The Monogram Murders(76)
“There is no time to discuss the meaning now,” said Poirot in a stern voice. “We arrive at the station. It is clear from your question that you have not listened carefully.”
DR. AMBROSE FLOWERDAY TURNED OUT to be a tall, thick-set man of around fifty with wiry dark hair that was graying at the temples. His shirt was crumpled and missing a button. He had passed on instructions for us to go to the vicarage, so that was where we were, standing in a chilly hall with a high ceiling and a splintering wooden floor.
The whole place seemed to have been given over to Dr. Flowerday for him to use as a temporary hospital for one patient. The door had been opened by a nurse in uniform. Under different circumstances I might have been curious about this arrangement, but all I could think of was poor Margaret Ernst.
“How is she?” I asked, once the introductions were over.
The doctor’s face twisted in anguish. Then he composed himself. “I am allowed to say only that she is doing well in the circumstances.”
“Allowed by whom?” asked Poirot.
“Margaret. She will not tolerate defeatist talk.”
“And is it true, what she asks you to tell us?”
After a short pause, Dr. Flowerday gave a small nod. “Most people would not survive for this long after such an assault. Margaret has a strong constitution and a strong mind. It was a serious attack, but, damn it, I shall keep her alive if it kills me.”
“What happened to her?”
“Two thoroughly bad pennies from the top end of the village came to the churchyard in the middle of the night and . . . well, they did things to the Ives’ grave that do not bear repeating. Margaret heard them. Even in her sleep she is vigilant. She heard metal smashing against stone. When she ran out to try to stop them, they attacked her with a spade they had brought with them. They didn’t care if they beat her to death! That much was obvious to the village constable, when he arrested them some hours later.”
Poirot said, “Pardon me, Doctor. You know who did this to Mrs. Ernst? The two bad pennies that you refer to . . . they confessed?”
“Proudly,” said Dr. Flowerday through gritted teeth.
“So they are arrested?”
“Oh, yes, the police have got them.”
“Who are they?” I asked.
“Frederick and Tobias Clutton, father and son. Drunken good-for-nothings, the pair of them.”
I wondered if the son was the ne’er-do-well I had seen drinking with Walter Stoakley in the King’s Head. (I later discovered that I was right: he was.)
“Margaret got in their way, they said. As for the Ives’ grave . . .” Dr. Flowerday turned to me. “Please understand that I am not blaming you for this, but your visit stirred things up. You were seen going to Margaret’s cottage. All the villagers know where she stands with regard to the Ives. They knew that the story you were hearing inside that house was one that painted Patrick Ive not as a promiscuous charlatan but as the victim of a sustained campaign of cruelty and slander—theirs. It made them want to punish Patrick all over again. He is dead and beyond their reach, so they desecrated his grave instead. Margaret has always said it would happen one day. She sits by her window day in and day out, hoping to catch them and stop them. Do you know she never met Patrick or Frances Ive? Did she tell you that? They were my friends. Their tragedy was my sorrow, the injustice of it my obsession. Yet, from the first, they mattered to Margaret. It horrified her to think that such a thing could happen in her husband’s new parish. She made sure that it mattered to him, too. It was the most incredible good fortune, that Margaret and Charles came to Great Holling. One couldn’t wish for a better ally. Allies,” Dr. Flowerday corrected himself.
“May we speak to Margaret?” I asked. If she was about to die—and I had the sense that she was, in spite of the doctor’s determination that she should not—then I wanted to hear what she had to say while there was still time.
“Of course,” said Ambrose Flowerday. “She would be furious with me for keeping you from her.”
Poirot, the nurse and I followed him up a flight of uncarpeted wooden stairs and into one of the bedrooms. I tried not to show my shock when I saw bandages, blood, and the purple and blue welts and lumps that covered Margaret Ernst’s face. Tears came to my eyes.
“Are they here, Ambrose?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Bonjour, Madame Ernst. I am Hercule Poirot. Words cannot express how sorry I am—”
“Please call me Margaret. Is Mr. Catchpool with you?”
“Yes, I’m here,” I managed to say. How any man or men could inflict such injury upon a woman was quite beyond me. It was not the act of human beings but of beasts. Monsters.
“Are you both striving for polite expressions that won’t alarm me?” Margaret asked. “My eyes are swollen shut, so I can’t see your faces. I expect Ambrose has told you I’m about to die?”
“Non, madame. He has said no such thing.”
“Hasn’t he? Well, it’s what he believes.”
“Margaret, dear—”
“He is wrong. I am far too angry to die.”
“You have something that you wish to tell us?” Poirot asked.
A peculiar noise emerged from Margaret’s throat. It had a derisory quality. “Yes, I do, but I wish you wouldn’t ask me so soon and so urgently, as if there’s a scrambling hurry about it all—as if my next breath might be my last! Ambrose has given you quite the wrong impression if that is what you believe. Now, I need to rest. I shall no doubt have to defend myself many more times today against unwarranted accusations of dying! Ambrose, you’ll tell them what they need to know, won’t you?” Her eyelids flickered.