“Should those numbers mean something to me?” Nancy asked.
“Two of the three murders were committed in those rooms, madame: 121 and 317. The witness who saw you run from the Bloxham Hotel on the night of the murders, he said that the two keys he saw you drop had numbers on them: one hundred and something, and three hundred and something.”
“Why, what an extraordinary coincidence! Oh, Monsieur Poirot!” Nancy laughed. “Are you sure you’re clever? Can’t you see what’s in front of your nose? Does that enormous mustache of yours impede your view? Someone has taken it upon himself to frame me for murder. It’s almost intriguing! I might have some fun trying to work out who it is—as soon as we’ve agreed I’m not on my way to the gallows.”
“Who has had the opportunity to put keys into your coat pocket between last Thursday and now?” Poirot asked her.
“How should I know? Anyone who passed me in the street, I dare say. I wear that blue coat a lot. You know, it’s ever so slightly irrational.”
“Please explain.”
For a few moments she appeared lost in a reverie. Then she came to and said, “Anyone who disliked Harriet, Ida and Richard enough to kill them . . . well, they would almost certainly be favorably disposed toward me. And yet here they are trying to frame me for murder.”
“Shall I arrest her, sir?” Stanley Beer asked Poirot. “Take her in?”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” said Nancy wearily. “I say ‘frame me for murder’ and you immediately assume you must do it? Are you a policeman or a parrot? If you want to arrest somebody, arrest your witness. What if he’s not only a liar but a murderer? Have you thought of that? You must go across the road at once and hear the truth from St. John and Louisa Wallace. That’s the only way to put a stop to this nonsense.”
Poirot lifted himself out of his chair with some difficulty; it was one of those armchairs that didn’t make it easy for a person of his size and shape. “We will do that précisément,” he said. Then, to Stanley Beer, “No one is to be arrested at the present time, Constable. I do not believe, madame, that you would keep these two keys if you had indeed committed murder in rooms 121 and 317 of the Bloxham Hotel. Why would you not dispose of them?”
“Quite. I would have disposed of them at the first opportunity, wouldn’t I?”
“I shall call upon Mr. and Mrs. Wallace immediately.”
“Actually,” said Nancy, “it’s Lord and Lady Wallace you’ll be calling on. Louisa wouldn’t care, but St. John won’t forgive you if you deprive him of his title.”
NOT LONG AFTERWARD, POIROT was standing by the side of Louisa Wallace as she stared, enraptured, at Nancy Ducane’s portrait of her that hung on the wall of her drawing room. “Isn’t it perfect?” she breathed. “Neither flattering nor insulting. With high color and a round face like mine, there is always a danger I shall end up looking like a farmer’s wife, but I don’t. I don’t look ravishing, but I do look quite nice, I think. St. John used the word ‘voluptuous,’ a word he has never used about me before—but the picture made him think of it.” She laughed. “Isn’t it wonderful that there are people in the world as talented as Nancy?”
Poirot was having trouble concentrating on the painting. Louisa Wallace’s equivalent of Nancy Ducane’s smartly starched maid Tabitha was a clumsy girl named Dorcas who had dropped Poirot’s coat twice so far, and once dropped and stood on his hat.
The Wallace home might have been beautiful under a different regime, but as Poirot found it that day, it left a lot to be desired. Apart from the heavier items of furniture that stood sensibly against walls, everything in the house looked as if it had been blown about by a strong wind before falling in a random and inconvenient place. Poirot couldn’t abide disorder; it prevented him from thinking clearly.
Eventually, having scooped up his coat and trodden-on hat, the maid Dorcas withdrew, and Poirot was left alone with Louisa Wallace. Stanley Beer had stayed at Nancy Ducane’s house to complete his search of the rooms, and His Lordship was not at home; he had apparently set off for the family’s country estate that morning. Poirot had spotted a few “dreary old leaves and chilly-eyed cods and haddocks” on the walls, as Nancy had called them, and he wondered if those pictures were the work of St. John Wallace.
