The Monogram Murders (19 page)

showed no sign of believing civilization to be

imperiled by such an arrangement of letters. She also

did not appear shocked or surprised by what I had

told her, which I found unusual.

“Now do you see why Patrick Ive is of interest to

me?” I said.

“Yes.”

“Then will you tell me about him?”

“As I said: perhaps tomorrow. Would you like

some more tea, Mr. Catchpool?”

I told her that I would, and she left the room. Alone

in the parlor, I ruminated over whether I had left it too

late to ask her to call me Edward, and, if not, whether

I ought to do so. I pondered this while knowing that I

would say nothing, and would allow her to continue

with “Mr. Catchpool.” It is among the more pointless

of my habits: wondering what I ought to do when

there is no doubt about what I am going to do.

When Margaret returned with the tea, I thanked her

and asked her if she could tell me about Harriet

Sippel, Ida Gransbury and Richard Negus. The

transformation was incredible. She made no attempt

to dissemble, and, in a most efficient fashion, told me

enough about two of the three murder victims to fill

several pages. Infuriatingly, the notebook I had

brought with me to Great Holling lay in one of my

cases in my room at the King’s Head Inn. This would

be a test for my memory.

“Harriet used to have a sweet nature, according to

the overflowing archive of village legend,” said

Margaret. “Kind, generous, always a smile on her

face, forever laughing and offering to help friends and

neighbors, never once thinking of herself—positively

saintly. Determined to think well of all she met, to see

everything in the best possible light. Naïvely trusting,

some said. I’m not sure if I believe all of it. No one

could be as perfect as Harriet-Before-She-Changed is

painted as being. I wonder if it’s the contrast with

what she became . . .” Margaret frowned. “Perhaps it

wasn’t, in strictest truth, a case of her going from one

extreme to the other, but when one is telling a story,

one always wants to make it as dramatic as possible,

doesn’t one? And I suppose losing a husband so

young could turn even the sunniest nature. Harriet was

devoted to her George, so they say, and he to her. He

died in 1911 at the age of twenty-seven—dropped

down dead one day in the street, having always been

the picture of health. A blood clot in his brain. Harriet

was a widow at twenty-five.”

“What a blow that must have been for her,” I said.

“Yes,” Margaret agreed. “A loss of that magnitude

might have a terrible effect upon a person. It’s

interesting that some describe her as having been

naïve.”

“Why do you say that?”

“ ‘Naïve’ suggests a falsely rosy conception of

life. If one believed in a wholly benign world and

then tragedy of the worst kind struck, one might feel

anger and resentment as well as sadness, as if one had

been duped. And of course, when we suffer greatly

ourselves, it becomes so much easier to blame and

persecute others.”

I was attempting to conceal my strenuous

disagreement when she added, “For
some
, I should

say. Not for all. I expect you find it easier to

persecute yourself, don’t you, Mr. Catchpool?”

“I hope I don’t persecute anybody,” I said,

bemused. “So am I to take it that the loss of her

husband had an unfortunate effect upon Harriet

Sippel’s character?”

“Yes. I never knew sweet, kind Harriet. The

Harriet

Sippel

I

knew

was

spiteful

and

sanctimonious. She treated the world and nearly

everyone in it as an enemy, deserving of her

suspicion. Instead of seeing only the good, she saw

the threat of evil everywhere, and behaved as if she

had been charged with unearthing and defeating it. If

there was a newcomer to the village, she would start

out with the belief that he or she was bound to be

heinous in some respect. She would tell others of her

suspicions, as many as would listen, and encourage

them to look out for signs. Put a person in front of her

and she would search for wickedness in that person.

If she found none, she would invent it. Her only

pleasure after George died was condemning others as

wicked, as if doing so made her a better person

somehow. The way her eyes would shine whenever

she’d sniffed out some new wrongdoing . . .”

Margaret shuddered. “It was as if, in the absence

of her husband, she had found something else that

could ignite her passion and so she clung to it. But it

was a dark, destructive passion that sprang from

hatred, not love. The worst part was that people

flocked around her, readily agreeing with all her

unpleasant accusations.”

“Why did they?” I asked.

“They didn’t want to be next. They knew Harriet

was never without prey. I don’t think she could have

survived for as long as a week without a focus for her

righteous spite.”

I thought of the bespectacled young man who had

said, “No one wants to be next.”

Margaret said: “They were happy to condemn

whichever poor soul she had fixed upon if it diverted

her attention from them and whatever they might be up

to. That was Harriet’s idea of a friend: someone who

joined her in vilifying those she deemed to be guilty

of a sin, minor or major.”

“You’re describing, if I may say so, the sort of

person who is likely to end up getting murdered.”

“Am I? I think people like Harriet Sippel aren’t

murdered nearly often enough.” Margaret raised her

eyebrows. “I see I’ve shocked you again, Mr.

