The Monogram Murders(54)
“Ah! Gray: the best of all.”
“Are you having me on, Mr. Poirot? Gray?”
“Oui.” Poirot tapped the side of his head. “The color of the little gray cells.”
“Oh, no. Give me a nice soft pink or lilac any day of the week.”
“Colors do not matter—a green dress, a blue jug and bowl set, a white one.”
“I’m not following you, Mr. Poirot.”
“I do not ask you to follow me, Mrs. Unsworth—only to bring me one of your ordinary pencils and a piece of paper, quickly. And an envelope. I have been talking at great length about art today. Hercule Poirot will attempt now to compose his own work of art!”
Twenty minutes later, seated at one of the tables in the dining room, Poirot called for Blanche Unsworth again. When she appeared, he handed her the envelope, which was sealed. “Please telephone to Scotland Yard for me,” he said. “Ask them to send somebody to collect this without delay and deliver it to Constable Stanley Beer. I have written his name on the envelope. Please explain that this is important. It is in connection with the Bloxham Hotel murders.”
“I thought you were drawing a picture,” said Blanche.
“My picture is sealed inside the envelope, accompanied by a letter.”
“Oh. Well, then, I can’t see the picture, can I?”
Poirot smiled. “It is not necessary for you to see it, madame, unless you work for Scotland Yard—which, to my knowledge, you do not.”
“Oh.” Blanche Unsworth looked vexed. “Well. I suppose I should make this call for you, then,” she said.
“Merci, madame.”
When she returned five minutes later, she had her hand over her mouth and pink spots on her cheeks. “Oh, dear, Mr. Poirot,” she said. “Oh, this is bad news for all of us! I don’t know what’s wrong with people, I really don’t.”
“What news?”
“I telephoned to Scotland Yard, like you asked—they said they’ll send someone to collect your envelope. Then the phone rang again, right after I’d put it down. Oh, Mr. Poirot, it’s dreadful!”
“Calm yourself, madame. Tell me, please.”
“There’s been another murder at the Bloxham! I don’t know what’s wrong with some of these fancy hotels, I really don’t.”
The Mind in the Mirror
ON ARRIVING BACK IN London, I proceeded to Pleasant’s, thinking I might find Poirot there, but the only familiar face in the coffee house was that of the waitress with what Poirot calls “the flyaway hair.” I had always found her to be a tonic and enjoyed Pleasant’s on account of her presence as much as anything else. What was her name? Poirot had told me. Oh yes: Fee Spring, short for Euphemia.
I liked her chiefly for her comforting habit of saying the same two things every time she saw me. She said them now. The first was about her long-standing ambition to change the name of Pleasant’s from “Coffee House” to “Tea Rooms,” to reflect the relative merits of the two beverages, and the second was: “How’s Scotland Yard treating you, then? I’d like to work there—only if I could be in charge, mind.”
“Oh, I’m sure you would be leading the troops in no time,” I told her. “Just as I suspect that one day I shall arrive here to find ‘Pleasant’s Tea Rooms’ on the sign outside.”
“Not likely. It’s the only thing they won’t let me change. Mr. Poirot wouldn’t like it, would he?”
“He would be aghast.”
“You’re not to tell him, or anyone.” Fee’s proposed change of name for her place of work was something she professed to have told nobody but me.
“I shan’t,” I assured her. “I tell you what: come and work with me solving crimes and I’ll ask my boss if we can change our name to Scotland Yard Tea Rooms. We do drink tea there, so it wouldn’t be altogether unsuitable.”
“Hmph.” Fee wasn’t impressed. “I’ve heard women police aren’t allowed to stay on if they marry. That’s all right; I’d rather solve crimes with you than have a husband to look after.”
“There you are, then!”
“So don’t go proposing to me.”
“No fear!”
“Charming, aren’t you?”
To dig myself out of the hole, I said, “I shan’t be proposing to anybody, but if my parents ever put a gun to my head, I shall ask you before any other girl—how’s that?”
“Better me than some dreamer with notions of romance in her head. She’d be disappointed, all right.”
I did not want to discuss romance. I said, “As far as our crime-solving partnership goes . . . I don’t suppose you’re expecting Poirot, are you? I hoped he might be here waiting for Jennie Hobbs to reappear.”
“Jennie Hobbs, is it? So you’ve found a family name for her. Mr. Poirot’ll be pleased to know who he’s been fretting over all this time. Maybe now he’ll stop pestering me. Every time I turn around, there he is under my feet, asking me all the same questions about Jennie that he’s already asked me. I never ask him where you are—never!”
I was rather stumped by this last statement. “Why would you?” I said.