“I’m so sorry about Dorcas,” Louisa said. “She’s very new and quite the most hopeless girl ever to inflict herself upon us, but I won’t admit defeat. It has only been three days. She will learn, with time and patience. If only she wouldn’t worry so! I know that’s what it is: she tells herself that she absolutely mustn’t drop the important gentleman’s hat and coat, and that puts the idea of dropping them into her mind, and then it happens. It’s maddening!”
“Quite so,” Poirot agreed. “Lady Wallace, about last Thursday . . .”
“Oh, yes, that’s where we’d got to—and then I brought you in here to show you the portrait. Yes, Nancy was here that evening.”
“From what time and until what time, madame?”
“I can’t recall precisely. I know we agreed that she would come at six to bring the painting, and I don’t remember noticing that she was late at all. I’m afraid I don’t remember when she left. If I had to guess, I would say ten o’clock or shortly thereafter.”
“And she was here that whole time—that is to say, until she left? She did not, for instance, leave and then return?”
“No.” Louisa Wallace looked puzzled. “She came at six with the picture, and then we were together until she left for good. What is this about?”
“Can you confirm that Mrs. Ducane left here no earlier than half past eight?”
“Oh, gracious, yes. She left much later than that. At half past eight we were still at the table.”
“Who is ‘we?’ ”
“Nancy, St. John and me.”
“Your husband, if I were to speak to him, would confirm this?”
“Yes. I hope you’re not suggesting that I’m not telling you the truth, Monsieur Poirot.”
“No, no. Pas du tout.”
“Good,” said Louisa Wallace decisively. She turned back to the picture of herself on the wall. “Color’s her special talent, you know. Oh, she can capture personality in a face, but her greatest strength is her use of color. Look at the way the light falls on my green dress.”
Poirot saw what she meant. The green seemed brighter one moment, then darker the next. There was not one consistent shade. The light seemed to change as one regarded the picture; such was Nancy Ducane’s skill. The portrait depicted Louisa Wallace sitting in a chair, wearing a green low-necked dress, with a blue jug and bowl set behind her on a wooden table. Poirot walked up and down the room, inspecting the picture from different angles and positions.
“I wanted to pay Nancy her usual rate for a portrait, but she wouldn’t hear of it,” said Louisa Wallace. “I’m so lucky to have such a generous friend. You know, I think my husband is a little jealous of it—the painting, I mean. The whole house is full of his pictures—we’ve barely a free wall left. Only his pictures, until this one arrived. He and Nancy have this silly rivalry between them. I take no notice. They’re both brilliant in their different ways.”
So Nancy Ducane had given the painting to Louisa Wallace as a gift, thought Poirot. Did she really want nothing in return, or did she perhaps hope for an alibi? Some loyal friends would be unable to resist if asked to tell one small, harmless lie after being given such a lavish present. Poirot wondered if he ought to tell Louisa Wallace that he was here in connection with a murder case. He had not yet done so.
He was distracted from his train of thought by the sudden appearance of Dorcas the maid, who bounded into the room with an air of urgency and anxiety. “Excuse me, sir!”
“What is the matter?” Poirot half expected her to say that she had accidentally set fire to his hat and coat.
“Would you like a cup of tea or coffee, sir?”
“This is what you have come to ask me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“No, sir.” Dorcas sounded confused.
“Bon. In that case, yes, please, I will take a coffee. Thank you.”
“Right you are, sir.”
“Did you see that?” Louisa Wallace grumbled as the girl lolloped out of the room. “Can you credit it? I thought she was about to announce that she had to leave at once for her mother’s deathbed! She really is the limit. I should dismiss her without further ado, but even help that’s no help at all is better than none. It’s impossible to find decent girls these days.”
Poirot made appropriate noises of concern. He did not wish to discuss domestic servants. He was far more interested in his own ideas, especially the one that had struck him while Louisa Wallace had been complaining about Dorcas and he had been staring at a blue painted jug and bowl set.
“Madame, if I might take a little more of your time . . . these other pictures here on the walls, they are by your husband?”
“Yes.”
“As you say, he too is an excellent artist. I would be honored, madame, if you would show me around your beautiful house. I would very much like to look at your husband’s paintings. You said they are on every wall?”
