The Monogram Murders

by Sophie Hannah

  “Bon,” said Poirot quietly. He sounded suddenly kinder. “You have had a severe shock today, have you not? Perhaps you will now see that you cannot deceive Poirot?”

  “I do see. Let me tell you the story, from the beginning. It will be such a relief to be able to tell the truth at last.”

  Jennie spoke at length then, and neither I nor Poirot interrupted her until she indicated that she had finished. What follows is in her words, and is, I hope, a faithful and complete account of what she said.

  The Truth at Last

  I DESTROYED THE LIFE of the only man I have ever loved, and I destroyed my own life along with it.

  I didn’t mean for things to take the turn they took. I would never have imagined that a few silly, cruel words spoken by me could lead to such disaster. I ought to have considered and kept my mouth shut, but I was feeling wounded and, in a moment of weakness, I allowed spite to get the better of me.

  I loved Patrick Ive with every bone and muscle in my body. I tried not to. I was engaged to be married to Sam Kidd when I first started working for Patrick—as his bedder, at Saviour College in Cambridge, where he studied. I liked Sam well enough, but my heart belonged to Patrick within a few weeks of first meeting him, and I knew that no amount of trying to feel differently would change that. Patrick was everything good that a person could be. He was fond of me, but to him I was only a servant. Even after I learned to speak like the daughter of a master of a Cambridge college—like Frances Ive—I remained, in Patrick’s eyes, a loyal servant and nothing more.

  Of course I knew about him and Nancy Ducane. I overheard some of his conversations with her that I wasn’t supposed to. I knew how much he loved her, and I couldn’t bear it. I had long ago accepted that he belonged to Frances and not to me, but it was intolerable to discover that he had fallen in love with a woman who was not his wife and that that woman was not me.

  For a few fleeting seconds—no longer—I wanted to punish him. To cause him grievous hurt of the kind that he had caused me. So I made up a wicked lie about him and, God forgive me, I told that lie to Harriet Sippel. It comforted me for as long as I was telling it: the idea that Patrick’s whispered words of love for Nancy—words I had overheard more than once—were not his but the late William Ducane’s, conveyed from beyond the grave. Oh, I knew it was nonsense, but when I told Harriet Sippel, for a few seconds it felt true.

  Then Harriet set to work, saying dreadful, unforgivable things about Patrick all over the village—and Ida and Richard helped her, which I never understood. They must have known what a venomous creature she had become; everyone in the village knew. How could they turn on Patrick and ally themselves with her? Oh, I know the answer: it was my fault. Richard and Ida knew that the rumor did not come from Harriet in the first place but from a servant girl who had always been loyal to Patrick and who was seen as having no reason to lie.

  I saw at once that my jealousy had led me to do a terrible, heinous thing. I witnessed Patrick’s suffering and desperately wanted to help him, and Frances—but I didn’t see how I could! Harriet had seen Nancy enter and leave the vicarage at night. So had Richard Negus. If I had admitted to lying, I would have had to offer another explanation for Nancy’s nocturnal visits to Patrick. And it would not have taken Harriet long to arrive at the correct explanation by her own deductions.

  The shameful truth is that I am a dreadful coward. People like Richard Negus and Ida Gransbury—they don’t mind what other people think of them if they believe that right is on their side, but I do mind. I have always cared about making a good impression. If I had confessed to my lie, I would have been hated by everybody in the village, and rightly so. I’m not a strong person, Monsieur Poirot. I did nothing, said nothing, because I was scared. Then Nancy, horrified by the lie and by people’s believing it, came forward and told the truth: that she and Patrick were in love and had been meeting in secret, though nothing of a carnal nature had taken place between them.

  Nancy’s efforts on Patrick’s behalf only made things worse for him. “Not only a charlatan who defrauds parishioners and makes a mockery of his Church, but also an adulterer”—that was what they started to say. It became too much for Frances, who took her own life. When Patrick found her, he knew he would not be able to live with the guilt—after all, it was his love for Nancy that had started the trouble. He had failed in his duty to Frances. He, too, took his own life.

