The Frame Widens
SOMETIMES, REMEMBERING SOMETHING A person said months or even years ago still makes you chuckle, and this, for me, is true of what Poirot said to me at some point later on that day: “It is hard for even the most ingenious detective to know what to do if his desire is to be free of Signor Lazzari. If one’s praise of his hotel is insufficient, he stays by one’s side and supplements it with his own; if one’s praise is fulsome and lengthy, he stays to listen.”
Poirot’s efforts were eventually successful, and he finally managed to persuade Lazzari to leave him to his own devices in Room 238. He walked over to the door that the hotel manager had left open, closed it, and sighed with relief. How much easier it was to think clearly when there was no babble of voices.
He made straight for the window. An open window, he thought as he stared out of it. The murderer might have opened it to escape after killing Richard Negus. He could have climbed down a tree.
Why escape thus? Why not simply leave the room in the expected way, using the corridor? Perhaps the killer heard voices outside Negus’s room and did not want to risk being seen. Yes, that was a possibility. And yet when he strolled up to the front desk to leave his note announcing his three murders, he risked being seen. More than seen—he risked being caught in the act of leaving incriminating evidence.
Poirot looked down at the body on the floor. No gleam of metal between the lips. Richard Negus alone of the three victims had the cufflink right at the back of his mouth. It was an anomaly. Too many things about this room were anomalous. For this reason, Poirot decided he would search Room 238 first. He was . . . Yes, there was no virtue in denying it—he was suspicious of this room. Of the three, it was his least favorite. There was something disorganized about it, something a little unruly.
Poirot stood beside Negus’s body and frowned. Even by his exacting standards, one open window was not enough to render a room chaotic, so what was it that was giving him this impression? He looked around, turning in a slow circle. No, he must be mistaken. Hercule Poirot was not often wrong, but it did happen very occasionally, and this must be one such instance, because 238 was an undeniably tidy room. There was no mess or muddle. It was as tidy as Harriet Sippel’s room and Ida Gransbury’s.
“I shall shut the window and see if that makes a difference,” said Poirot to himself. He did so and surveyed the territory anew. Something was still not right. He did not like Room 238. He would not have felt comfortable if he had arrived at the Bloxham Hotel and been shown to this . . .
Suddenly the problem leapt out at him, putting an abrupt end to his meditations. The fireplace! One of the tiles was not aligned correctly. It was not straight; it jutted out. A loose tile; Poirot could not sleep in a room with such a thing. He eyed the body of Richard Negus. “If I were in the condition that you are in, oui, but not otherwise,” he said to it.
His only thought as he bent to touch the tile was that he might straighten it and push it back in so that it was flush with the others. To spare future guests the torment of knowing that there was something amiss in the room and being unable to work out what it was—what a service that would be! And to Signor Lazzari also!
When Poirot touched it, the tile fell clean out, and something else fell with it: a key with a number on it: 238. “Sacre tonnerre,” Poirot whispered. “So the thorough search was not so thorough after all.”
Poirot replaced the key where he had found it, then set about inspecting the rest of the room, inch by inch. He discovered nothing else of interest, so he proceeded to Room 317 and then to Room 121, which was where I found him when I returned from my errands with exciting news of my own.
Poirot being Poirot, he insisted on telling me his news first, about his finding of the key. All I can say is, in Belgium it is evidently not considered unseemly to gloat. He was quite puffed up with pride. “Do you see what this means, mon ami? The open window was not opened by Richard Negus, it was opened after his death! Having locked the door of Room 238 from the inside, the murderer needed to escape. He did so using the tree outside Mr. Negus’s window, after he had hidden the key behind a tile in the fireplace that had come loose. He perhaps loosened it himself.”
“Why not conceal it in his clothing, take it with him and leave the room in the customary way?” I asked.
“That is a question I have been asking myself—one that, for now, I am unable to answer,” Poirot said. “I have satisfied myself that there is no hidden key in this room, 121. Nor is there a key anywhere in Room 317. The killer must have taken two keys with him when he left the Bloxham Hotel, so why not the third? Why is the treatment of Richard Negus different?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea,” I said. “Listen, I’ve been talking to John Goode, the clerk—”
“The most dependable clerk,” Poirot amended with a twinkle in his eye.
