The Monogram Murders(74)
“Revenge. Punishment. Though, frankly, it makes no sense. If Nancy Ducane is innocent, and Jennie Hobbs and Samuel Kidd are behind everything—I mean, if they’re the only ones still alive who were behind everything—well, why should Jennie and Kidd want to kill Margaret Ernst? She said nothing to me to incriminate either of them, and she never harmed Patrick or Frances Ive.”
“I agree. Jennie Hobbs and Samuel Kidd would not wish to murder Margaret Ernst as far as I can see.”
Rain lashed at the windows of our car. It made it harder both to hear and to concentrate. “Then who did?” I asked. “There we were, thinking we had all the answers—”
“You surely did not think any such thing, Catchpool?”
“Yes, I did. I expect you’re about to tell me I’m wrong, but it all seemed to add up, didn’t it? All pretty straightforward, until we heard about Margaret Ernst being attacked.”
“He tells me it is straightforward!” Poirot smirked at the rain-spattered car window.
“Well, it looked simple enough to me. All the killers were dead. Ida killed Harriet, with Harriet’s consent, and was then killed by Richard Negus—again, with her full consent. Then Negus, when Jennie didn’t arrive to kill him as planned, took his own life. Jennie Hobbs and Samuel Kidd have killed nobody. Of course, they conspired to bring about three deaths, but those deaths were not really murders, as I see it. They were—”
“Executions by consent?”
“Exactly.”
“It was a very neat plan they made, was it not? Harriet Sippel, Ida Gransbury, Richard Negus and Jennie Hobbs. Let us call them A, B, C and D for the moment, and we will see the neatness of their plan more clearly.”
“Why should we not call them by their names?” I asked.
Poirot ignored me. “A, B, C and D—all plagued by guilt and seeking the redemption of the soul. They agree that they must pay for a past sin with their own lives, and so they plan to kill one another: B kills A, then C kills B, then D kills C.”
“Except that D didn’t kill C, did she? D is Jennie Hobbs, and she didn’t kill Richard Negus.”
“Perhaps not, but she was supposed to. That was the plan. Also that D would stay alive to see E—Nancy Ducane—hang for the murders of A, B, and C. Only then could D . . .” Poirot stopped. “D,” he repeated. “Demise. That is the correct word.”
“What?”
“For your crossword puzzle. A word that means death and has six letters. Do you recall? I suggested ‘murder’ and you said that would only work if murder began . . .” He fell silent, shaking his head.
“If murder began with a D. Yes, I remember. Poirot, are you all right?” His eyes had that strange green glow about them that they sometimes acquire.
“Comment? Mais bien évidemment! If murder began with a D! Of course! That is it! Mon ami, you do not know how you have helped me. Now I think . . . yes, that is it. That must be it. The younger man and the older woman—ah, but it is so clear to me now!”
“Please explain.”
“Yes, yes. When I am ready.”
“Why are you not ready now? What are you waiting for?”
“You must allow me more than twenty seconds to compose and arrange my ideas, Catchpool. That is necessary if I am to explain to you, who do not understand a thing. Your every word shows me that you comprehend nothing. You talk about having all the answers, but the story we heard from Jennie Hobbs this morning was an elaborate embroidery of lies! Do you not see this?”
“Well . . . I mean . . . um . . .”
“Richard Negus agrees with Harriet Sippel that perhaps Nancy Ducane should hang for three murders she did not commit? He is willing to leave Nancy’s fate to be decided by Jennie Hobbs? Richard Negus the leader, the respected authority figure—the same Richard Negus who, for sixteen years, has felt so terribly guilty for unjustly condemning Patrick Ive? The Richard Negus who realized too late that it is wrong to condemn and persecute a man for understandable human weaknesses? Who ended his engagement to Ida Gransbury because she dogmatically insisted that every transgression must be punished with the utmost harshness—this Richard Negus would entertain the idea of allowing Nancy Ducane, whose only crime was to love a man who could never belong to her, to be condemned by law and face the gallows for three murders of which she is innocent? Pah! It is nonsense! There is no consistency. It is a fantasy dreamed up by Jennie Hobbs to mislead us yet again.”
I listened to most of this with my mouth open. “Are you sure, Poirot? I believed her, I have to say.”
“Of course I am sure. Did not Henry Negus tell us that his brother Richard spent sixteen years in his home as a recluse, seeing and speaking to nobody? Yet according to Jennie Hobbs, he spent these same years persuading Harriet Sippel and Ida Gransbury that they were responsible for Patrick and Frances Ive’s deaths and must pay the price. How was Richard Negus able to do this persuading without his brother Henry noticing his regular communications with two women from Great Holling?”
“You might have a point there. I didn’t think of that.”
“It is a minor point. Surely you noticed all that was more substantially wrong with Jennie’s story?”
“To frame an innocent person for murder is unquestionably wrong,” I said.