The Monogram Murders (9 page)

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.”