The Monogram Murders(37)

“What a blow that must have been for her,” I said.

“Yes,” Margaret agreed. “A loss of that magnitude might have a terrible effect upon a person. It’s interesting that some describe her as having been na?ve.”

“Why do you say that?”

“ ‘Na?ve’ suggests a falsely rosy conception of life. If one believed in a wholly benign world and then tragedy of the worst kind struck, one might feel anger and resentment as well as sadness, as if one had been duped. And of course, when we suffer greatly ourselves, it becomes so much easier to blame and persecute others.”

I was attempting to conceal my strenuous disagreement when she added, “For some, I should say. Not for all. I expect you find it easier to persecute yourself, don’t you, Mr. Catchpool?”

“I hope I don’t persecute anybody,” I said, bemused. “So am I to take it that the loss of her husband had an unfortunate effect upon Harriet Sippel’s character?”

“Yes. I never knew sweet, kind Harriet. The Harriet Sippel I knew was spiteful and sanctimonious. She treated the world and nearly everyone in it as an enemy, deserving of her suspicion. Instead of seeing only the good, she saw the threat of evil everywhere, and behaved as if she had been charged with unearthing and defeating it. If there was a newcomer to the village, she would start out with the belief that he or she was bound to be heinous in some respect. She would tell others of her suspicions, as many as would listen, and encourage them to look out for signs. Put a person in front of her and she would search for wickedness in that person. If she found none, she would invent it. Her only pleasure after George died was condemning others as wicked, as if doing so made her a better person somehow. The way her eyes would shine whenever she’d sniffed out some new wrongdoing . . .”

Margaret shuddered. “It was as if, in the absence of her husband, she had found something else that could ignite her passion and so she clung to it. But it was a dark, destructive passion that sprang from hatred, not love. The worst part was that people flocked around her, readily agreeing with all her unpleasant accusations.”

“Why did they?” I asked.

“They didn’t want to be next. They knew Harriet was never without prey. I don’t think she could have survived for as long as a week without a focus for her righteous spite.”

I thought of the bespectacled young man who had said, “No one wants to be next.”

Margaret said: “They were happy to condemn whichever poor soul she had fixed upon if it diverted her attention from them and whatever they might be up to. That was Harriet’s idea of a friend: someone who joined her in vilifying those she deemed to be guilty of a sin, minor or major.”

“You’re describing, if I may say so, the sort of person who is likely to end up getting murdered.”

“Am I? I think people like Harriet Sippel aren’t murdered nearly often enough.” Margaret raised her eyebrows. “I see I’ve shocked you again, Mr. Catchpool. As a vicar’s wife, I shouldn’t say these things, I dare say. I try to be a good Christian, but I have my weaknesses, as we all do. Mine is the inability to forgive the inability to forgive. Does that sound contradictory?”

“It sounds like a tongue-twister. Do you mind if I ask you where you were last Thursday evening?”

Margaret sighed and looked out of the window. “I was where I always am: sitting where you’re sitting now, watching the graveyard.”

“Alone?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you.”

“Would you like me to tell you about Ida Gransbury now?”

I nodded, with some trepidation. I wondered how I would feel if it turned out that all three of the murder victims were vindictive monsters while alive. The words “MAY THEY NEVER REST IN PEACE” passed through my mind, swiftly followed by Poirot’s account of his meeting with Jennie, her insistence that justice would finally be done once she was dead . . .

“Ida was a dreadful prig,” said Margaret. “She was every inch as sanctimonious as Harriet in her outward behavior, but she was driven by fear and by faith in the rules we are all supposed to obey rather than by the thrill of persecution. Denouncing the sins of others wasn’t a pleasure for Ida as it was for Harriet. She saw it as her moral duty as a good Christian.”

“When you say fear, do you mean fear of divine retribution?”

“Oh, that, certainly, but not only that,” said Margaret. “Different people regard rules differently, no matter what those rules happen to be. Mutinous characters like me always resent constraints, even perfectly sensible ones, but there are some who welcome their existence and enforcement because it makes them feel safer. Protected.”

“And Ida Gransbury was the second sort?”

“I think so, yes. She would not have said so. She was always careful to present herself as a woman driven by strong principle and nothing else. No shameful human weaknesses for Ida! I am sorry she is dead, though she did untold harm while alive. Unlike Harriet, Ida believed in redemption. She wanted to save sinners, while Harriet wanted only to revile them and feel elevated by comparison. I think Ida would have forgiven a demonstrably repentant sinner. She was reassured by contrition of the standard Christian sort. It bolstered her view of the world.”

“What untold harm did Ida do?” I asked. “To whom?”