Read The Monogram Murders Online
Authors: Sophie Hannah
canvas as vividly as she lived in real life. Poirot
found himself wanting to look at the portrait again
before he left the house, and not only to check that he
was not mistaken about the important detail he thought
he had noticed.
Dorcas appeared on the upstairs landing. “Your
coffee, sir.” Poirot, who had been inside St. John
Wallace’s study, stepped forward to take the cup from
her hand. She lurched back as if she hadn’t expected
him to move toward her, and spilled most of the drink
on her white apron. “Oh, dear! I’m sorry, sir, I’m a
right old butterfingers. I’ll make you another cup.”
“No, no, please. There is no need.” Poirot seized
what was left of his coffee and ingested it in one gulp,
before any more of it could be spilled.
“This one is my favorite, I think,” said Louisa
Wallace, still in the study. She was pointing at a
painting that Poirot couldn’t see. “
Blue Bindweed:
Solanum Dulcamara
. The fourth of August last year,
you see? This was my wedding anniversary present
from St. John. Thirty years. Beautiful, isn’t it?”
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like another cup of
coffee, sir?” said Dorcas.
“The fourth of . . .
Sacré tonnerre
,” Poirot
murmured to himself as a feeling of excitement started
to grow inside him. He returned to the study and
looked at the picture of blue bindweed.
“He has answered that question once, Dorcas. He
does
not
want more coffee.”
“It’s no trouble, ma’am, honest it isn’t. He wanted
coffee, and there was nothing left in the cup by the
time he got it.”
“If nothing is there, one sees nothing,” mused
Poirot cryptically. “One thinks of nothing. To notice a
nothing—that is a difficult thing, even for Poirot, until
one sees, somewhere else, the thing that should have
been there.” He took Dorcas’s hand and kissed it.
“My dear young lady, what you have brought to me is
more valuable than coffee!”
“Ooh.” Dorcas tilted her head and stared. “Your
eyes have gone all funny and green, sir.”
“Whatever can you mean, Monsieur Poirot?”
Louisa Wallace asked. “Dorcas, go and get on with
something useful.”
“Yes, madam.” The girl hurried away.
“I am indebted both to Dorcas and to you,
madame,” said Poirot. “When I arrived here only—
what is it?—half an hour ago, I did not see clearly. I
saw only confusion and puzzles. Now, I begin to put
things together . . . It is very important that I should
think without interruption.”
“Oh.” Louisa looked disappointed. “Well, if you
need to hurry off—”
“Oh, no, no, you misunderstand me. Pardon,
madame. The fault is mine: I did not make myself
clear. Of course we must finish the tour of the art.
There is much still to explore! After that, I shall
depart and do my thinking.”
“Are you sure?” Louisa regarded him with
something akin to alarm. “Well, all right, then, if it’s
not too much of a bore.” She recommenced her
enthusiastic commentary on her husband’s pictures as
Poirot and Louisa moved from room to room.
In one of the guest bedrooms, the last upstairs
room that they came to, there was a white jug and
bowl set with a red, green and white crest on it. There
was also a wooden table, and a chair; Poirot
recognized both from Nancy Ducane’s painting of
Louisa. He said, “Pardon, madame, but where is the
blue jug and bowl from the portrait?”
“The blue jug and bowl,” Louisa repeated,
seemingly confused.
“I think you posed for Nancy Ducane’s painting in
this room,
n’est-ce pas
?”
“Yes, I did. And . . . wait a minute! This jug and
bowl set is the one from the other guest bedroom!”
“And yet it is not there. It is here.”
“So it is. But . . . then where is the blue jug and
bowl?”
“I do not know, madame.”
“Well, it must be in a different bedroom. Mine,
perhaps. Dorcas must have swapped them around.”
She set off at a brisk pace in search of the missing
items.
Poirot followed. “There is no other jug and bowl
set in any of the bedrooms,” he said.
After a thorough check, Louisa Wallace said
through gritted teeth, “That
useless
girl! I’ll tell you
what’s happened, Monsieur Poirot. Dorcas has
broken it and she’s too scared to tell me. Let us go
and ask her, shall we? She will deny it, of course, but
it’s the only possible explanation. Jugs and bowls
don’t disappear, and they don’t move from room to
room on their own.”
“When did you last see the blue jug and bowl,
madame?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t noticed them in a long
while. I hardly ever go into the guest bedrooms.”
“Is it possible that Nancy Ducane removed the
blue jug and bowl when she left here on Thursday
night?”
“No. Why would she? That’s silly! I stood at the
door and said goodbye to her, and she was not
holding anything apart from her house key. Besides,
Nancy isn’t a thief. Dorcas, on the other hand . . . That
will be it! She hasn’t broken it, she has stolen it, I’m
sure—but how can I prove it? She’s bound to deny
it.”
“Madame, do me one favor: do not accuse Dorcas
of stealing or of anything else. I do not think she is
guilty.”
“Well, then where is my blue jug and bowl?”
“This is what I must think about,” said Poirot. “I
will leave you in peace in a moment, but first may I
take a last look at Nancy Ducane’s remarkable
portrait of you?”
“Yes, with pleasure.”
