The Monogram Murders

by Sophie Hannah

  “You have, sir.”

  “You then told me that either Ida or Harriet said something else that you could not remember, and then the man you assumed was Richard Negus said, ‘His mind? I’d argue he has no mind. And I dispute the old-enough-to-be-his-mother claim. I dispute it utterly.’ At which point the woman going by the name of Harriet laughed and said, ‘Well, neither of us can prove we’re right, so let’s agree to disagree!’ Correct?”

  Rafal Bobak confirmed that, once again, Poirot had got it right.

  “Bon. May I suggest to you, Mr. Bobak, that the remark made by either Ida or Harriet that you do not remember was in fact made by Harriet? I am convinced—absolutely convinced!—that you did not hear Ida Gransbury speak one single word while you were in that room, and that you did not see her face because she was sitting with her back facing the door.”

  Bobak frowned, concentrating. Eventually he said, “I think you are right, Mr. Poirot. No, I did not see the face of Miss Ida Gransbury. And . . . I don’t think I heard her speak at all, now that you bring it up.”

  “You did not hear her speak, monsieur—for the simple reason that Ida Gransbury, propped up in a chair with her back facing the door, was already murdered by a quarter past seven. The third person in Room 317 when you took up the afternoon tea was a dead woman!”

  The Blue Jug and Bowl

  A FEW PEOPLE CRIED out in alarm. There is a strong chance that I was one of them. It is strange: I have seen many dead bodies, thanks to my work for Scotland Yard, and have on occasion found the sight of them disturbing—yet no regular corpse could be as horrifying a prospect as a dead woman propped up as if alive and partaking of a jolly afternoon tea with friends.

  Poor Rafal Bobak looked rather shivery and wobbly lipped, no doubt reflecting that he had been closer to the monstrosity than any sane person would wish to be.

  “This is why the food had to be delivered to Ida Gransbury’s room,” Poirot went on. “Richard Negus’s room, 238, would have been the most convenient meeting point for the three victims, as it was on the second floor between the other two rooms. The afternoon tea would then have been added to Mr. Negus’s bill without his having to make a point of requesting this. But of course Room 238 could not be the room in which our three murder victims were seen alive by Rafal Bobak at a quarter past seven! That would have involved carrying Ida Gransbury’s dead body from her room, 317, in which she had been killed some hours earlier, through the corridors of the hotel to Richard Negus’s room. It would have been too great a risk. Someone would almost certainly have seen.”

  The shocked faces of the bewildered crowd were something to behold. I wondered if Luca Lazzari would soon be seeking new staff. I definitely had no intention of returning to the Bloxham once this unpleasant business was concluded, and I imagined that many in the room felt the same way.

  Poirot proceeded with his explanations. “Reflect, ladies and gentlemen, upon the munificence, the largesse, of Mr. Richard Negus. Ah, how generous he was, insisting on paying for the food and the tea, also paying for Harriet and Ida each to travel alone to the hotel in a car. Why would they not come by train together and share a car to the hotel? And why should Richard Negus care so passionately about making sure that the bill for the food and beverages was sent to him, when he knew that he, Harriet Sippel and Ida Gransbury were all about to die?”

  It was a very good question. All the points that Poirot was making were pertinent, and, moreover, were things I should have thought of myself. Somehow, I had failed to notice that so many aspects of Jennie Hobbs’s story did not fit with the facts of the case. How could I have missed such glaring inconsistencies?

  Poirot said, “The man who impersonated Richard Negus at fifteen minutes past seven for the benefit of Rafal Bobak, and again at half past for the benefit of Mr. Thomas Brignell, did not care about any bill! He knew that neither he nor his accomplices would have to pay it. He had been outside to dispose of the food. How did he transport it? In a suitcase! Catchpool—do you remember the tramp you saw near the hotel, when we took our trip on a bus? A tramp eating food from a suitcase, non? You described him as ‘the tramp that got the cream.’ Tell me, did you see him eating cream specifically?”

