The Monogram Murders(14)
“Thank you.”
“Pas du tout. Catchpool, will you please tell me what you believe happened here at the Bloxham Hotel yesterday evening? Let us leave motive to one side for the moment. Tell me what you think the killer did. First, and next, and next, and so on.”
“I have no idea.”
“Try to have an idea, Catchpool.”
“Well . . . I suppose he came to the hotel, cufflinks in pocket, and went to each of the three rooms in turn. He probably started where we did, with Ida Gransbury in Room 317, and worked his way down so that he would be able to leave the hotel fairly quickly after killing his final victim—Harriet Sippel in Room 121, on the first floor. Only one floor down and he can escape.”
“And what does he do in the three rooms?”
I sighed. “You know the answer to that. He commits a murder and arranges the body in a straight line. He places a cufflink in the person’s mouth. Then he closes and locks the door and leaves.”
“And to each room he is admitted without question? In each room, he finds his victim waiting with a most convenient drink for him to drop his poison into—drinks that were delivered by hotel staff at precisely a quarter past seven? He stands beside his victim, watching as the drink is consumed, and then he stands for a little longer as he waits for each one to die? And he stops to eat supper with one of them, Ida Gransbury, who has ordered a cup of tea for him too? All these visits to rooms, all these murders and putting of cufflinks in mouths and very formal arranging of bodies in straight lines, with feet pointing toward the door, he is able to do between a quarter past seven and ten past eight? This seems most unlikely, my friend. Most unlikely indeed.”
“Yes, it does. Have you got any better ideas, Poirot? That’s why you’re here—to have better ideas than mine. Do please start any time you wish.” I was regretting my outburst by the time I’d finished the sentence.
“I started long ago,” said Poirot, who thankfully had not taken umbrage. “You said that the killer left a note on the front desk, informing of his crimes—show it to me.”
I took it out of my pocket and passed it across to him. John Goode, Lazzari’s idea of perfection in the form of a hotel clerk, had found it on the front desk ten minutes after eight o’clock. It read, “MAY THEY NEVER REST IN PEACE. 121. 238. 317.”
“So the murderer, or an accomplice of the murderer, was brazen enough to approach the desk—the main desk in the lobby of the hotel—with a note that would incriminate him if anyone saw him leaving it,” said Poirot. “He is audacious. Confident. He did not disappear into the shadows, using the back door.”
“After Lazzari read the note, he checked the three rooms and found the bodies,” I said. “Then he checked all the other rooms in the hotel, he was very proud to tell me. Fortunately, no other dead guests were found.”
I knew I oughtn’t to say vulgar things, but it made me feel better somehow. If Poirot had been English, I probably would have made a greater effort to keep myself in check.
“And did it occur to Monsieur Lazzari that one of his still-living guests might be a murderer? Non. It did not. Any person who chooses to stay at the Bloxham Hotel must have a character of the utmost virtue and integrity!”
I coughed and inclined my head toward the door. Poirot turned. Lazzari had let himself into the room and was standing in the doorway. He could hardly have looked happier. “So true, so true, Monsieur Poirot,” he said.
“Every single person who was in this hotel on Thursday must speak to Mr. Catchpool and account for their movements,” Poirot told him sternly. “Every guest, everyone who was here to work. All of them.”
“With the greatest pleasure, you may speak to whomsoever you wish, Mr. Catchpool.” Lazzari bowed in deference. “And our dining room will soon be at your disposal, once we have cleared away the breakfast—ah, how do you say?—paraphernalia, and gathered everybody together.”
“Merci. Meanwhile, I will conduct a thorough examination of the three rooms,” said Poirot. This came as a surprise to me. I thought that was what we had just done. “Catchpool, find out the addresses of Harriet Sippel, Ida Gransbury and Richard Negus. Find out who in the hotel took their reservations, what food and drinks they each requested to be delivered to their rooms, and when. And from whom.”
I started to edge toward the door, fearing that Poirot would never stop dreaming up more tasks to add to the list.
He called after me, “Find out if anyone by the name of Jennie is staying in the hotel, or working here.”
“There is not a Jennie employed at the Bloxham, Monsieur Poirot,” said Lazzari. “Instead of asking Mr. Catchpool you should ask me. Everybody here is well known to me. We are a very large happy family here at the Bloxham Hotel!”
The Frame Widens
SOMETIMES, REMEMBERING SOMETHING A person said months or even years ago still makes you chuckle, and this, for me, is true of what Poirot said to me at some point later on that day: “It is hard for even the most ingenious detective to know what to do if his desire is to be free of Signor Lazzari. If one’s praise of his hotel is insufficient, he stays by one’s side and supplements it with his own; if one’s praise is fulsome and lengthy, he stays to listen.”
Poirot’s efforts were eventually successful, and he finally managed to persuade Lazzari to leave him to his own devices in Room 238. He walked over to the door that the hotel manager had left open, closed it, and sighed with relief. How much easier it was to think clearly when there was no babble of voices.