“Yes, well . . . dependable or not, he’s certainly come up trumps for us on the information front. You were right: the three victims are connected. I’ve seen their addresses. Harriet Sippel and Ida Gransbury both lived in a place called Great Holling, in the Culver Valley.”
“Bon. And Richard Negus?”
“No, he lives in Devon—place called Beaworthy. But he’s connected too. He booked all three hotel rooms—Ida’s, Harriet’s and his own—and he paid for them ahead of time.”
“Did he indeed? This I find very interesting . . .” Poirot murmured, stroking his mustache.
“Bit puzzling, if you ask me,” I said. “The main puzzle being: why, if they were coming from the same village on the same day, did Harriet Sippel and Ida Gransbury not travel together? Why did they not arrive together? I went over it several times with John Goode and he is adamant: Harriet arrived two hours before Ida on Wednesday—two full hours.”
“And Richard Negus?”
I resolved henceforth to include all details relating to Negus at the earliest opportunity, if only so that I wouldn’t have to hear Poirot say, “And Richard Negus?” over and over again.
“He turned up an hour before Harriet Sippel. He was the first of the three to arrive, but it wasn’t John Goode who dealt with him. It was a junior clerk, a Mr. Thomas Brignell. I also found out that all three of our murder victims traveled to London by train, not car. I’m not sure if you wanted to know that, but—”
“I must know everything,” said Poirot.
His obvious desire to be in charge and make the investigation his own both irritated and reassured me. “The Bloxham has some cars that it sends out to fetch guests from the station,” I told him. “It’s not cheap, but they’re happy to sort it out for you. Three weeks ago, Richard Negus made arrangements with John Goode for the hotel’s cars to meet him, Harriet Sippel and Ida Gransbury. Separately; a car each. All of it—the rooms, the cars—it was all paid for in advance, by Negus.”
“I wonder if he was a wealthy man,” Poirot mused aloud. “So often, murder turns out to be about money. What are your thoughts, Catchpool, now that we know a little more?”
“Well . . .” I decided to throw myself into it, since he’d asked. Imagining what was possible was a good thing in Poirot’s book, so I would allow myself to concoct a theory, using the facts as a starting point. “Richard Negus must have known about all three arrivals, since he reserved and paid for the rooms, but perhaps Harriet Sippel didn’t know that Ida Gransbury was also coming to the Bloxham. And perhaps Ida didn’t know that Harriet was.”
“Oui, c’est possible.”
Encouraged, I went on: “Maybe it was essential to the murderer’s plan that neither Ida nor Harriet should know about the presence of the other one. But if that’s so, and if Richard Negus, meanwhile, knew that he and both women would be guests at the Bloxham . . .” My well of ideas ran dry at that point.
Poirot took over: “Our trains of thought proceed along similar tracks, my friend. Was Richard Negus an unwitting accomplice in his own murder? Perhaps the killer persuaded him to entice the victims to the Bloxham Hotel supposedly for another reason, when all along he planned to murder all three of them. The question is this: was it vital for some reason that Ida and Harriet should each be ignorant of the presence of the other in the hotel? And if so, was it important to Richard Negus, to the murderer, or to both?”
“Perhaps Richard Negus had one plan, and the murderer had another?”
“Quite so,” said Poirot. “The next thing is to find out all that we can about Harriet Sippel, Richard Negus and Ida Gransbury. Who were they when they were alive? What were their hopes, their grievances, their secrets? The village, Great Holling—this is where we will look for our answers. Perhaps we will also find Jennie there, and PIJ—le mystérieux!”
“There’s no guest here called Jennie, now or last night. I checked.”
“No, I did not think that there would be. Fee Spring, the waitress, told me that Jennie lives in a house across town from Pleasant’s Coffee House. That means in London—not Devon and not the Culver Valley. Jennie has no need of a room at the Bloxham Hotel when she lives only ‘across town.’ ”
“Speaking of which, Henry Negus, Richard’s brother, is on his way here from Devon. Richard Negus lived with Henry and his family. And I’ve got some of my best men lined up to interview all the hotel guests.”
“You have been very efficient, Catchpool.” Poirot patted my arm.
I felt obliged to advise Poirot of my one failure. “This business with the dinners in the rooms is proving difficult to pin down,” I said. “I can’t find anyone who was personally involved in taking the orders or making the deliveries. There seems to be some confusion.”