“Yes. I’ll happily give you the St. John Wallace art tour, and you will see that I wasn’t exaggerating.” Louisa beamed and clapped her hands together. “What fun! Though I do wish St. John were here—he would be able to tell you so much more about the pictures than I can. Still, I shall do my best. You would be amazed, Monsieur Poirot, by the number of people who come to the house and don’t look at the paintings or ask about them or anything. Dorcas is a case in point. There could be five hundred framed dishcloths hanging on the walls and she wouldn’t notice the difference. Let’s start in the hall, shall we?”
It was lucky, thought Poirot as he made the tour of the house and had many species of spider, plant and fish pointed out to him, that he was an appreciator of art. As far as the rivalry between St. John Wallace and Nancy Ducane went, he knew what he thought about that. Wallace’s pictures were meticulous and worthy, but they made one feel nothing. Nancy Ducane’s was the greater talent. She had encapsulated the essence of Louisa Wallace and made her live on canvas as vividly as she lived in real life. Poirot found himself wanting to look at the portrait again before he left the house, and not only to check that he was not mistaken about the important detail he thought he had noticed.
Dorcas appeared on the upstairs landing. “Your coffee, sir.” Poirot, who had been inside St. John Wallace’s study, stepped forward to take the cup from her hand. She lurched back as if she hadn’t expected him to move toward her, and spilled most of the drink on her white apron. “Oh, dear! I’m sorry, sir, I’m a right old butterfingers. I’ll make you another cup.”
“No, no, please. There is no need.” Poirot seized what was left of his coffee and ingested it in one gulp, before any more of it could be spilled.
“This one is my favorite, I think,” said Louisa Wallace, still in the study. She was pointing at a painting that Poirot couldn’t see. “Blue Bindweed: Solanum Dulcamara. The fourth of August last year, you see? This was my wedding anniversary present from St. John. Thirty years. Beautiful, isn’t it?”
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like another cup of coffee, sir?” said Dorcas.
“The fourth of . . . Sacré tonnerre,” Poirot murmured to himself as a feeling of excitement started to grow inside him. He returned to the study and looked at the picture of blue bindweed.
“He has answered that question once, Dorcas. He does not want more coffee.”
“It’s no trouble, ma’am, honest it isn’t. He wanted coffee, and there was nothing left in the cup by the time he got it.”
“If nothing is there, one sees nothing,” mused Poirot cryptically. “One thinks of nothing. To notice a nothing—that is a difficult thing, even for Poirot, until one sees, somewhere else, the thing that should have been there.” He took Dorcas’s hand and kissed it. “My dear young lady, what you have brought to me is more valuable than coffee!”
“Ooh.” Dorcas tilted her head and stared. “Your eyes have gone all funny and green, sir.”
“Whatever can you mean, Monsieur Poirot?” Louisa Wallace asked. “Dorcas, go and get on with something useful.”
“Yes, madam.” The girl hurried away.
“I am indebted both to Dorcas and to you, madame,” said Poirot. “When I arrived here only—what is it?—half an hour ago, I did not see clearly. I saw only confusion and puzzles. Now, I begin to put things together . . . It is very important that I should think without interruption.”
“Oh.” Louisa looked disappointed. “Well, if you need to hurry off—”
“Oh, no, no, you misunderstand me. Pardon, madame. The fault is mine: I did not make myself clear. Of course we must finish the tour of the art. There is much still to explore! After that, I shall depart and do my thinking.”
“Are you sure?” Louisa regarded him with something akin to alarm. “Well, all right, then, if it’s not too much of a bore.” She recommenced her enthusiastic commentary on her husband’s pictures as Poirot and Louisa moved from room to room.
In one of the guest bedrooms, the last upstairs room that they came to, there was a white jug and bowl set with a red, green and white crest on it. There was also a wooden table, and a chair; Poirot recognized both from Nancy Ducane’s painting of Louisa. He said, “Pardon, madame, but where is the blue jug and bowl from the portrait?”
“The blue jug and bowl,” Louisa repeated, seemingly confused.