  The village doctor said that the two deaths were accidents, but that was not true. They were both suicide—another sin in the eyes of those as saintly as Ida Gransbury, and those with an appetite for punishing, like Harriet Sippel. Patrick and Frances both left notes, you see. I found them and passed them on to the doctor, Ambrose Flowerday. I think he must have burned them. He said that he would not give anybody further cause to condemn Patrick and Frances. Dr. Flowerday was sickened by the way the whole village had turned on them.

  Patrick’s death broke my heart, and it has remained broken since that day, Monsieur Poirot. I wanted to die, but with Patrick gone, I felt that I needed to stay alive, loving him and thinking well of him—as if my doing so could ever make up for everybody else in Great Holling believing him to be some sort of devil!

  My only consolation was that I was not alone in my misery. Richard Negus felt ashamed of the part he had played. He alone among Patrick’s denigrators changed his mind; when Nancy told her story, he saw at once that the outlandish lie I had told was unlikely to be true.

  Before he moved to his brother’s home in Devon, Richard sought me out and asked me directly. I wanted to tell him that there was not a grain of truth in the rumor I had started, but I didn’t dare, so I said nothing. I sat mutely, as if my tongue had been cut out, and Richard took my silence as an admission of guilt.

  I left Great Holling shortly after he did. I went to Sammy for help at first, but I couldn’t stay in Cambridge—there were too many memories of Patrick there—so I came to London. It was Sammy’s idea. He found work here and, thanks to some people he introduced me to, so did I. Sammy is devoted to me in the way that I was to Patrick. I ought to be grateful to him for that. He asked me again to marry him but I couldn’t, though I regard him as a very dear friend.

  A new chapter of my life opened with my move to London. I was unable to enjoy it and thought every single day of Patrick, of the agony of never seeing him again. Then last September I received a letter from Richard Negus. Fifteen years had gone by, but I did not feel as if the past had caught up with me—because I never left it behind!

  Richard had been given my London address by the only person in Great Holling who knew it: Dr. Ambrose Flowerday. I don’t know why, but I wanted someone from there to know where I had gone. I remember thinking at the time that I did not wish to disappear absolutely without trace. I felt that . . .

  No, I will not say that. It is not true that I had a vision of the future in which Richard Negus sought me out once again and asked for my help to right an old wrong. I will say instead that I had a powerful premonition, though not one I could have described in words. I knew that the village of Great Holling was not finished with me forever, nor I with it. That is why I made sure to send my London address to Dr. Flowerday.

  Richard’s letter said that he needed to see me, and it did not occur to me to refuse him. He came to London the following week. Without preamble, he asked if I would help him to make amends for the unforgivable thing we had done all those years ago.

  I told him that I did not believe amends could be made. Patrick was dead. There was no undoing that. Richard said, “Yes. Patrick and Frances are dead, and you and I can never again know happiness. But what if we were to make a corresponding sacrifice?”

  I did not understand. I asked him what he meant.

  He said: “If we killed Patrick and Frances Ive, and I believe that we did, is it not fitting that we should pay with our own lives? Do we not find ourselves unable to benefit from the joy that life offers to other people? Why is that? Why does time not heal our
wound as it is meant to heal? Could it be because we do not deserve to live while poor Patrick and Frances lie in the ground?” Richard’s eyes darkened as he spoke, turning from their usual brown to almost black. “The law of the land punishes with death those who take the lives of the innocent,” he said. “We have cheated that law.”

  I could have told him that neither he nor I took up a weapon and murdered Patrick and Frances, for that would have been the factual truth of the matter. However, his words resonated so powerfully that I knew he was right, although many would have said he was wrong. As he spoke, my heart filled with something akin to hope for the first time in fifteen years. I could not bring Patrick back, but I could make certain that I did not escape justice for what I had done to him.

  “Are you proposing that I take my own life?” I asked Richard, because he had not said so explicitly.

  “No. Nor that I take mine. What I have in mind is not suicide, but execution—for which we will volunteer. Or at least I shall. I have no wish to force your hand in this.”