  “Oh, my goodness. Yes, I did! He was eating a . . . a cake, with cream in it.”

  Poirot nodded. “From the suitcase he found discarded near the Bloxham Hotel, pleasingly full of afternoon tea for three! Now, here is another test for your memory, mon ami: do you remember telling me, on my first visit to the Bloxham, that Ida Gransbury had brought enough clothes with her to fill an entire wardrobe? And yet she had only one suitcase in her room—the same number as Richard Negus and Harriet Sippel, who had brought considerably fewer clothes with them. This afternoon, I asked you to pack Miss Gransbury’s garments into her case, and what did you find?”

  “They wouldn’t fit,” I said, feeling like a prize chump. It seemed that I was doomed to feel idiotic in relation to Ida Gransbury’s suitcase, but now for a different reason from before.

  “You blamed yourself,” said Poirot. “It is your preference to do so always, but in fact it was impossible for all the clothes to fit in, because they had been brought to the Bloxham in two suitcases. Even Hercule Poirot, he could not have made them fit!”

  To the assembled hotel staff, he said, “It was on his way back from disposing of the suitcase full of food that this man met the Bloxham’s assistant clerk, Thomas Brignell, near the door to this room in which we are gathered. Why did he engage Brignell in discussion about the bill? For one reason only: to impress upon Brignell that Richard Negus was still alive at half past seven. Playing the role of Mr. Negus, he said something inaccurate: that Negus could afford to pay, whereas Harriet Sippel and Ida Gransbury could not. This was not true! Henry Negus, Richard’s brother, can confirm that Richard had no income and very little family money left. But the man impersonating Richard Negus did not know this. He assumed that since Richard Negus was a gentleman, once a lawyer by profession, he was bound to have plenty of money.

  “When Henry Negus first spoke to Catchpool and myself, he told us that since moving to Devon, his brother Richard had been morose and doom laden. He was a recluse with no appetite for life—correct, Mr. Negus?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid so,” said Henry Negus.

  “A recluse! I ask you, does this sound like a man who would indulge himself in sherry and cake, and gossip in a cavalier fashion with two women in a fancy London hotel? No! The man who received the afternoon tea from Rafal Bobak, and for whom Thomas Brignell fetched the sherry, was not Richard Negus. This man, he complimented Mr. Brignell on his efficiency and said something approximating the following: ‘I know I can rely on you to sort this out, since you are so efficient—bill the food and beverages to me, Richard Negus, Room 238.’ His words were calculated to make Thomas Brignell believe that this man, this Richard Negus, was familiar with his level of efficiency, and that therefore they must have encountered one another before. Mr. Brignell might feel a little guilty, perhaps, because he does not remember his previous dealings with Mr. Negus—and he will resolve not to forget him again. He will remember from now on this man whom he has met twice. Naturally, working in a large London hotel, he meets people all the time, hundreds every day! It often happens, I am sure, that guests know his name and face while he has forgotten theirs—after all, they are simply, en masse, ‘the guests’!”

  “Excuse me, Monsieur Poirot, I beg your pardon.” Luca Lazzari hurried forward. “Broadly speaking, you are quite right, but not, as chance would have it, in the case of Thomas Brignell. He has an exceptional memory for faces and names. Exceptional!”

  Poirot smiled appreciatively. “Is that so? Bon. Then I am right.”

  “About what?” I asked.

  “Be patient and listen, Catchpool. I will explain the sequence of events. The man impersonating Richard Negus was in the lobby of the hotel when Mr. Negus checked in on Wednesday, the day before the murders. Probably he wanted to sur
vey the territory in preparation for the role he was to play later. In any case, he saw Richard Negus arrive. How did he know it was Richard Negus? I will come back to that point. Suffice to say, he knew. He saw Thomas Brignell undertake the necessary paperwork and then hand Mr. Negus the key to his room. The following evening, after posing as Mr. Negus to receive the afternoon tea and then going outside to dispose of it, this man is on his way back to Room 317 and he passes Thomas Brignell. He is a quick-thinking individual, and he sees a superb opportunity to consolidate the misleading of the police. He approaches Brignell and addresses him as if he, this impostor, were Richard Negus. He reminds Brignell of his name and alludes to a previous meeting.

