular way.”
“Thank you, Mr. Negus. And thank you, Miss Hobbs,” Poirot added with a marked absence of enthusiasm. “You may now sit down.”
He turned to the crowd. “So you see, ladies and gentlemen, that Miss Hobbs’s story, if true, leaves us with no murderer to arrest and convict. Ida Gransbury killed Harriet Sippel—with her permission. Richard Negus killed Ida Gransbury—again, with her permission—and then killed himself when Jennie Hobbs did not arrive to kill him as she was supposed to. He took his own life and made it look like murder by first locking his door and hiding the key behind a loose tile in the fireplace, and then opening the window. The police were supposed to think that the murderer—Nancy Ducane—took the key with her and escaped through the open window and down a tree. But there was no murderer, according to Jennie Hobbs—nobody who killed without permission of the victim!”
Poirot looked around the room. “No murderer,” he repeated. “However, even if this were true, there would still be two criminals who are alive and deserving of punishment: Jennie Hobbs and Samuel Kidd, who conspired to frame Nancy Ducane.”
“I hope you’re going to lock them both up, Monsieur Poirot!” called out Louisa Wallace.
“I do not lock or unlock the prison gate, madame. That is the job of my friend Catchpool and his associates. I unlock only the secrets and the truth. Mr. Samuel Kidd, please stand.”
Kidd, looking uncomfortable, rose to his feet.
“Your part in the plan was to place a note on the front desk of this hotel, was it not? ‘MAY THEY NEVER REST IN PEACE. 121. 238. 317.’ ”
“Yes, sir. It was, like Jennie said.”
“You had been given the note by Jennie in good time to do this?”
“Yes. She gave it to me earlier in the day. In the morning.”
“And you were to put it on the desk when?”
“Shortly after eight o’clock in the evening, like Jennie said. As soon as I could after eight, but first making sure no one was close enough to see me put it there.”
“You had this instruction from whom?” Poirot asked.
“Jennie.”
“And also from Jennie you had the instruction to plant the room keys in the pocket of Nancy Ducane?”
“That’s right,” said Kidd in a sullen voice. “I don’t know why you’re asking me all this when she’s only just now finished telling you.”
“I will explain. Bon. According to the original plan, as we have all heard Jennie Hobbs say, the keys to all three rooms—121, 238 and 317—would be removed from Richard Negus’s room by Jennie after she had killed him, and given to Samuel Kidd, who would place them somewhere that would implicate Nancy Ducane—her coat pocket, as it turned out. But Jennie Hobbs did not go to the Bloxham Hotel at all on the night of the murders, according to her story. She was not brave enough. I therefore ask you, Mr. Kidd: how did you get hold of the keys to rooms 121 and 317?”
“How did I . . . how did I get hold of the two keys?”
“Yes. That is the question I asked you. Please answer it.”
“I . . . well, if you must know, I got hold of those keys thanks to my own wits. I had a word in the ear of a member of the hotel staff and asked if they’d be good enough to let me have a master key. And they did. I then returned it to them, once I’d used it. All discreet, like.”
I was standing close enough to Poirot to hear the noise of disapproval that he made. “Which member of staff, monsieur? They are all here in this room. Point to the person who gave you this master key.”
“I can’t remember who it was. A man—that’s all I can tell you. I’ve a pitiful memory for faces.” As he said this, Kidd rubbed the red scratches on his own face with his thumb and forefinger.
“So, with this master key you let yourself into all three rooms?”
“No, only Room 238. That’s where all the keys ought to have ended up, waiting for Jennie to take them, but I could only find two. As you’ve said, one was hidden behind a tile in the fireplace. I didn’t like to stay and search the room for the third key, what with Mr. Negus’s body being there and all.”
“You are lying,” Poirot told him. “It does not matter. You will discover, in due course, that you cannot lie your way out of this predicament. But let us move on. No, do not sit down. I have another question—for you and Jennie Hobbs. It was part of the plan, was it not, that Jennie should bring her tale of mortal fear to me at Pleasant’s Coffee House at just after half past seven on the night of the murders?”
“Yes,” said Jennie, looking not at Poirot but at Samuel Kidd.
“Forgive me, then, but I do not understand something important. You were too afraid to go through with the plan, you say, and so you did not arrive at the hotel at six o’clock. Yet the plan went ahead without you, it seems. The only deviation was that Richard Negus killed himself, yes? He put the poison into his own drink, rather than having it put in his drink by you. Is everything that I have said so far correct, mademoiselle?”
“Yes, it is.”
“In that case, if the only altered detail was Richard Negus killing himself instead of being killed, we can assume that the deaths took place as planned: after the ordering of the sandwiches and scones, between a quarter past seven and eight o’clock. Yes, Miss Hobbs?”
“That is right,” said Jennie. She did not sound quite as certain as she had a moment ago.
“Then how, might I ask, can it ever have been part of the plan for you to kill Richard Negus? You have told us that you intended to find me at Pleasant’s Coffee House shortly after half past seven on that same night, knowing I would be there for my regular Thursday evening dinner. It is impossible to get from the Bloxham Hotel to Pleasant’s Coffee House in less than half an hour. It cannot be done, no matter how one travels. So, even if Ida Gransbury had killed Harriet Sippel and Richard Negus had killed Ida Gransbury as soon as was possible after a quarter past seven, there would not have been time for you to kill Richard Negus in Room 238 after that time, and still arrive at Pleasant’s when you did. Are we supposed to believe that, in all the meticulous planning that you undertook, none of you thought of this practical impossibility?”
Jennie’s face had turned white. I expect mine had too, though I could not see it myself.
It was such an obvious flaw in her account that Poirot had pointed out, and yet I had failed to spot it. It simply had not occurred to me.