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.
The Sherry Conundrum
HALF AN HOUR LATER, Poirot and I sat drinking coffee in front of a roaring fire in what Lazzari had called “our hidden lounge,” a room that was behind the dining room and not accessible from any public corridor. The walls were covered with portraits that I tried to ignore. Give me a sunny landscape any day of the week, or even a cloudy one. It’s the eyes that bother me when people are depicted; it doesn’t seem to matter who the artist is. I’ve yet to see a portrait and not be convinced that its subject is regarding me with searing scorn.
After his exuberant performance as master of ceremonies in the dining room, Poirot had lapsed once more into quiet gloom. “You’re fretting about Jennie again, aren’t you?” I asked him.
He admitted that he was. “I do not want to hear that she has been found with a cufflink in her mouth, with the monogram PIJ. That is the news I dread.”
“Since there is nothing you can do about Jennie for the time being, I suggest you think about something else,” I advised.
“How practical you are, Catchpool. Very well. Let us think about teacups.”
“Teacups?”
“Yes. What do you make of them?”
After some consideration, I said, “I believe I have no opinions whatever on the subject of teacups.”
Poirot made an impatient noise. “Three teacups are brought to Ida Gransbury’s room by the waiter Rafal Bobak. Three teacups for three people, as one would expect. But when the bodies of the three are found, there are only two teacups in the room.”
“The other one is in Harriet Sippel’s room with Harriet Sippel’s dead body,” I said.
“Exactement. And this is most curious, is it not? Did Mrs. Sippel carry her teacup and saucer back to her room before or after the poison was put into it? In either scenario, who would carry a cup of tea along a hotel corridor, and then take it into a lift or walk down two flights of stairs with it in their hands? Either it is full and there is a risk of spillage, or it is half full or almost empty, and hardly worth transporting. Usually one drinks a cup of tea in the room in which one pours the cup of tea, n’est-ce pas?”
“Usually, yes. This killer strikes me as being as far from usual as it’s possible to be,” I said with some vehemence.
“And his victims? Are they not ordinary people? What about their behavior? Do you ask me to believe that Harriet Sippel carries her tea down to her room, sits in a chair to drink it, and then almost immediately the murderer knocks on her door and finds an opportunity to put cyanide in her drink? And Richard Negus, remember, has also left Ida Gransbury’s room for some unknown reason, but he arranges to be back in his own room soon afterward, with a glass of sherry that nobody at the hotel gave him.”
“I suppose when you put it like that . . .” I said.
Poirot carried on as if I had not just conceded the point. “Ah, yes, Richard Negus too, he is sitting alone with his drink when the killer pays him a visit. He too says, ‘By all means, drop your poison into my sherry.’ And Ida Gransbury, she is all the while waiting patiently in Room 317, alone, for the murderer to come calling? She sips her tea very slowly. It would be inconsiderate of her to finish it before the killer arrives, of course—how then would he poison her? Where would he put his cyanide?”
“Damn it, Poirot—what do you want me to say? I don’t understand it any more than you do! Look, it seems to me that the three murder victims must have had some kind of altercation. Why else would they plan to dine together and then all go their separate ways?”
“I do not think a woman leaving a room in anger would take a half-finished cup of tea with her,” said Poirot. “Would it not in any case be cold by the time it reached Room 121?”
“I often drink tea cold,” I said. “I quite like it.”
Poirot raised his eyebrows. “If I did not know you to be an honest man, I should not believe it possible. Cold tea! Dégueulasse!”
“Well, I should say I’ve grown to like it,” I added in my defense. “There’s no hurry, with cold tea. You can drink it at a time to suit you, and nothing bad’s going to happen to it if you take a while. There’s no time constraint and no pressure. That counts for a lot, in my book.”
There was a knock at the door. “That will be Lazzari, coming to check that no one has disturbed us during our important conversation,” I said.
“Enter, please,” Poirot called out.
It was not Luca Lazzari but Thomas Brignell, the junior clerk who had spoken up about having seen Richard Negus by the lift at half past seven. “Ah, Monsieur Brignell,” said Poirot. “Do join us. Your account of yesterday evening was most helpful. Mr. Catchpool and I are grateful.”
“Yes, very much so,” I said heartily. I’d have said almost anything to make it easier for Brignell to cough up whatever was bothering him. It was obvious that something was. The poor chap looked no more confident now than he had in the dining room. He rubbed the palms of his hands together, sliding them up and down. I could see sweat on his forehead, and he looked paler than he had before.
“I’ve let you down,” he said. “I’ve let Mr. Lazzari down, and he’s been so good to me, he has. I didn’t . . . in the dining room before, I didn’t . . .” He broke off and rubbed his palms together some more.
“You did not tell us the truth?” Poirot suggested.
“Every word I spoke was the truth, sir!” said Thomas Brignell indignantly. “I’d be no better than the murderer myself if I lied to the police on a matter as important as this.”
“I do not think that you would be quite as guilty as him, monsieur.”