  “You and I are not the only guilty parties,” I reminded him.

  “No, we are not,” he agreed. What he said next nearly caused my heart to stop. “Would it surprise you greatly, Jennie, to learn that Harriet Sippel and Ida Gransbury have come round to my way of thinking?”

  I told him that I could not believe it. Harriet and Ida would never admit to having done something cruel and unforgivable, I thought. Richard said that at one time he too had taken this for granted. He said, “I persuaded them. People listen to me, Jennie. They always have. I worked on Harriet and Ida, not with harsh condemnation but by expressing, ceaselessly, my own deep regret, and my wish that I could compensate for the harm I had done. It took years—as many as have passed since last you and I spoke—but gradually Harriet and Ida came to see things as I do. They are both profoundly unhappy women, you see: Harriet ever since her husband died, and Ida since I informed her that I no longer wished to marry her.”

  I opened my mouth to voice my disbelief, but Richard continued to speak. He assured me that both Harriet and Ida had accepted their responsibility for the deaths of Patrick and Frances Ive and wanted to correct the wrong they had done. “The psychology of the matter is fascinating,” he said. “Harriet is content as long as there is someone she can seek to punish. Presently, that person is herself. Do not forget that she is eager to be reunited with her husband in heaven. She cannot allow the possibility that she might end up in a different place.”

  I was speechless with shock. I said that I would never believe it. Richard told me that I would as soon as I spoke to Harriet and Ida and they confirmed it. I must meet them, he said, so that I could see for myself how changed they were.

  I could not imagine Harriet or Ida changed, and I feared that I would commit murder if I were to find myself in a room with either one of them.

  Richard said, “You must try to understand, Jennie. I offered them a way out of their suffering—and be assured, they were suffering. One cannot do such harm to another and not wound one’s own soul in the process. For years Harriet and Ida believed that all they had to cling to was their conviction that they had been right about Patrick, but over time they came to see that I was offering them something better: God’s true forgiveness. The sinful soul aches for redemption, Jennie. The more we deny it the chance of finding that redemption, the stronger the ache grows. Thanks to my determined efforts, Harriet and Ida came to see that the revulsion that every day grew harder inside them was disgust at their own behavior, at the wickedness they tried so hard to drape in a cloak of virtue, and nothing to do with Patrick Ive’s imagined sins.”

  Listening to Richard, I started to understand that even the most intransigent person—even a Harriet Sippel—might be persuaded by him. He had a way of putting things that made you see the world differently.

  He asked for my permission to bring Harriet and Ida to our next meeting and, with doubt and fear in my heart, I granted it.

  Although I believed everything Richard had told me by the time he left me, I nevertheless reeled in shock when, two days later, I found myself in a room with Harriet Sippel and Ida Gransbury, and saw with my own eyes that they were as changed as Richard had reported them to be. Or rather, they were the same as always, except that now they strove to apply their compassionless rigidity to themselves. I was filled anew with passionate hatred for them when they spoke of “poor, kind Patrick” and “poor, innocent Frances.” They had no right to utter those words.

  The four of us agreed that we had to do something to put right the wrong. We were murderers, not according to the law but according to the truth, and murderers must pay with their own lives. Only after our deaths would God forgive us.

  “We four are judge, jury and executioner,” said Richard. “We will execute one another.”

  “How will we do it?” Ida asked, gazing adoringly at him.

  “I have thought of a way,” he said. “I shall take care of the details.”

  Thus, without noise or complaint, we signed our own death warrants. I felt nothing but immense relief. I remember thinking that I would not be afraid to kill as long as my victim was not afraid to die. Victim is the wrong word. I don’t know what the right one is.

  Then Harriet said, “Wait. What about Nancy Ducane?”

  I KNEW WHAT SHE meant before she explained. “Oh, yes,” I thought to myself, “this is the same old Harriet Sippel.” Four deaths for a good cause were not enough for her; she craved a fifth.

  Richard and Ida asked her what she meant.

