The Monogram Murders(21)
“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.