“There were two things I neglected to mention. I can’t tell you how sorry I am, sir. You see, speaking in front of a room full of people isn’t something as comes easy to me. I’ve always been that way. And what made it harder in there, before”—he nodded in the direction of the dining room—“was that I’d have been reluctant to say the other thing Mr. Negus said to me because he paid me a compliment.
“What compliment?”
“It wasn’t one I’d do
ne anything to deserve, sir, I’m sure. I’m just an ordinary man. There’s nothing notable about me at all. I do my job, as I’m paid to, and I try to do my best, but there’s no reason for anyone to single me out for special praise.”
“And Mr. Negus did this?” asked Poirot. “He singled you out for praise?”
Brignell winced. “Yes, sir. Like I said: I didn’t ask for it and I’m sure I’d done nothing to earn it. But when I saw him and he saw me, he said, ‘Ah, Mr. Brignell, you seem a most efficient fellow. I know I can trust you with this.’ Then he proceeded to discuss the matter I mentioned before, sir—about the bill, and him wanting to pay it.”
“And you did not want to repeat the compliment you had received in front of everybody else, is that right?” I said. “You feared it might sound boastful?”
“Yes, I did, sir. I did indeed. There’s something else, too. Once we’d agreed the matter of the bill, Mr. Negus asked me to fetch him a sherry. I was the person that did that. I offered to take it up to his room, but he said he was happy to wait. I brought it to him, and then up he went with it, in the lift.”
Poirot sat forward in his chair. “Yet you said nothing when I asked if anyone in the room had given Richard Negus a glass of sherry?”
Brignell looked confused and frustrated—as if the right answer was on the tip of his tongue, but still, somehow, eluded him. “I ought to have done, sir. I ought to have offered a full account of the incident as soon as you asked. I deeply regret that I failed in my duty to you and to the three deceased guests, God rest their souls. I can only hope that by coming to you now I’ve made a small amends.”
“Indeed, indeed. But, monsieur, I am curious about why you did not speak up in the dining room. When I asked, ‘Who here took Richard Negus a glass of sherry?,’ what was it that caused you to remain silent?”
The poor clerk had started to tremble. “I swear on my dear late mother’s grave, Mr. Poirot, I’ve now told you every particular of my encounter with Mr. Negus yesterday evening. Every last particular. You couldn’t have a more complete knowledge of what transpired—of that you may rest assured.”
Poirot opened his mouth to ask another question, but I leaped in before him and said, “Thank you very much, Mr. Brignell. Please don’t worry about not having told us sooner. I understand how hard it is to stand up and speak in front of a crowd. I don’t much like it myself.”
Once dismissed, Brignell hurried to the door like a fox fleeing from hounds.
“I believe him,” I said when he had gone. “He’s told us everything he knows.”
“About his meeting with Richard Negus beside the hotel lift, yes. The detail he conceals relates to himself. Why did he not speak up in the dining room about the sherry? I asked him that question twice, and still he did not answer. Instead, he elaborated upon his remorse, which was sincere. He would not lie, but he cannot bring himself to speak the truth. Ah, how he withholds! It is a form of lying—a very effective one, for there is no spoken lie to be contested.”
Poirot chuckled suddenly. “And, you, Catchpool, you seek to protect him from Hercule Poirot, who would press him again and again, eh, for the information?”
“He looked as if he had reached his limit. And, frankly, if he is keeping quiet about anything, it’s something that he thinks is of no consequence to us and yet it’s a cause of great embarrassment to him. He’s a fretful, conscientious sort. His sense of duty would oblige him to tell us if he thought it mattered.”
“And because you sent him away, I did not have the chance to explain to him that the information he withholds might be vital.” Having raised his voice, Poirot glared at me, to make sure I noted his annoyance. “Even I, Hercule Poirot, do not yet know what matters and what is irrelevant. This is why I must know everything.” He stood up. “And now, I will return to Pleasant’s,” he said abruptly. “The coffee there is far better than Signor Lazzari’s.”
“But Richard Negus’s brother Henry is on his way,” I protested. “I thought you would want to speak to him.”
“I need a change of scenery, Catchpool. I must revitalize my little gray cells. They will begin to stagnate if I do not take them elsewhere.”
“Poppycock! You’re hoping to bump into Jennie, or hear news of her,” I said. “Poirot, I do think you’re on a desperate goose chase with this Jennie business. You know it too, or else you would admit you’re going to Pleasant’s in the hope of finding her.”
“Maybe so. But if there is a goose killer at large, what else is one to do? Bring Mr. Henry Negus to Pleasant’s. I will talk to him there.”
“What? He’s coming all the way from Devon. He’s not going to want to arrive and then leave at once for—”
“But does he want the dead goose?” Poirot demanded. “Ask him that!”
I resolved to ask Henry Negus no such thing, for fear he might turn on his heel and go straight back whence he came, having decided that Scotland Yard had been taken over by madmen.