  “Nancy Ducane must die too,” said Harriet, her eyes as hard as flint. “She led poor Patrick into temptation, announced their shame to the village and broke poor Frances’s heart.”

  “Oh, no,” I said, alarmed. “Nancy would never agree to give up her own life. And . . . Patrick loved her!”

  “She’s every bit as guilty as we are,” Harriet insisted. “She must die. We all must, all the guilty, or else it will be for nothing. If we are going to do this, we must do it properly. It was Nancy’s revelation, remember, that prompted Frances Ive to take her own life. And besides, I know something that you don’t know.”

  Richard demanded that we all be told at once. With a sly glint in her eye, Harriet said, “Nancy wanted Frances to know that Patrick’s heart belonged to her. She said what she said out of jealousy and spite. She admitted it to me. She’s just as guilty as we are—more so, if you want to know my true opinion. And if she won’t agree to die . . . well, then!”

  Richard sat with his head in his hands for a long time. Harriet, Ida and I waited in silence. I realized then that Richard was our leader. Whatever he said when he finally spoke, we would abide by it.

  I prayed for Nancy. I did not blame her for Patrick’s death, never had and never would.

  “All right,” said Richard, though he did not look happy. “It saddens me to admit it, but yes. Nancy Ducane should not have consorted with another woman’s husband. She should not have announced her liaison with Patrick to the village in the way that she did. We do not know that Frances Ive would have taken her own life if that had not happened. Regrettably, Nancy Ducane must also die.”

  “No!” I cried out. All I could think of was how Patrick would have felt if he had heard those words.

  “I’m sorry, Jennie, but Harriet is right,” said Richard. “It is a bold and difficult thing that we intend to do. We cannot ask ourselves to make so great a sacrifice and leave alive one person who shares the blame for what occurred. We cannot exonerate Nancy.”

  I wanted to scream and run from the room, but I forced myself to stay in my chair. I was certain that Harriet had lied about Nancy’s reason for speaking up at the King’s Head; I did not believe that Nancy had admitted to being driven by jealousy and a wish to hurt Frances Ive, but, in front of Harriet, I was too afraid to say so, and besides, I had no proof. Richard said that he would need to think for a while about how we would put our plan into action.

  Two weeks l
ater, he came to see me again, alone. He had decided what must happen, he said. He and I would be the only ones to know the whole truth—and Sammy, of course. I tell him everything.

  We would tell Harriet and Ida, said Richard, that the plan was for us to kill one another, as agreed, and frame Nancy Ducane for our murders. Since Nancy lives in London, this would need to happen in London—in a hotel, Richard suggested. He said that he would pay for everything.

  Once at the hotel, it was simple: Ida would kill Harriet, Richard would kill Ida, and I would kill Richard. Each killer, when his or her turn came, would place a cufflink bearing Patrick Ive’s initials in the victim’s mouth and set up the crime scene to look identical to the other two, so that the police would take for granted that the same killer had committed all three . . . deaths. I was about to say murders, but they weren’t. They were executions. You see, it occurred to us that after people are executed there must be a procedure, mustn’t there? The prison staff must do the same thing with every body of an executed criminal, we thought. It was Richard’s idea that the bodies should be laid out in the way that they were—respectfully and with dignity. Ceremonially—that was Richard’s word.

  Since two of the victims, Ida and Harriet, would have given their home addresses to the hotel as Great Holling, we knew that it would not take the police long to go to the village, ask around, and begin to suspect Nancy. Who else was so obvious a suspect? Sammy could pretend to have seen her running out of the hotel after the third murder, and dropping the three room keys on the ground. That’s right: three room keys. Richard’s key was part of the plan too, you see. Ida was supposed to take Harriet’s key to her own room after killing Harriet and locking Harriet’s door. Richard was supposed to do the same: take Harriet’s and Ida’s keys with him when he left and locked Ida’s room after killing Ida. Then I would kill Richard, lock his door, take all three keys, meet Sammy outside the Bloxham and give the keys to him. Sammy would then sneak them somehow into Nancy Ducane’s home, or, as it turned out, her coat pocket one day on the street, in order to incriminate her.