The Monogram Murders(26)

There was a pause that stretched forward. Then Henry Negus said, “No.”

“What about a person with the initials PIJ?”

“No. The only one from the village that he ever mentioned was Ida, his fiancée.”

“If I may ask a delicate question, monsieur: why did your brother’s engagement not result in a marriage?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know. Richard and I were close but we tended to discuss ideas more than anything else. Philosophy, politics, theology . . . We did not generally inquire into one another’s private business. All he told me about Ida was that he was engaged to be married to her, and then, in 1913, that they were no longer engaged.”

“Attendez. In 1913, his engagement to Ida Gransbury ends, and also he leaves Great Holling to move to Devon and live with you?”

“And my wife and children, yes.”

“Did he leave Great Holling in order to put more distance between himself and Miss Gransbury?”

Henry Negus considered the question. “I think that was part of it, but it wasn’t the whole story. Richard hated Great Holling by the time he left it, and that can’t have been only Ida Gransbury’s doing. He loathed every inch of the place, he said. He didn’t tell me why, and I didn’t ask. Richard had a way of letting you know when he had said all he wanted to say. His verdict on the village was delivered very much in the spirit of ‘That’s all there is to it,’ as I recall. Perhaps if I had tried to find out more—” Negus broke off, an anguished expression on his face.

“You must not blame yourself, Mr. Negus,” said Poirot. “You did not cause your brother’s death.”

“I couldn’t help thinking that . . . well, that something dreadful must have happened to him in that village. And one doesn’t like to speak or think about things of that nature if one can help it.” Henry Negus sighed. “Richard certainly didn’t want to talk about it, whatever it was, so I took the view that it was better not talked about. He was the one with the authority, you see—the older brother. Everybody deferred to him. He had a brilliant mind, you know.”

“Indeed?” Poirot smiled kindly.

“Oh, no one paid attention to detail like Richard, before his decline. Meticulous, he was, in everything he did. You would entrust anything to him—anybody would. That was why he was so successful as a lawyer, before things went badly wrong. I always believed that he would right himself one day. When he seemed to perk up a few months ago, I thought, ‘Finally, he has regained his appetite for life.’ I hoped he might have been thinking about working again, before every last penny of his money ran out—”

“Mr. Negus, if you would please slow down a little,” said Poirot, polite but insistent. “Your brother did not at first work when he moved into your home?”

“No. As well as Great Holling and Ida Gransbury, Richard left behind his profession when he came to Devon. Instead of practicing the law, he shut himself away in his room and practiced drinking heavily.”

“Ah. The decline you mentioned?”

“Yes,” said Negus. “It was a very different Richard that arrived at my house from the one I had last encountered. He was so withdrawn and dour. It was as if he had built a wall around himself. He never left the house—saw no one, wrote to no one, received no letters. All he did was read books and stare into space. He refused to accompany us to church and would not relent even to please my wife. One day, after he had been with us for about a year, I found a Bible outside his door, on the landing floor. It had been in a drawer in the bedroom we had given him. I tried to put it back there, but Richard made it clear that he wished to banish it from the room. I must confess that after that incident, I asked my wife whether . . . well, whether we ought to ask him to find a home elsewhere. It was rather disconcerting to have him around. But Clara—that’s my wife—she wouldn’t hear of it. ‘Family’s family,’ she said. ‘We’re all Richard has. You don’t turn family out onto the street.’ She was quite right, of course.”

“You referred to your brother spending money excessively?” I said.

“Yes. He and I were both left very comfortably off.” Henry Negus shook his head. “The idea that my responsible older brother Richard would tear through his fortune with no care for the future . . . and yet that’s what he did. He seemed intent on converting what our father had left him into liquor and pouring it down his throat. He was heading for penury and serious illness, I feared. Some nights I lay awake worrying about the terrible end that might lie in store for him. Not murder, though. I never thought for a moment that Richard would be murdered, though perhaps I should have wondered.”

Poirot looked up, instantly alert. “Why would you wonder such a thing, monsieur? Most of us assume that our relations will not be murdered. It is a reasonable assumption in almost all cases.”

Henry Negus thought for a while before answering. Finally he said, “It would be fanciful to say that Richard seemed to know that he would be murdered, for who can know? But from the day that he moved into my home, he had the morose, doom-laden comportment of a man whose life had already ended. That is the only way I can describe it.”

“You say, however, that he, ah, perked up in the months preceding his death?”

“Yes. My wife noticed it too. She wanted me to ask him about it—women always do, don’t they?—but I knew Richard well enough to know he would not welcome the intrusion.”