Ask a Hundred People
I BARELY NOTICED THE large crowd gathered in the Bloxham Hotel’s dining room as Poirot and I walked in. The room itself was so striking that I couldn’t help but be diverted by its grandeur. I stopped in the doorway and stared up at the high, lavishly ornamented ceiling with its many emblems and carvings. It was strange to think of people eating ordinary things like toast and marmalade at the tables below a work of art such as this—not even looking up, perhaps, as they sliced the tops off their boiled eggs.
I was trying to make sense of the complete design, and how the different parts of the ceiling related to one another, when a disconsolate Luca Lazzari rushed toward me, interrupting my admiration of the artistic symmetry above my head with his loud lament. “Mr. Catchpool, Monsieur Poirot, I must apologize to you most profusely! I have hurried to assist you in your important work, and, in doing so, I have put forward a falsehood! It was simply, you see, that I heard many accounts, and my first attempt to collate them was not successful. My own foolishness was responsible! No one else was at fault. Ah—”
Lazzari broke off and looked over his shoulder at the hundred or so men and women in the room. Then he moved to his left, so that he was standing directly in front of Poirot, and stuck out his chest in a funny sort of way. He put his hands on his hips. I think he was hoping to hide his entire staff from Poirot’s disapproving eye, on the principle that if they couldn’t be seen, they couldn’t be blamed for anything.
“What was your mistake, Signor Lazzari?” Poirot asked.
“It was a grave error! You observed that it was surely not possible, and you were right. But I want you to understand that my excellent staff, whom you see here before you, told me the truth of what took place, and it was I who twisted that truth to mislead—but I did not do it deliberately!”
“Je comprends. Now, to correct the mistake . . . ?” said Poirot hopefully.
The “excellent” staff, meanwhile, sat silently at large round tables, listening carefully to every word. The mood was somber. I made a quick survey of the faces and saw not a single smile.
“I told you that the three deceased guests asked to have dinner served in their rooms at a quarter past seven yesterday evening—each separately,” Lazzari said. “This is not true! The three were together! They dined as a group! All in one room, Ida Gransbury’s room, number 317. One waiter, not three, saw them alive and well at a quarter past seven. Do you see, Monsieur Poirot? It is not the great coincidence that I conveyed to you, but, instead, a commonplace occurrence: three guests taking dinner together in the room of one!”
“Bon.” Poirot sounded satisfied. “That makes sense of that. And who was this one waiter?”
A stout, bald man seated at one of the tables rose to his feet. He looked to be around fifty and had the jowlish tendency and mournful eyes of a basset hound. “It was I, sir,” he said.
“What is your name, monsieur?”
“Rafal Bobak, sir.”
“You served dinner to Harriet Sippel, Ida Gransbury and Richard Negus in Room 317 at fifteen minutes past seven yesterday evening?” Poirot asked him.
“Not dinner, sir,” said Bobak. “Afternoon tea—that was what Mr. Negus ordered. Afternoon tea at dinner time. He asked if that was all right or if I was going to force them to have what he called ‘a dinner sort of dinner.’ Told me that he and his friends were of one mind as not being in the mood for one of those. Said they’d rather have afternoon tea. I told him he could have whatever he wanted, sir. He asked for sandwiches—ham, cheese, salmon and cucumber—and an assortment of cakes. And scones, sir, with jam and cream.”
“And beverages?” Poirot asked.
“Tea, sir. For all three of them.”
“D’accord. And the sherry for Richard Negus?”
Rafal Bobak shook his head. “No, sir. No sherry. Mr. Negus didn’t ask me for a sherry. I didn’t take a glass of sherry up to Room 317.”
“You are certain of this?”
“Absolutely, sir.”
Being on display in front of all those pairs of eyes was making me feel a touch awkward. I was painfully aware that I had not yet asked a question. Letting Poirot run the show was all very well, but if I didn’t participate at all, I would look feeble. I cleared my throat and addressed the room: “Did any of you take a cup of tea to Harriet Sippel’s room, number 121, at any point? Or a sherry to Richard Negus’s room? Either yesterday or Wednesday, the day before?”
Heads began to shake. Unless someone was lying, it seemed that the only delivery to any of the three victims’ rooms was the one of afternoon-tea-for-dinner made by Rafal Bobak to Room 317 at 7:15 P.M. on Thursday.