  “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 sûr,” 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.

  “This led me to ruminate. I already suspected that the dead Richard Negus whose body I saw and the living Richard Negus seen by Rafal Bobak and Thomas Brignell on the night of the murders were two different men. Then I remembered being told that on arrival at the Bloxham on the Wednesday, Richard Negus was dealt with by Thomas Brignell. If I was right in my suppositions, then this would have been a different Richard Negus, the real one. Suddenly I understood Thomas Brignell’s predicament. How could he say publicly that this one man appeared to have two faces? Everyone would think him a lunatic!”

  “You’re the one that sounds half-crazed, Mr. Poirot,” said Samuel Kidd with a sneer.

  Poirot went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “This impostor might not have resembled Richard Negus in appearance, but I have no doubt that his voice was a perfect imitation. He is an excellent mimic—are you not, Mr. Kidd?”

  “Don’t listen to this man! He’s a liar!”

  “No, Mr. Kidd. It is you who are the liar. You have impersonated me more than once.”

  Fee Spring stood up at the back of the room. “You should all believe Mr. Poirot,” she said. “He’s telling the truth, all right. I’ve heard Mr. Samuel Kidd speak in his accent. With my eyes closed, I’d not know the difference.”

  “It is not only with his voice that Samuel Kidd lies,” said Poirot. “The first time I met him, he presented himself as a man of below average intelligence and slovenly appearance: his shirt with the missing button and the stain. Also the incomplete beard—he had shaved only one small patch of his face. Mr. Kidd, please tell everybody here why you went to great lengths to make yourself look so disheveled the first time we met.”

  Samuel Kidd stared resolutely ahead. He said nothing. His eyes were full of loathing.

  “Very well, if you will not speak then I shall explain it myself. Mr. Kidd cut his cheek while climbing down the tree outside the window of Room 238, Richard Negus’s hot
el room. A cut on the face of a smartly dressed man might stand out and invite questions, no? One who is careful about his appearance would surely not allow a razor to make an unsightly mark upon his face. Mr. Kidd did not want me to think along these lines. He did not want me to wonder if he might recently have climbed out of an open window and down a tree, so he created the general unkempt appearance. He arranged himself to look like the sort of man who would be so careless as to cut himself while shaving and then, to avoid further cuts, walk around with half a beard on and half off! Such a chaotic man would of course use his shaving razor recklessly and do damage—this is what Poirot was supposed to believe, and it was what he did believe at first.”

  “Hold on a minute, Poirot,” I said. “If you’re saying that Samuel Kidd climbed out of Richard Negus’s hotel-room window—”

  “Am I saying that he murdered Mr. Negus? Non. He did not. He assisted the murderer of Richard Negus. As for who that person is . . . I have not yet told you the name.” Poirot smiled.

  “No, you haven’t,” I said sharply. “Nor have you told me who were the three people in Room 317 when Rafal Bobak took up the afternoon tea. You’ve said that the three murder victims were all dead by then—”

  “Indeed they were. One of the three in Room 317 at a quarter past seven was Ida Gransbury—dead, but positioned upright in a chair to appear alive, as long as one did not see her face. Another was Samuel Kidd, playing the part of Richard Negus.”

  “Yes, I see that, but who was the third?” I asked rather desperately. “Who was the woman posing as Harriet Sippel, gossiping with spiteful glee? It can’t have been Jennie Hobbs. As you say, Jennie would have had to be halfway to Pleasant’s Coffee House by then.”