The Monogram Murders(51)

“Who has had the opportunity to put keys into your coat pocket between last Thursday and now?” Poirot asked her.

“How should I know? Anyone who passed me in the street, I dare say. I wear that blue coat a lot. You know, it’s ever so slightly irrational.”

“Please explain.”

For a few moments she appeared lost in a reverie. Then she came to and said, “Anyone who disliked Harriet, Ida and Richard enough to kill them . . . well, they would almost certainly be favorably disposed toward me. And yet here they are trying to frame me for murder.”

“Shall I arrest her, sir?” Stanley Beer asked Poirot. “Take her in?”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” said Nancy wearily. “I say ‘frame me for murder’ and you immediately assume you must do it? Are you a policeman or a parrot? If you want to arrest somebody, arrest your witness. What if he’s not only a liar but a murderer? Have you thought of that? You must go across the road at once and hear the truth from St. John and Louisa Wallace. That’s the only way to put a stop to this nonsense.”

Poirot lifted himself out of his chair with some difficulty; it was one of those armchairs that didn’t make it easy for a person of his size and shape. “We will do that précisément,” he said. Then, to Stanley Beer, “No one is to be arrested at the present time, Constable. I do not believe, madame, that you would keep these two keys if you had indeed committed murder in rooms 121 and 317 of the Bloxham Hotel. Why would you not dispose of them?”

“Quite. I would have disposed of them at the first opportunity, wouldn’t I?”

“I shall call upon Mr. and Mrs. Wallace immediately.”

“Actually,” said Nancy, “it’s Lord and Lady Wallace you’ll be calling on. Louisa wouldn’t care, but St. John won’t forgive you if you deprive him of his title.”

NOT LONG AFTERWARD, POIROT was standing by the side of Louisa Wallace as she stared, enraptured, at Nancy Ducane’s portrait of her that hung on the wall of her drawing room. “Isn’t it perfect?” she breathed. “Neither flattering nor insulting. With high color and a round face like mine, there is always a danger I shall end up looking like a farmer’s wife, but I don’t. I don’t look ravishing, but I do look quite nice, I think. St. John used the word ‘voluptuous,’ a word he has never used about me before—but the picture made him think of it.” She laughed. “Isn’t it wonderful that there are people in the world as talented as Nancy?”

Poirot was having trouble concentrating on the painting. Louisa Wallace’s equivalent of Nancy Ducane’s smartly starched maid Tabitha was a clumsy girl named Dorcas who had dropped Poirot’s coat twice so far, and once dropped and stood on his hat.

The Wallace home might have been beautiful under a different regime, but as Poirot found it that day, it left a lot to be desired. Apart from the heavier items of furniture that stood sensibly against walls, everything in the house looked as if it had been blown about by a strong wind before falling in a random and inconvenient place. Poirot couldn’t abide disorder; it prevented him from thinking clearly.

Eventually, having scooped up his coat and trodden-on hat, the maid Dorcas withdrew, and Poirot was left alone with Louisa Wallace. Stanley Beer had stayed at Nancy Ducane’s house to complete his search of the rooms, and His Lordship was not at home; he had apparently set off for the family’s country estate that morning. Poirot had spotted a few “dreary old leaves and chilly-eyed cods and haddocks” on the walls, as Nancy had called them, and he wondered if those pictures were the work of St. John Wallace.

“I’m so sorry about Dorcas,” Louisa said. “She’s very new and quite the most hopeless girl ever to inflict herself upon us, but I won’t admit defeat. It has only been three days. She will learn, with time and patience. If only she wouldn’t worry so! I know that’s what it is: she tells herself that she absolutely mustn’t drop the important gentleman’s hat and coat, and that puts the idea of dropping them into her mind, and then it happens. It’s maddening!”

“Quite so,” Poirot agreed. “Lady Wallace, about last Thursday . . .”

“Oh, yes, that’s where we’d got to—and then I brought you in here to show you the portrait. Yes, Nancy was here that evening.”

“From what time and until what time, madame?”

“I can’t recall precisely. I know we agreed that she would come at six to bring the painting, and I don’t remember noticing that she was late at all. I’m afraid I don’t remember when she left. If I had to guess, I would say ten o’clock or shortly thereafter.”

“And she was here that whole time—that is to say, until she left? She did not, for instance, leave and then return?”

“No.” Louisa Wallace looked puzzled. “She came at six with the picture, and then we were together until she left for good. What is this about?”

“Can you confirm that Mrs. Ducane left here no earlier than half past eight?”

“Oh, gracious, yes. She left much later than that. At half past eight we were still at the table.”

“Who is ‘we?’ ”

“Nancy, St. John and me.”

“Your husband, if I were to speak to him, would confirm this?”