Together, Louisa Wallace and Hercule Poirot made
their way back down to the drawing room. They stood
in front of the painting. “Dratted girl,” muttered
Louisa. “All I can see when I look at it now is the
blue jug and bowl.”
“
Oui.
It stands out, does it not?”
“It used to be in my house, and now it isn’t, and all
I can do is stare at a picture of it and wonder what
became of it! Oh, dear, what an upsetting day this has
turned out to be!”
BLANCHE UNSWORTH, AS WAS her custom, asked Poirot
the moment he returned to the lodging house if there
was anything she could get for him.
“Indeed there is,” he told her. “I should like a
piece of paper and some pencils to draw with.
Colored pencils.”
Blanche’s face fell. “I can bring you paper, but as
for colored pencils, I can’t say as I’ve got any, unless
you’re interested in the color of ordinary pencil
lead.”
“Ah! Gray: the best of all.”
“Are you having me on, Mr. Poirot? Gray?”
“
Oui.
” Poirot tapped the side of his head. “The
color of the little gray cells.”
“Oh, no. Give me a nice soft pink or lilac any day
of the week.”
“Colors do not matter—a green dress, a blue jug
and bowl set, a white one.”
“I’m not following you, Mr. Poirot.”
“I do not ask you to follow me, Mrs. Unsworth—
only to bring me one of your ordinary pencils and a
piece of paper, quickly. And an envelope. I have been
talking at great length about art today. Hercule Poirot
will attempt now to compose his own work of art!”
Twenty minutes later, seated at one of the tables in
the dining room, Poirot called for Blanche Unsworth
again. When she appeared, he handed her the
envelope, which was sealed. “Please telephone to
Scotland Yard for me,” he said. “Ask them to send
somebody to collect this without delay and deliver it
to Constable Stanley Beer. I have written his name on
the envelope. Please explain that this is important. It
is in connection with the Bloxham Hotel murders.”
“I thought you were drawing a picture,” said
Blanche.
“My picture is sealed inside the envelope,
accompanied by a letter.”
“Oh. Well, then, I can’t see the picture, can I?”
Poirot smiled. “It is not necessary for you to see it,
madame, unless you work for Scotland Yard—which,
to my knowledge, you do not.”
“Oh.” Blanche Unsworth looked vexed. “Well. I
suppose I should make this call for you, then,” she
said.
“
Merci, madame.
”
When she returned five minutes later, she had her
hand over her mouth and pink spots on her cheeks.
“Oh, dear, Mr. Poirot,” she said. “Oh, this is bad
news for all of us! I don’t know what’s wrong with
people, I really don’t.”
“What news?”
“I telephoned to Scotland Yard, like you asked—
they said they’ll send someone to collect your
envelope. Then the phone rang again, right after I’d
put it down. Oh, Mr. Poirot, it’s dreadful!”
“Calm yourself, madame. Tell me, please.”
“There’s been another murder at the Bloxham! I
don’t know what’s wrong with some of these fancy
hotels, I really don’t.”
ON ARRIVING BACK IN London, I proceeded to
Pleasant’s, thinking I might find Poirot there, but the
only familiar face in the coffee house was that of the
waitress with what Poirot calls “the flyaway hair.” I
had always found her to be a tonic and enjoyed
Pleasant’s on account of her presence as much as
anything else. What was her name? Poirot had told
me. Oh yes: Fee Spring, short for Euphemia.
I liked her chiefly for her comforting habit of
saying the same two things every time she saw me.
She said them now. The first was about her long-
standing ambition to change the name of Pleasant’s
from “Coffee House” to “Tea Rooms,” to reflect the
relative merits of the two beverages, and the second
was: “How’s Scotland Yard treating you, then? I’d
like to work there—only if I could be in charge,
mind.”
“Oh, I’m sure you would be leading the troops in
no time,” I told her. “Just as I suspect that one day I
shall arrive here to find ‘Pleasant’s Tea Rooms’ on
the sign outside.”
“Not likely. It’s the only thing they won’t let me
change. Mr. Poirot wouldn’t like it, would he?”
“He would be aghast.”
“You’re not to tell him, or anyone.” Fee’s
proposed change of name for her place of work was
something she professed to have told nobody but me.
“I shan’t,” I assured her. “I tell you what: come
and work with me solving crimes and I’ll ask my boss
if we can change our name to Scotland Yard Tea
Rooms. We do drink tea there, so it wouldn’t be
altogether unsuitable.”
“Hmph.” Fee wasn’t impressed. “I’ve heard
women police aren’t allowed to stay on if they marry.
That’s all right; I’d rather solve crimes with you than
have a husband to look after.”
“There you are, then!”
“So don’t go proposing to me.”
“No fear!”
“Charming, aren’t you?”
To dig myself out of the hole, I said, “I shan’t be
proposing to anybody, but if my parents ever put a gun
to my head, I shall ask you before any other girl—
how’s that?”
“Better me than some dreamer with notions of
romance in her head. She’d be disappointed, all
right.”
I did not want to discuss romance. I said, “As far
as our crime-solving partnership goes . . . I don’t
suppose you’re expecting Poirot, are you? I hoped he