The Monogram Murders(41)

Margaret Ernst appeared in the kitchen. “Oh, I was looking for that,” she said with a smile, bending to retrieve the scarf. “I knew it would be you. I left the door open. In fact, I expected you to arrive five minutes ago, but I suppose nine o’clock on the dot would have looked too eager, wouldn’t it?” She ushered me inside, draping the scarf around her neck.

Something about her teasing—though I knew it was not intended to offend—emboldened me to be more direct than I might otherwise have been. “I am eager to discover the truth, and I don’t mind looking it,” I said. “Who might have wished to murder Harriet Sippel, Ida Gransbury and Richard Negus? I believe you have an idea about that, and I’d like to know it.”

“What are those papers?”

“What? Oh!” I had forgotten I was holding them. “Lists. Guests at the Bloxham Hotel around the time of the murders, and people employed by the Bloxham. I was wondering if you might take a look and let me know if you see a name you recognize—after you’ve answered my question about who might have wanted to murder—”

“Nancy Ducane,” said Margaret. She took the two lists from my hand and studied them, frowning.

I said the very same words to her that Poirot had said to Samuel Kidd the day before, though I did not know then that he had said them. “Nancy Ducane the artist?”

“Wait a moment.” We stood in silence while Margaret read the two lists. “None of these names is familiar to me, I’m afraid.”

“Are you saying that Nancy Ducane—the same Nancy Ducane I’m thinking of, the society portrait painter—had a motive for killing Harriet Sippel, Ida Gransbury and Richard Negus?”

Margaret folded the two pieces of paper, handed them back to me, then beckoned me to follow her into the parlor. Once we were sitting comfortably in the same chairs as on the previous day, she said, “Yes. Nancy Ducane the famous artist. She is the only person I can think of who would have had both the desire to kill Harriet, Ida and Richard and the ability to do it and get away with it. Don’t look so surprised, Mr. Catchpool. Famous people aren’t exempt from evil. Though I must say I can’t believe that Nancy would do such a thing. She was a civilized woman when I knew her, and no one ever changes all that much. She was a brave woman.”

I said nothing. The trouble is, I thought, that some killers are civilized for the most part, and only break from their routine of civility once, to commit murder.

Margaret said, “I lay awake all of last night wondering if Walter Stoakley might have done it, but, no, it’s impossible. He can’t stand up without help, let alone get himself to London. To commit three murders would be quite beyond him.”

“Walter Stoakley?” I sat forward in my chair. “The drunken old cove at the King’s Head that I spoke to yesterday? Why should he want to murder Harriet Sippel, Ida Gransbury and Richard Negus?”

“Because Frances Ive was his daughter,” said Margaret. She turned to look out of the window at the Ives’ gravestone, and once again the line from the Shakespeare sonnet came into my mind: For slander’s mark was ever yet the fair.

“I would be glad if Walter had committed the murders,” said Margaret. “Isn’t that dreadful of me? I would be relieved that Nancy hadn’t done it. Walter’s old, and there’s not much life left in him, I don’t think. Oh, I don’t want it to be Nancy! I’ve read in the papers about how well Nancy is doing as an artist. She left here and really made a name for herself. That was a source of comfort to me. I was happy to think of her prospering in London.”

“Left here?” I said. “So Nancy Ducane also lived in Great Holling at one time?”

Margaret Ernst was still staring out of the window. “Yes. Until 1913.”

“The same year that Patrick and Frances Ive died. The same year that Richard Negus also left the village.”

“Yes.”

“Margaret . . .” I leaned forward in an attempt to draw her attention away from the Ives’ gravestone. “I’m hoping for all I’m worth that you have decided to tell me the story of Patrick and Frances Ive. I’m certain that once I have heard it, I will understand many things that are a mystery to me at present.”

She turned her serious eyes toward me. “I have decided to tell you the story, on one condition. You must promise not to repeat it to anybody in the village. What I say to you in this room must go no further until you arrive in London. There, you may tell whomever you wish.”

“No need to worry on that score,” I said. “My opportunities for conversation in Great Holling are limited. Everyone takes off as soon as they see me coming.” It had happened twice on the way to Margaret Ernst’s cottage that morning. One of the gaspers was a boy of no more than ten years old: a child, and yet he knew who I was and that he should avert his eyes and hurry past me to safety. He would, I felt sure, have known my Christian name, my surname, and the nature of my business in Great Holling. Small villages have at least one talent that London lacks: they know how to ignore a chap in a way that makes him feel terribly important.

“I am asking for a solemn promise, Mr. Catchpool—not an evasion.”

“Why is there a need for secrecy? Don’t all the villagers know about the Ives and whatever it was that happened to them?”