Two Keys
POIROT ARRIVED AT THE coffee house to find it very busy and smelling of a mixture of smoke and something sweet like pancake syrup. “I need a table, but they are all taken,” he complained to Fee Spring, who had only just arrived herself and was standing by the wooden coat stand with her coat draped over her arm. When she pulled off her hat, her flyaway hair crackled and hung in the air for a few seconds before succumbing to gravity. The effect was rather comical, thought Poirot.
“Your need’s in trouble, then, isn’t it?” she said cheerfully. “I can’t shoo paying patrons out onto the street, not even for a famous detective.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Mr. and Mrs. Ossessil will be on their way before too long. You can sit where they’re sitting.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Ossessil? That is an unusual name.”
Fee laughed at him, then whispered again. “ ‘Oh, Cecil’—that’s what she says all day long, the wife. The husband, poor soul, he can’t get as much as two words out of his mouth without her setting him straight. He says he’d like scrambled eggs and toast? Right away she pipes up, ‘Oh, Cecil, not eggs and toast!’ And don’t think he has to speak to set her off! He sits down at the first table he comes to and she says, ‘Oh, Cecil, not this table!’ ’Course, he ought to say he wants what he don’t want, and don’t want what he wants. That’s what I’d do. I keep waiting for him to tumble to it but he’s a useless old lump, truth be told. Brain like a moldy cabbage. I expect that’s what started her Oh-Cecil-ing.”
“If he does not leave soon, I shall say ‘Oh, Cecil’ to him myself,” said Poirot, whose legs were already aching from a combination of standing and the thwarted desire to be seated.
“They’ll be gone before your coffee’s ready,” Fee said. “She’s finished her meal, see. She’ll Oh-Cecil him out of here in no time. What you doing here at lunchtime anyway? Wait, I know what you’re up to! Looking for Jennie, aren’t you? I heard you were in first thing this morning too.”
“How did you hear it?” Poirot asked. “You have only just arrived, n’est-ce pas?”
“I’m never far away,” said Fee enigmatically. “No one’s seen hide nor hair of Jennie, but d’you know, Mr. Poirot, I’ve got her stuck in my mind same as she’s stuck in yours.”
“You too are worried?”
“Oh, not about her being in danger. It’s not up to me to save her.”
“Non.”
“Nor’s it up to you.”
“Ah, but Hercule Poirot, he has saved lives. He has saved innocent men from the gallows.”
“A good half of them’s probably guilty,” said Fee cheerfully, as if the idea amused her.
“Non, mademoiselle. Vous êtes misanthrope.”
“If you say so. All’s I know is, if I worried about everyone as comes in here needing to be worried about, I’d not have a moment’s peace. It’s one sorry predicament after another and most of it’s coming from their own heads, not real problems.”
“If something is in a person’s head, then it is real,
” Poirot said.
“Not if it’s daft nonsense dreamed up out of nowhere, which it often is,” said Fee. “No, what I meant about Jennie is, I noticed something last night . . . except I can’t think what it might be. I remember thinking, ‘It’s funny Jennie doing that, or saying that . . .’ Only trouble is, I can’t remember what set me off thinking it—what she did, or what she said. I’ve tried and tried till it’s made my head spin! Ah, look, they’re going, Mr. and Mrs. Oh-Cecil. You go and sit yourself down. Coffee?”
“Yes, please. Mademoiselle, will you please continue in your efforts to remember what Jennie did or said? It matters more than I can express.”
“More than straight shelves?” Fee asked with sudden sharpness. “More than cutlery laid out square on the table?”
“Ah. You think these things are the dreamed-up nonsense?” Poirot asked.
Fee’s face reddened. “Sorry if I spoke out of turn,” she said. “It’s only . . . well, you’d be a good deal happier, wouldn’t you, if you stopped fussing about how a fork sits on a tablecloth?”
Poirot gave her the benefit of his best polite smile. “I would be very much happier if you were to remember what it was about Mademoiselle Jennie that has stuck in your mind.” With that, he made a dignified exit from the conversation and sat down at his table.
He waited for an hour and a half, during which time he ate a good lunch but saw no sign of Jennie.
It was nearly two o’clock when I arrived at Pleasant’s with a man in tow whom Poirot at first took to be Henry Negus, Richard’s brother. There was some confusion as I explained that I had left Constable Stanley Beer to wait for Negus and bring him along when he arrived, and that I had done so because the only person I could think about at the moment was the man standing beside me.
I introduced him—Mr. Samuel Kidd, a boilermaker—and watched with amusement as Poirot recoiled from the dirt-marked shirt with the missing button, and the partly unshaven face. Mr. Kidd had nothing as ordinary as a beard or a mustache, but he plainly had trouble using a razor. The evidence suggested that he had started to shave, cut himself badly, and abandoned the enterprise. As a consequence, one side of his face was smooth and hairless but wounded, while the other was injury free and covered with dark bristles. Which side looked worse was not an easy question to settle. “Mr. Kidd has a very interesting story to tell us,” I said. “I was standing outside the Bloxham waiting for Henry Negus, when—”
The Monogram Murders Page 7