The Monogram Murders(17)

“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.”