The Monogram Murders(27)
“He seemed happier?” Poirot asked.
“I wish I could say yes to that, Monsieur Poirot. If I could believe that Richard was happier than he had been for years on the day that he died, that would be a significant consolation to me. But no, it wasn’t happiness. It was more as if he was planning something. He seemed to have a purpose again, after years without one. That was my impression, though, as I say, I know nothing of what that purpose might have been.”
“Yet you are certain you did not imagine this change?”
“Yes, I am. It manifested itself in several ways. Richard got up and came down to breakfast more often. He had more vim and energy about him. His personal hygiene improved. Most noticeable of all was that he stopped drinking. I cannot tell you how grateful I was for that alone. My wife and I prayed that he would succeed, whatever his venture—that finally the curse of Great Holling would release its grip on him and let him enjoy a fruitful life.”
“The curse, monsieur? You believe the village to be cursed?”
Henry Negus’s face reddened. “Not really, no. Of course, there’s no such thing, is there? It’s my wife’s phrase. Deprived of a good yarn to get her teeth into, she dreamed up the notion of a curse, based on Richard’s fleeing the place, and his broken engagement, and the only other fact she knows about Great Holling.”
“What other fact?” I asked.
“Oh.” Henry Negus looked surprised. Then he said, “No, I don’t suppose you would know about it. Why should you? The terrible tragedy of the young vicar of the parish and his wife. Richard wrote and told us about it a few months before he left the village,” said Henry. “They died within hours of one another.”
“Did they indeed? What was the cause of their deaths?” asked Poirot.
“I don’t know. Richard didn’t include that detail in his letter, assuming he knew it. He wrote only that it was a terrible tragedy. As a matter of fact, I asked him about it later, but I’m afraid he rather growled at me, which left me none the wiser. I think he was too caught up in his own misfortunes to care to discuss anybody else’s.”
Assembling Our Thoughts
“OR ELSE,” SAID POIROT as he and I walked briskly from Pleasant’s in the direction of our lodging house half an hour later, “all these unhappy events sixteen years ago are connected: the tragic fate of the vicar and his wife, Richard Negus’s suddenly ending his engagement to Ida Gransbury, Richard Negus’s deciding that he loathes Great Holling and must flee to Devon—to become an idle spendthrift who drinks himself to death in his brother’s house!”
“You think Richard Negus took to the bottle because the vicar died?” I said. “Tempting as it is to make everything tie up, isn’t it more likely that the one has nothing to do with the other?”
“I would not say so, no.” Poirot threw me a sharp look. “Ingest the fresh air of this fine winter’s day, Catchpool. It will perhaps help to introduce oxygen to your little gray cells. Take a deep breath, my friend.”
I humored him by doing as he asked. I was, of course, breathing anyway, so it was rather silly.
“Bon. Now think of this: it is not merely that the young vicar died tragically, it is that he died only hours after his wife died. This is most unusual. Richard Negus mentions the incident in a letter to his brother Henry. Several months later, he is no longer engaged to be married to Ida Gransbury. He makes his escape to Devon, where he embarks upon a decline. He refuses to admit a Bible to his room, and will not attend church even to placate the lady of the house.”
“Why do you say that as though it has special significance?” I asked.
“Ah! The oxygen, it takes much time to make its way to the gray cells! Never mind: it will arrive eventually where it is most needed, in that pincushion of a brain of yours. Church, Catchpool! A vicar and his wife die tragically in Great Holling. Shortly afterward, Richard Negus develops an aversion to the village, to church and to the Bible.”
“Oh, I see what you’re driving at.”
“Bon. Alors, Richard Negus then takes himself to Devon where for many years he pursues the decline, during which time his brother does not make any unwelcome intrusion that might save him from the devastation he wreaks upon himself—”
“You think Henry Negus was negligent in that respect?”
“It is not his fault,” said Poirot with a wave of his hand. “He is English. You English would sit by in polite silence while every species of avoidable disaster takes place in front of your eyes rather than make the social lapse of being seen to interfere!”
“I’m not sure that’s quite fair.” I raised my voice to make myself heard against the bluster of the wind and the voices of other people on the busy London street.
Poirot ignored my complaint. “For many years, Henry Negus worries in silence about his brother. He hopes, and no doubt also he prays, and when he has almost given up hope, it appears that his prayers are answered: Richard Negus has the visible upward perking a few months ago. He seems to be planning something. Perhaps the plan involved booking three rooms at the Bloxham Hotel in London for himself and two women he knew from his days in Great Holling, since we know that this is what he did. And then last night he is found dead at the Bloxham Hotel with a mongrammed cufflink in his mouth, in close proximity to his former fiancée, Ida Gransbury, and to Harriet Sippel, another villager who was once his neighbor. Both women have been murdered in the same way.”