The Monogram Murders(57)

The Fourth Cufflink

IN THE LOBBY OF the Bloxham, we nearly walked straight into Henry Negus, Richard Negus’s brother. He was carrying a small briefcase in one hand. In the other, he carried a very large suitcase, which he dropped in order to speak to us. “I wish I were a younger, stronger man,” he said, out of breath. “How is the case progressing, if I might enquire?”

From his expression and tone of voice, I deduced that he was unaware that there had been a fourth murder. I said nothing, interested to see what Poirot would do.

“We are confident of success,” said Poirot with deliberate vagueness. “You have spent the night here, monsieur?”

“Night? Oh, the suitcase. No, I stayed at the Langham. Couldn’t face this place, though Mr. Lazzari was good enough to offer. I am here only to collect Richard’s belongings.” Henry Negus inclined his head toward the suitcase but kept his eyes averted, as if he didn’t want to see it himself. I looked at the stiff card label attached to its handle: Mr. R. Negus.

“Well, I had better make haste,” said Negus. “Please keep me informed.”

“We will,” I said. “Goodbye, Mr. Negus. I am so very sorry about your brother.”

“Thank you, Mr. Catchpool. Monsieur Poirot.” Negus looked embarrassed, perhaps even angry. I thought I understood why: in the face of tragedy, he had decided to be efficient and did not wish to be reminded of his own sadness while he was trying to focus on the practicalities.

As he walked out onto the street, I saw Luca Lazzari rushing toward us, clutching at his hair. A sheen of sweat covered his face. “Ah, Monsieur Poirot, Mr. Catchpool! At last! You have heard the disastrous news? Unhappy days at the Bloxham Hotel! Oh, unhappy days!”

Was it my imagination, or had he styled his mustache to resemble Poirot’s? It was a pale imitation, if imitation it was. I found it fascinating that a fourth murder in his hotel had produced in him such a mournful disposition. When only three guests had been murdered at the Bloxham, he had remained chipper. A thought occurred to me: maybe this time the victim was an employee of the hotel and not a guest. I asked who had been killed.

“I do not know who she is or where she is now,” said Lazzari. “Come, follow me. You will see for yourselves.”

“You do not know where she is?” Poirot demanded as we followed the hotel manager to the lift. “What do you mean? Is she not here, in the hotel?”

“Ah, but where in the hotel? She could be anywhere!” Lazzari wailed.

Rafal Bobak inclined his head in greeting as he came toward us, pushing a large cart on wheels full of what looked like sheets in need of laundering. “Monsieur Poirot,” he said, stopping when he saw us. “I have been going over and over it in my mind, to see if I can remember any more of what was said in Room 317 on the night of the murders.”

“Oui?” Poirot sounded hopeful.

“I haven’t remembered anything else, sir. I’m sorry.”

“Never mind. Thank you for trying, Mr. Bobak.”

“Look,” said Lazzari. “Here comes the lift, and I am afraid to step into it! In my own hotel! I do not know, any more, what I will find, or not find. I am afraid to turn one more corner, to open one more door . . . I fear the shadows in the corridors, the creaks of the floorboards . . .”

As we went up in the lift, Poirot tried to get some sense out of the distraught hotel manager, but to no avail. Lazzari seemed unable to manage more than six linked words at a time: “Miss Jennie Hobbs reserved the room . . . What? Yes, fair hair . . . But then where did she go? . . . Yes, brown hat . . . We have lost her! . . . She was without cases . . . I saw her myself, yes . . . I was too late to the room! . . . What? Yes, a coat. Pale brown . . .”

On the fourth floor, we followed Lazzari as he hurried ahead of us along the corridor. “Harriet Sippel was on the first floor, remember?” I said to Poirot. “Richard Negus was on the second and Ida Gransbury on the third. I wonder if it means anything.”

By the time we caught up with Lazzari, he had unlocked the door to Room 402. “Gentlemen, you are about to see a most anomalous scene of ugliness in the beautiful Bloxham Hotel. Please prepare yourselves.” Having issued this warning, he flung open the door so that it banged against the wall inside the room.

“But . . . Where is the body?” I asked. It was not inside the room, laid out like the others. Immense relief suffused me.

“Nobody knows, Catchpool.” Poirot’s voice was quiet but there was anger in it. Or it might have been fear.

Between a chair and a small occasional table—positioned exactly where the bodies had been in rooms 121, 238 and 317—there was a pool of blood on the floor, with a long smear mark at one side, as if something had been dragged through part of it. Jennie Hobbs’s body? An arm perhaps, from the shape of the smear. There were small lines breaking up the red that might have been fingermarks . . .

I turned away, sickened by the sight.

“Poirot, look.” In one corner of the room there was a dark brown hat, upturned. There was something inside it, a small metal object. Could it be . . . ?

“Jennie’s hat,” said Poirot, a tremor in his voice. “My worst fear, it has come to pass, Catchpool. And inside the hat . . .” He walked over, very slowly. “Yes, it is as I thought: a cufflink. The fourth cufflink, also with the monogram PIJ.”