“Do not worry,” said Poirot. “I will do the necessary pinning when we gather in the dining room. In the meantime, let us take a walk around the hotel gardens. Sometimes a gentle perambulation causes a new idea to rise to the surface of one’s thoughts.”
AS SOON AS WE got outside, Poirot started to complain about the weather, which did seem to have taken a turn for the worse. “Shall we go back inside?” I suggested.
“No, no. Not yet. The change of environment is good for the little gray cells, and perhaps the trees will afford some shelter from the wind. I do not mind the cold, but there is the good kind and the bad kind, and this, today, is the bad kind.”
We stopped as we came to the entrance to the Bloxham’s gardens. Luca Lazzari had not exaggerated their beauty, I thought, as I stared at rows of pleached limes and, at the farthest end, the most artful topiary I had ever seen in London. This was nature not merely tamed but forced into stunning submission. Even in a biting wind, it was exceptionally pleasing to the eye.
“Well?” I asked Poirot. “Are we going in or not?” It would be satisfying, I thought, to stroll up and down the green pathways between the trees, which were Roman-road straight.
“I do not know.” Poirot frowned. “This weather . . .” He shivered.
“. . . will extend, unavoidably, to the gardens,” I completed his sentence somewhat impatiently. “There are only two places we can be, Poirot: inside the hotel or outside it. Which do you prefer?”
“I have a better idea!” he announced triumphantly. “We will catch a bus!”
“A bus? To where?”
“To nowhere, or somewhere! It does not matter. We will soon get off the bus and return on a different one. It will give us the change of scenery without the cold! Come. We will look out of the windows at the city. Who knows what we might observe?” He set off determinedly.
I followed, shaking my head. “You’re thinking of Jennie, aren’t you?” I said. “It’s extremely unlikely that we will see her—”
“It is more likely than if we stand here looking at twigs and grass!” said Poirot fiercely.
Ten minutes later we found ourselves trundling along on a bus with windows so fogged up that it was impossible to see anything through them. Wiping them with a handkerchief didn’t help.
I tried to talk some sense into Poirot. “About Jennie . . .” I began.
“Oui?”
“She might well be in danger, but, really, she’s nothing to do with this business at the Bloxham. There’s no evidence of a connection between the two. None at all.”
“I disagree, my friend,” said Poirot sorrowfully. “I am more than ever convinced of a connection.”
“You are? Dash it all, Poirot—why?”
“Because of the two most unusual features that the . . . situations have in common.”
“And what are those?”
“They will come to you, Catchpool. Really, they cannot fail to strike you if you open your mind and think about what you know.”
In the seats behind us, an elderly mother and her middle-aged daughter were discussing what made the difference between pastry that was merely good and pastry that was excellent.
“Do you hear that, Catchpool?” whispered Poirot. “La différence! Let us focus not on similarities but on differences—this is what will point us toward our murderer.”
“What sort of differences?” I asked.
“Between two of the murders at the hotel and the third. Why are the circumstantial details so different in the case of Richard Negus? Why did the killer lock the door from the inside of the room instead of from the outside? Why did he hide the key behind a loose tile in the fireplace instead of taking it with him? Why did he leave by the window, with the help of a tree, instead of by walking along the corridor in the normal way? At first I wondered if perhaps he heard voices in the corridor and did not want to risk being seen leaving Mr. Negus’s room.”
“That seems reasonable,” I said.
“Non. I do not, after all, think that was the reason.”
“Oh. Why not?”
“Because of the positioning of the cufflink in Richard Negus’s mouth, which was also different in this one case: fully inside the mouth, near the throat, instead of between the lips.”
I groaned. “Not this again. I really don’t think—”
“Ah! Wait, Catchpool. Let us see . . .”
The bus had stopped. Poirot craned his neck to inspect the new passengers who boarded, and sighed when the last one—a slender man in a tweed suit with more hair growing from his ears than on his head—was in.
“You’re disappointed because none of them is Jennie,” I said. I needed to say it aloud in order to believe it, I think.
“Non, mon ami. You are correct about the sentiment, but not about its cause. I feel the disappointment every time I think that, in a city as énorme as London, I am unlikely ever to see Jennie again. And yet . . . I hope.”
“For all your talk of scientific method, you’re a bit of a dreamer, aren’t you?”