“I think you posed for Nancy Ducane’s painting in this room, n’est-ce pas?”
“Yes, I did. And . . . wait a minute! This jug and bowl set is the one from the other guest bedroom!”
“And yet it is not there. It is here.”
“So it is. But . . . then where is the blue jug and bowl?”
“I do not know, madame.”
“Well, it must be in a different bedroom. Mine, perhaps. Dorcas must have swapped them around.” She set off at a brisk pace in search of the missing items.
Poirot followed. “There is no other jug and bowl set in any of the bedrooms,” he said.
After a thorough check, Louisa Wallace said through gritted teeth, “That useless girl! I’ll tell you what’s happened, Monsieur Poirot. Dorcas has broken it and she’s too scared to tell me. Let us go and ask her, shall we? She will deny it, of course, but it’s the only possible explanation. Jugs and bowls don’t disappear, and they don’t move from room to room on their own.”
“When did you last see the blue jug and bowl, madame?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t noticed them in a long while. I hardly ever go into the guest bedrooms.”
“Is it possible that Nancy Ducane removed the blue jug and bowl when she left here on Thursday night?”
“No. Why would she? That’s silly! I stood at the door and said goodbye to her, and she was not holding anything apart from her house key. Besides, Nancy isn’t a thief. Dorcas, on the other hand . . . That will be it! She hasn’t broken it, she has stolen it, I’m sure—but how can I prove it? She’s bound to deny it.”
“Madame, do me one favor: do not accuse Dorcas of stealing or of anything else. I do not think she is guilty.”
“Well, then where is my blue jug and bowl?”
“This is what I must think about,” said Poirot. “I will leave you in peace in a moment, but first may I take a last look at Nancy Ducane’s remarkable portrait of you?”
“Yes, with pleasure.”
Together, Louisa Wallace and Hercule Poirot made their way back down to the drawing room. They stood in front of the painting. “Dratted girl,” muttered Louisa. “All I can see when I look at it now is the blue jug and bowl.”
“Oui. It stands out, does it not?”
“It used to be in my house, and now it isn’t, and all I can do is stare at a picture of it and wonder what became of it! Oh, dear, what a
n upsetting day this has turned out to be!”
BLANCHE UNSWORTH, AS WAS her custom, asked Poirot the moment he returned to the lodging house if there was anything she could get for him.
“Indeed there is,” he told her. “I should like a piece of paper and some pencils to draw with. Colored pencils.”
Blanche’s face fell. “I can bring you paper, but as for colored pencils, I can’t say as I’ve got any, unless you’re interested in the color of ordinary pencil lead.”
“Ah! Gray: the best of all.”
“Are you having me on, Mr. Poirot? Gray?”
“Oui.” Poirot tapped the side of his head. “The color of the little gray cells.”
“Oh, no. Give me a nice soft pink or lilac any day of the week.”
“Colors do not matter—a green dress, a blue jug and bowl set, a white one.”
“I’m not following you, Mr. Poirot.”
“I do not ask you to follow me, Mrs. Unsworth—only to bring me one of your ordinary pencils and a piece of paper, quickly. And an envelope. I have been talking at great length about art today. Hercule Poirot will attempt now to compose his own work of art!”
Twenty minutes later, seated at one of the tables in the dining room, Poirot called for Blanche Unsworth again. When she appeared, he handed her the envelope, which was sealed. “Please telephone to Scotland Yard for me,” he said. “Ask them to send somebody to collect this without delay and deliver it to Constable Stanley Beer. I have written his name on the envelope. Please explain that this is important. It is in connection with the Bloxham Hotel murders.”
“I thought you were drawing a picture,” said Blanche.
“My picture is sealed inside the envelope, accompanied by a letter.”
“Oh. Well, then, I can’t see the picture, can I?”
Poirot smiled. “It is not necessary for you to see it, madame, unless you work for Scotland Yard—which, to my knowledge, you do not.”
“Oh.” Blanche Unsworth looked vexed. “Well. I suppose I should make this call for you, then,” she said.
The Monogram Murders: The New Hercule Poirot Mystery Page 16