Catchpool. As a vicar’s wife, I shouldn’t say these

things, I dare say. I try to be a good Christian, but I

have my weaknesses, as we all do. Mine is the

inability to forgive the inability to forgive. Does that

sound contradictory?”

“It sounds like a tongue-twister. Do you mind if I

ask you where you were last Thursday evening?”

Margaret sighed and looked out of the window. “I

was where I always am: sitting where you’re sitting

now, watching the graveyard.”

“Alone?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you.”

“Would you like me to tell you about Ida

Gransbury now?”

I nodded, with some trepidation. I wondered how I

would feel if it turned out that all three of the murder

victims were vindictive monsters while alive. The

words “MAY THEY NEVER REST IN PEACE”

passed through my mind, swiftly followed by Poirot’s

account of his meeting with Jennie, her insistence that

justice would finally be done once she was dead . . .

“Ida was a dreadful prig,” said Margaret. “She

was every inch as sanctimonious as Harriet in her

outward behavior, but she was driven by fear and by

faith in the rules we are all supposed to obey rather

than by the thrill of persecution. Denouncing the sins

of others wasn’t a pleasure for Ida as it was for

Harriet. She saw it as her moral duty as a good

Christian.”

“When you say fear, do you mean fear of divine

retribution?”

“Oh, that, certainly, but not only that,” said

Margaret. “Different people regard rules differently,

no matter what those rules happen to be. Mutinous

characters like me always resent constraints, even

perfectly sensible ones, but there are some who

welcome their existence and enforcement because it

makes them feel safer. Protected.”

“And Ida Gransbury was the second sort?”

“I think so, yes. She would not have said so. She

was always careful to present herself as a woman

driven by strong principle and nothing else. No

shameful human weaknesses for Ida! I am sorry she is

dead, though she did untold harm while alive. Unlike

Harriet, Ida believed in redemption. She wanted to

save sinners, while Harriet wanted only to revile

them and feel elevated by comparison. I think Ida

would have forgiven a demonstrably repentant sinner.

She was reassured by contrition of the standard

Christian sort. It bolstered her view of the world.”

“What untold harm did Ida do?” I asked. “To

whom?”

“Come back and ask me that question tomorrow.”

Her tone was generous but firm.

“To Patrick and Frances Ive?”

“Tomorrow, Mr. Catchpool.”

“What can you tell me about Richard Negus?” I

asked.

“Precious little, I’m afraid. He left Great Holling

soon after Charles and I arrived. I think he was an

authoritative presence in the village—a man people

listened to and took advice from. Everybody speaks

of him with the greatest respect, apart from Ida

Gransbury. She never spoke of him at all after he left

both her and Great Holling behind.”

“Was it his decision or hers to call off the marriage

plans?” I asked.

“His.”

“How do you know that she never spoke of him

afterward? Perhaps to others she did, even if not to

you?”

“Oh, Ida wouldn’t have spoken to me about

Richard Negus or anything else. I know only what I

have been told by Ambrose Flowerday, the village

doctor, but there is no more reliable man on earth.

Ambrose gets to hear about most things that go on, as

long as he remembers to leave the door to his waiting

room ajar.”

“Is this the same Dr. Flowerday that I am supposed

to forget about? I had better forget his Christian name

too, I dare say.”

Margaret ignored my mischievous remark. “I have

it on good authority that after Richard Negus

abandoned her, Ida resolved never to speak or think

of him again,” she said. “She showed no outward

signs of upset. People remarked upon it: how strong

and resolute she was. She announced her intention to

reserve all her love for God thenceforth. She found

him to be more reliable than mortal men.”

“Would it surprise you to learn that Richard Negus

and Ida Gransbury took afternoon tea together in her

hotel room in London last Thursday evening?”

Margaret’s eyes widened. “To hear that the two of

them took tea
alone
together
—
yes, it would surprise

me greatly. Ida was the sort who drew firm lines and

did not cross them. By all accounts so was Richard

Negus. Having decided he didn’t want Ida as a wife,

he is unlikely to have changed his mind, and I cannot

think that anything short of prostrate penitence and a

renewed declaration of love would have persuaded

Ida to agree to a meeting with him in private.”

After a pause, Margaret went on, “But since

Harriet Sippel was at the same London hotel, I

assume that she too was present at this afternoon tea

ceremony?”

I nodded.

“Well, then. The three of them obviously had

something to discuss that was more important than the

lines any of them had drawn in the past.”

“You have an idea about what that thing might be,

don’t you?”

Margaret looked out of the window toward the

rows of graves. “Perhaps I shall have some ideas by

the time you visit me tomorrow,” she said.

Two Recollections

WHILE I STRUGGLED IN vain to persuade Margaret Ernst

to tell me the story of Patrick and Frances Ive before