The Monogram Murders(53)

“Are you sure you wouldn’t like another cup of coffee, sir?” said Dorcas.

“The fourth of . . . Sacré tonnerre,” Poirot murmured to himself as a feeling of excitement started to grow inside him. He returned to the study and looked at the picture of blue bindweed.

“He has answered that question once, Dorcas. He does not want more coffee.”

“It’s no trouble, ma’am, honest it isn’t. He wanted coffee, and there was nothing left in the cup by the time he got it.”

“If nothing is there, one sees nothing,” mused Poirot cryptically. “One thinks of nothing. To notice a nothing—that is a difficult thing, even for Poirot, until one sees, somewhere else, the thing that should have been there.” He took Dorcas’s hand and kissed it. “My dear young lady, what you have brought to me is more valuable than coffee!”

“Ooh.” Dorcas tilted her head and stared. “Your eyes have gone all funny and green, sir.”

“Whatever can you mean, Monsieur Poirot?” Louisa Wallace asked. “Dorcas, go and get on with something useful.”

“Yes, madam.” The girl hurried away.

“I am indebted both to Dorcas and to you, madame,” said Poirot. “When I arrived here only—what is it?—half an hour ago, I did not see clearly. I saw only confusion and puzzles. Now, I begin to put things together . . . It is very important that I should think without interruption.”

“Oh.” Louisa looked disappointed. “Well, if you need to hurry off—”

“Oh, no, no, you misunderstand me. Pardon, madame. The fault is mine: I did not make myself clear. Of course we must finish the tour of the art. There is much still to explore! After that, I shall depart and do my thinking.”

“Are you sure?” Louisa regarded him with something akin to alarm. “Well, all right, then, if it’s not too much of a bore.” She recommenced her enthusiastic commentary on her husband’s pictures as Poirot and Louisa moved from room to room.

In one of the guest bedrooms, the last upstairs room that they came to, there was a white jug and bowl set with a red, green and white crest on it. There was also a wooden table, and a chair; Poirot recognized both from Nancy Ducane’s painting of Louisa. He said, “Pardon, madame, but where is the blue jug and bowl from the portrait?”

“The blue jug and bowl,” Louisa repeated, seemingly confused.

“I think you posed for Nancy Ducane’s painting in this room, n’est-ce pas?”

“Yes, I did. And . . . wait a minute! This jug and bowl set is the one from the other guest bedroom!”

“And yet it is not there. It is here.”

“So it is. But . . . then where is the blue jug and bowl?”

“I do not know, madame.”

“Well, it must be in a different bedroom. Mine, perhaps. Dorcas must have swapped them around.” She set off at a brisk pace in search of the missing items.

Poirot followed. “There is no other jug and bowl set in any of the bedrooms,” he said.

After a thorough check, Louisa Wallace said through gritted teeth, “That useless girl! I’ll tell you what’s happened, Monsieur Poirot. Dorcas has broken it and she’s too scared to tell me. Let us go and ask her, shall we? She will deny it, of course, but it’s the only possible explanation. Jugs and bowls don’t disappear, and they don’t move from room to room on their own.”

“When did you last see the blue jug and bowl, madame?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t noticed them in a long while. I hardly ever go into the guest bedrooms.”

“Is it possible that Nancy Ducane removed the blue jug and bowl when she left here on Thursday night?”

“No. Why would she? That’s silly! I stood at the door and said goodbye to her, and she was not holding anything apart from her house key. Besides, Nancy isn’t a thief. Dorcas, on the other hand . . . That will be it! She hasn’t broken it, she has stolen it, I’m sure—but how can I prove it? She’s bound to deny it.”

“Madame, do me one favor: do not accuse Dorcas of stealing or of anything else. I do not think she is guilty.”

“Well, then where is my blue jug and bowl?”

“This is what I must think about,” said Poirot. “I will leave you in peace in a moment, but first may I take a last look at Nancy Ducane’s remarkable portrait of you?”

“Yes, with pleasure.”

Together, Louisa Wallace and Hercule Poirot made their way back down to the drawing room. They stood in front of the painting. “Dratted girl,” muttered Louisa. “All I can see when I look at it now is the blue jug and bowl.”

“Oui. It stands out, does it not?”

“It used to be in my house, and now it isn’t, and all I can do is stare at a picture of it and wonder what became of it! Oh, dear, what an upsetting day this has turned out to be!”

BLANCHE UNSWORTH, AS WAS her custom, asked Poirot the moment he returned to the lodging house if there was anything she could get for him.

“Indeed there is,” he told her. “I should like a piece of paper and some pencils to draw with. Colored pencils.”

Blanche’s face fell. “I can bring you paper, but as for colored pencils, I can’t say as I’ve got any, unless you’re interested in the color of ordinary pencil lead.”