The Monogram Murders(86)

“In fact, Thomas Brignell has never met this man before, but he remembers the name from when he gave the real Richard Negus his room key. Here, suddenly, is a man speaking to him in a confident, friendly and knowledgeable fashion and calling himself by that same name. Thomas Brignell assumes that he must be Richard Negus. He does not recall his face, but he blames only himself for this lapse.”

Thomas Brignell’s face had turned as red as claret.

Poirot went on, “The man impersonating Richard Negus asked for a glass of sherry. Why? To extend his encounter with Brignell a little, thereby imprinting it more strongly on the clerk’s memory? To soothe agitated nerves with some liquor? Maybe for both of these reasons.

“Now, if you will permit me a small digression: in the remains of this glass of sherry, the poison cyanide was found, as it was in Harriet Sippel’s and Ida Gransbury’s cups of tea. But it was not the tea or the sherry that killed the three murder victims. It cannot have been. These beverages arrived too late to kill, long after the murders had been committed. The sherry glass and the two teacups on the occasional tables next to the three bodies—they were essential for the staging of the crime scenes, to give the false impression that the killings must have occurred after a quarter past seven. In fact, the cyanide that killed Harriet Sippel, Ida Gransbury and Richard Negus was given to them much earlier and by another means. There is a water glass by the basin in each room of the hotel, is there not, Signor Lazzari?”

“Si, Monsieur Poirot. Yes, there is.”

“Then I expect that is how the poison was consumed: in water. The glass, in each case, was then carefully washed and replaced by the basin. Mr. Brignell,” Poirot addressed him unexpectedly, causing the assistant clerk to duck in his seat as if someone had taken a shot at him. “You do not like to speak in public, but you plucked up the courage to do so the first time we all gathered in this room. You told us of your encounter with Mr. Negus in the corridor, but you did not mention the sherry, even though I had specifically asked about it. Later, you sought me out and added the detail about the sherry to your story. When I asked you why you did not originally mention it, you gave me no answer. I did not understand why, but my friend here, Catchpool—he said something most perceptive and illuminating. He said that you are a conscientious man who would only withhold information in a murder enquiry if it caused you great personal embarrassment, and if you were sure it had nothing to do with the murder case. He hit upon the head of the nail with this assessment, did he not?”

Brignell gave a small nod.

“Allow me to explain.” Poirot raised his voice, though it was quite loud enough in the first place. “When we met here in this room before, I asked if anybody had taken sherry to Mr. Negus in his room. No one spoke up. Why did Thomas Brignell not say, ‘I did not take it up to his room, but I did fetch for him a glass of sherry?’ Poirot will tell you! He did not do so because he had doubts in his mind, and he did not want to risk saying something that was not true.

“Mr. Brignell was the only member of the hotel staff to see any of the three murder victims more than once—or, to be more precise, he had been led to believe that he had seen Richard Negus more than once. He knew that he had given a glass of sherry to a man calling himself Richard Negus who behaved as if he had encountered him before, but this man did not look like the Richard Negus that Thomas Brignell had met. Remember, Mr. Lazzari has told us that Mr. Brignell has an excellent memory for faces as well as names. That is why he did not speak up when I asked about the sherry! He was distracted by his thoughts. A voice in his head whispered: ‘It must have been him, the same man. But it was not him—I would have recognized him.’

“A few moments later, Mr. Brignell said to himself, ‘What kind of fool am I? Of course it was Richard Negus if he said that was his name! For once my memory lets me down. And besides, the man sounded just like Mr. Negus, with his educated English accent.’ It would seem incroyable to the scrupulously honest Thomas Brignell that anyone should wish to impersonate another in order to trick him.

“After reaching the conclusion that the man must have been Richard Negus, Mr. Brignell decides to stand up and tell me that he met Mr. Negus in the corridor at half past seven on the night of the murders, but he is too embarrassed to mention the sherry, because he fears he will seem an imbecile for sitting in silence in response to my earlier question about the drink. I would surely ask, in front of everybody, ‘Why did you not tell me this before?’ and Mr. Brignell would have been mortified to have to say, ‘Because I was too busy wondering how Mr. Negus came to have a different face the second time I encountered him.’ Mr. Brignell, can you confirm that what I am saying is true? There is no need to worry about looking like a fool. You were the opposite. It was a different face. It was a different man.”

“Thank goodness,” said Brignell. “Everything you have said is absolutely correct, Mr. Poirot.”

“Bien s?r,” said Poirot immodestly. “Do not forget, ladies and gentlemen, that the same name does not necessarily mean the same person. When Signor Lazzari described to me the woman who took a room in this hotel using the name Jennie Hobbs, I thought that she was probably the same woman I had met at Pleasant’s Coffee House. She sounded similar: fair hair, dark brown hat, lighter brown coat. But two men who have each seen a woman fitting this description only once, they cannot be certain they have seen the same woman.