I tried to sort it out in my mind: the teacup in Harriet Sippel’s room wasn’t a problem. That must have been one of the three brought by Bobak, since only two cups were found in Ida Gransbury’s room after the murders. But how did the sherry glass make its way to Richard Negus’s room unless transported there by a waiter?
Did the killer arrive at the Bloxham with a glass of Harveys Bristol Cream in his hand, as well as a pocket full of mongrammed cufflinks and poison? It seemed far-fetched.
Poirot appeared to have fixed on the same problem. “To be absolutely clear: not one of you gave a glass of sherry to Mr. Richard Negus, either in his room or anywhere else in the hotel?”
There was more head-shaking.
“Signor Lazzari, can you tell me please, was the glass found in Mr. Negus’s room one that belonged to the Bloxham Hotel?”
“Yes, it was, Monsieur Poirot. This is all very perplexing. I would suggest that perhaps a waiter who is absent today gave the glass of sherry to Mr. Negus on Thursday or Wednesday, but everybody is here now who was here then.”
“It is, as you say, perplexing,” Poirot agreed. “Mr. Bobak, perhaps you could tell us what happened when you took the evening-afternoon-tea to Ida Gransbury’s room.”
“I set it out on the table and then I left them to it, sir.”
“They were all three in the room? Mrs. Sippel, Miss Gransbury and Mr. Negus?”
“They were, yes, sir.”
“Describe to us the scene.”
“The scene, sir?”
Seeing that Rafal Bobak was at a loss, I chipped in with: “Which one of them opened the door?”
“Mr. Negus opened the door, sir.”
“And where were the two women?” I asked.
“Oh, they were sitting in the two chairs over by the fireplace. Talking to each other. I had no dealings with them. I spoke only to Mr. Negus. Laid everything out on the table by the window, and then I left, sir.”
“Can you recall what the two ladies talked about?” asked Poirot.
Bobak lowered his eyes. “Well, sir . . .”
“It is important, monsieur. Every detail that you can tell me about these three people is important.”
“Well . . . they were being a bit catty, sir. Laughing about it, too.”
“You mean they were being spiteful? How so?”
“One of them was, yes. And Mr. Negus, he seemed to find it entertaining. It was something about an older woman and a younger man. It wasn’t my business so I didn’t listen.”
“Do you remember what precisely was said? At whom was the cattishness directed?”
“I couldn’t tell you, sir, I’m sorry. An old woman that might be pining for the love of a young man, that was the sense I got. It sounded like gossip to me.”
“Monsieur,” said Poirot in his most authoritative voice. “If you should happen to remember anything else about this conversation, anything at all, please inform me without delay.”
“I shall, sir. Now that I think about it, the young man might have deserted the older woman and eloped with another woman. Idle gossip, that’s all it was.”
“So . . .” Poirot started to pace the length of the room. It was strange to see more than a hundred heads turn slowly, then turn back as he retraced his steps. “We have Richard Negus, Harriet Sippel and Ida Gransbury—one man and two women—in Room 317, talking cattily about one man and two women!”
“But what’s the significance of that, Poirot?” I asked.
“It might not be significant. It is interesting, however. And the idle gossip, the laughter, the afternoon tea for dinner . . . This tells us that our three murder victims were not strangers but acquaintances on friendly terms, unaware of the fate that would shortly befall them.”
A sudden movement startled me. At the table immediately in front of where Poirot and I were standing, a black-haired, pale-faced young man had bounced out of his seat as if propelled from underneath. I would have assumed he was eager to say something were it not for the terror-frozen expression on his face.
“This is one of our junior clerks, Mr. Thomas Brignell,” said Lazzari, presenting the man with a flourish of his hand.
“They were more than on friendly terms, sir,” Brignell breathed after a protracted silence. No one sitting behind him could have heard what he said, his voice was so quiet. “They were good friends. They knew each other well.”
“Of course they were good friends!” Lazzari announced to the room. “They ate a meal together!”
“Many people eat meals every day with those they dislike profoundly,” said Poirot. “Please continue, Mr. Brignell.”
“When I met Mr. Negus last night, he was concerned for the two ladies as only a good friend would be,” Thomas Brignell whispered at us.
“You met him?” I said. “When? Where?”
“Half past seven, sir.” He pointed toward the dining room’s double doors. I noticed that his arm was shaking. “Right outside here. I walked out and saw him going toward the lift. He saw me and stopped, called me over. I assumed he was making his way back to his room.”
“What did he say to you?” Poirot asked.