“You believe hope to be the enemy of science and not its driving force? If so, I disagree, just as I disagree with you about the cufflink. It is a significant difference in the case of Richard Negus from the other two, the women. The difference of the position of the cufflink in Mr. Negus’s mouth cannot be explained by the killer’s hearing the voices of people in the corridor and wanting to avoid them,” Poirot spoke over me. “Therefore there must be another explanation. Until we know what it is, we cannot be certain that it does not also apply to the open window, the key hidden in the room and the door locked from the inside.”
There comes a point in most cases—and by no means only those in which Hercule Poirot has involved himself—when one starts to feel that it would be a greater comfort, and actually no less effective, to talk only to oneself and dispense with all attempts to communicate with the outside world.
In my head, to a sensible and appreciative audience of one, I silently made the following point: the cufflink being in a slightly different part of Richard Negus’s mouth was of absolutely no consequence. A mouth is a mouth, and that was all there was to it. In the murderer’s mind, he had done the same thing to each of his three victims: he had opened their mouths and placed a monogrammed gold cufflink inside each one.
I could not think of any explanation for the hiding of the key behind the loose fireplace tile. It would have been quicker and easier for the murderer to take it with him or to drop it on the carpet after wiping it clean of his fingerprints.
Behind us, the mother and daughter had exhausted the topic of pastry and moved on to suet.
“We ought to think about returning to the hotel,” said Poirot.
“But we’ve only just got on the bus!” I protested. It seems they have been on the bus for some time.
“Oui, c’est vrai, but we do not want to stray too far from the Bloxham. We will soon be needed in the dining room.”
I exhaled slowly, knowing it would be pointless to ask why, in that case, he had felt it necessary to leave the hotel in the first place.
“We must get off this bus and catch another,” he said. “Perhaps there will be better views from the next one.”
There were. Poirot saw no sign of Jennie, much to his consternation, but I saw some amusing sights that made me realize all over again why I loved London: a man dressed in a clown costume, juggling about as badly as I had ever seen a person juggle. Still, passersby were throwing coins into the hat by his feet. Other highlights were a poodle that had a face exactly like a prominent politician, and a vagrant sitting on the pavement with an open suitcase beside him, eating food out of it as if it were his very own mobile canteen. “Look, Poirot,” I said. “That chap doesn’t care about the cold—he’s as happy as the cat that got the cream. The tramp that got the cream, I should say. Poirot, look at that poodle—does it remind you of anyone? Somebody famous. Go on, look, you can’t fail to see it.”
“Catchpool,” Poirot said severely. “Stand up, or we will miss our stop. Always you look away, seeking the diversion.”
I rose to my feet. As soon as we were off the bus, I said, “You’re the one who took me on a pointless sightseeing tour of London. You can hardly blame me for taking an interest in the sights.”
Poirot stopped walking. “Tell me something. Why will you not look at the three bodies in the hotel? What is it that you cannot bear to observe?”
“Nothing. I’ve looked at the bodies as much as you have—I did quite a lot of my looking before you turned up, as a matter of fact.”
“If you do not wish to discuss it with me, you only need to say so, mon ami.”
“There is nothing to discuss. I don’t know anybody who would stare at a deceased person for any longer than necessary. That’s all there is to it.”
“Non,” said Poirot quietly. “It is not all.”
I dare say I ought to have told him, and I still don’t know why I didn’t. My grandfather died when I was five. He was dying for a long time, in a room in our house. I didn’t like going to visit him in his room every day, but my parents insisted that it was important to him, and so I did it to please them, and for his sake also. I watched his skin turn gradually yellower, and listened as his breathing became more shallow and his eyes less focused. I didn’t think of it then as fear, but I remember, every day, counting the seconds that I had to spend in that room, knowing that eventually I would be able to leave, close the door behind me and stop counting.
When he died, I felt as if I had been released from prison and could be fully alive again. He would be taken away, and there would be no more death in the house. And then my mother told me that I must go and see Grandfather one last time, in his room. She would come with me, she said. It would be all right.
The doctor had laid him out. My mother explained to me about the laying out of the dead. I counted the seconds in silence. More seconds than usual. A hundred and thirty at least, standing by my mother’s side, looking at Grandpa’s still, shrunken body. “Hold his hand, Edward,” my mother said. When I said I didn’t want to, she started to weep as if she would never stop.
So I held Grandpa’s dead, bony hand. I wanted more than anything to drop it and run away, but I clung to it until my mother stopped crying and said we could go back downstairs.
“Hold his hand, Edward. Hold his hand.”