“He . . . he asked me to make sure that the meal was charged to him and not to either of the ladies. He could afford it, he said, but Mrs. Sippel and Miss Gransbury could not.”
“Was that all he said, monsieur?”
“Yes.” Brignell looked as if he might faint if he was required to produce one more word.
“Thank you, Mr. Brignell,” I said as warmly as I could. “You’ve been very helpful.” Immediately I felt guilty for not having thanked Rafal Bobak in a similar manner, so I added, “As have you, Mr. Bobak. As have you all.”
“Catchpool,” Poirot murmured. “Most people in this room have said nothing.”
“They have listened attentively and applied their minds to the problems presented to them. I think they deserve credit for that.”
“You have faith in their minds, yes? Perhaps these are the hundred people you call upon when we disagree? Bien, if we were to ask these hundred people . . .” Poirot turned back to the crowd. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have heard that Richard Negus, Harriet Sippel and Ida Gransbury were friends, and that their food was delivered to Room 317 at fifteen minutes past seven. Yet at half past seven, Mr. Brignell saw Richard Negus on this floor of the hotel, walking toward the lift. Mr. Negus must have been returning, n’est-ce pas, either to his own room, 238, or to Room 317 to join his two friends? But returning from where? His sandwiches and cakes were delivered only fifteen minutes earlier! Did he abandon them immediately and set off somewhere? Or did he eat his share of the food in only three or four minutes before rushing off? And to where did he rush? What was the important errand for which he left Room 317? Was it to ensure that the food should not end up on the bill of Harriet Sippel or Ida Gransbury? He could not wait twenty or thirty minutes, or an hour, before setting off to attend to this matter?”
A sturdily built woman with curly brown hair and severe eyebrows sprang to her feet at the back of the room. “You keep asking all these questions as if I might know the answer, as if we all might know the answers, and we don’t know nothing!” Her eyes darted around the room as she spoke, settling on one person after another, though her words were addressed to Poirot. “I want to go home, Mr. Lazzari,” she wailed. “I want to look in on my kiddies and see that they’re safe!”
A younger woman sitting beside her put a hand on her arm and tried to calm her. “Sit down, Tessie,” she said. “The gentleman’s only trying to help. Your bairns won’t have come to any harm, not if they’ve been nowhere near the Bloxham.”
At this remark, intended as a comfort, both Luca Lazzari and Sturdy Tessie made anguished noises.
“We won’t keep you much longer, madam,” I said. “And I’m sure Mr. Lazzari will allow you to pay a visit to your children afterward, if that is what you feel you need to do.”
Lazzari indicated that this would be permissible, and Tessie sat down, slightly mollified.
I turned to Poirot and said, “Richard Negus did not leave Room 317 in order to clear up the matter of the bill. He ran into Thomas Brignell on his way back from somewhere, so he had already done whatever it was that he set out to do by that point. He then happened to spot Mr. Brignell and decided to clear up the matter of the bill.” I hoped, with this little speech, to demonstrate to all present that we had answers as well as questions. Perhaps not all the answers yet, but some, and some was better than none.
“Monsieur Brignell, did you have the impression that Mr. Negus happened to see you and take his opportunity, as Mr. Catchpool describes? He was not looking for you? It was you who attended to him when he arrived at the hotel on Wednesday, yes?
“That’s right, sir. No, he wasn’t looking for me.” Brignell seemed happier about speaking while seated. “He chanced upon me and thought, ‘Oh, there’s that chap again,’ if you know what I mean, sir.”
“Indeed. Ladies and gentlemen,” Poirot raised his voice. “After committing three murders in this hotel yesterday evening, the killer, or somebody who knows the identity of the killer and conspired with him, left a note on the front desk: ‘MAY THEY NEVER REST IN PEACE. 121. 238. 317.’ Did anybody happen to observe the leaving of this note that I show to you now?” Poirot produced the small white card from his pocket and held it up in the air. “It was found by the clerk, Mr. John Goode, at ten minutes past eight. Did any of you, perhaps, notice a person or persons near the desk who seemed to be conducting themselves in an unusual way? Think hard! Someone must have seen something!”
Stout Tessie had screwed her eyes shut and was leaning against her friend. The room had filled with whispers and gasps, but it was only the shock and excitement of seeing the handwriting of a killer—a souvenir that made the three deaths seem more vividly real.
Nobody had anything more to tell us. It turned out that if you asked a hundred people, you were likely to be disappointed.