The Monogram Murders (17 page)

“What reason?”

The old gnome poured an almost impossible

amount of ale down his throat in one swift motion.

“She never got over it!” he said.

“Who never got over what? Do you mean that Ida

Gransbury never got over Richard Negus’s leaving

Great Holling?”

“The loss of her husband. Or so they say. Harriet

Sippel. They say it was losing him so young that made

her what she was. I say that’s a poor excuse. Not

much older than the kid that was sitting where you’re

sitting before you were sitting there. Too young to die.

There’s no end to them.”

“When you say ‘made her what she was’—I

wonder what you meant by that, Mr. . . . um . . . ? Can

you explain?”

“What, my good fellow? Oh, yes. It doesn’t pay a

man or a woman to dream. I’m glad I was old by the

time I tumbled to that.”

“Forgive me, but I’d like to check I’ve got this

right,” I said, wishing he would stick to the point.

“Are you saying that Harriet Sippel lost her husband

at a young age, and that being widowed was what

made her become . . . what?”

To my horror, the old man started to cry. “Why did

she have to come here? She could have had a

husband, children, a home of her own, a happy life.”

“Who could have had those things?” I asked rather

desperately. “Harriet Sippel?”

“If she hadn’t told an unforgivable lie . . . That was

what started all the trouble.” As if an invisible

participant in the conversation had suddenly asked

him another question, the old man frowned and said,

“No, no. Harriet Sippel had a husband. George. He

died. Young. A terrible illness. He wasn’t much older

than the kid, the ne’er-do-well that was sitting before

where you’re sitting now. Stoakley.”

“The ne’er-do-well’s name is Stoakley, is it?”

“No, my good fellow.
My
name is Stoakley. Walter

Stoakley. I don’t know his name.” The old gnome

combed his fingers through his beard, then said, “She

devoted her
life
to him. Oh, I know why, I’ve always

understood why. He was a substantial man, whatever

his sins. She sacrificed everything for him.”

“For . . . the young man who was here just now?”

No, that seemed unlikely; the ne’er-do-well had not

looked substantial.

It was lucky that Poirot wasn’t party to this

conversation,

I

thought.

Walter

Stoakley’s

disorganized ramblings would have given him a

seizure.

“No, no. He’s only twenty, you know.”

“Yes, you told me a few moments ago.”

“No point devoting your life to a wastrel who

spends his days drinking.”

“I agree, but—”

“She couldn’t marry some kid, not once she’d

fallen in love with a man of substance. So she left him

behind.”

I had an idea, inspired by what the waiter Rafal

Bobak had said in the dining room of the Bloxham

Hotel. “Is she many years older than him?” I asked.

“Who?” Stoakley looked puzzled.

“The woman you’re talking about. How old is

she?”

“A good ten years older than you. Forty-two, forty-

three at an estimate.”

“I see.” I couldn’t help being impressed that he had

guessed my age accurately. If he was able to do that, I

reasoned, then surely I would eventually manage to

draw some coherent sense from him.

Back into the discursive chaos I went: “So the

woman you’re talking about is
older
than the ne’er-

do-well who was sitting here in this chair a few

minutes ago?”

Stoakley frowned. “Why, my good fellow, she’s

more than twenty years older than him! You

policemen ask peculiar questions.”

An older woman and a younger man: the very

pairing that Harriet Sippel, Ida Gransbury and

Richard Negus had been overheard gossiping about at

the Bloxham Hotel. I was definitely making progress.

“So she was supposed to marry the ne’er-do-well, but

then chose a more substantial man instead?”

“No, not the ne’er-do-well,” said Stoakley

impatiently. Then his eyelids flickered. He smiled and

said, “Ah, but Patrick! He had greatness within his

grasp. She saw it. She understood. If you want women

to fall in love with you, Mr. Catchpool, show them

you have greatness within your grasp.”

“I don’t want women to fall in love with me, Mr.

Stoakley.”

“Whyever not?”

I took a deep breath.

“Mr. Stoakley, could you please tell me the name

of the woman you were talking about—the one you

wish hadn’t come here, who fell in love with a more

substantial man and who told the unforgivable lie?”

“Unforgivable,” the old gnome agreed.

“Who is Patrick? What is the rest of his name? Are

his initials PJI? And is there, or was there ever, a

woman by the name of Jennie in Great Holling?”

“Greatness in his grasp,” said Stoakley sadly.

“Yes, quite. But—”

“She sacrificed everything for him, and I don’t

think she would say she regretted it, if you asked her

today. What else could she do? She loved him, you

see. There’s no arguing with love.” He clutched at his

shirt and twisted it. “You might as well try to rip out

your heart.”

Which was rather how I felt after a further half

hour of trying to extract some logic from Walter

Stoakley. I applied myself until I could bear it no

longer, and then gave up.

Slander’s Mark

I STEPPED OUT OF the King’s Head Inn with great

relief. A light rain had started to fall. In front of me, a

man wearing a long coat and a cap broke into a trot,

no doubt hoping to reach his house and get himself

inside before the weather worsened. I gazed out

across the field that was opposite the pub, beyond a

low hedge: a sizeable expanse of green, bordered by

rows of trees on three sides. Again, that silence.

Nothing to hear but the rain on the leaves; nothing to

see but green.

A country village was the wrong place to live for

anyone who wanted to be distracted from their own

thoughts, that was for sure. In London, there was

always a car or a bus or a face or a dog whizzing

past, making some sort of commotion. How I longed

for commotion now; anything but this stillness.

Two women passed me, also apparently in a hurry.

They ignored my friendly greeting and scuttled away

without looking up. It was only when I heard over my

shoulder the words “policeman” and “Harriet” that I

wondered if I had blamed the perfectly innocent rain

for a phenomenon of my own making. Were these

people running from the weather or from the London

policeman?

While I had been applying my little gray cells, as

Poirot would call them, to Walter Stoakley’s

disjointed proclamations, had Victor Meakin left his

inn by the back door and stopped passersby on the

street to inform them of my presence in the village,

against my clearly stated wishes? I could imagine that

might be his idea of sport. What a strange and

unpleasant man he was.

I continued along the S-shaped street. Ahead of

me, a young man emerged from one of the houses. I

was pleased to see that it was the man with the

glasses and freckles whom I had met when I first got

off the train. When he saw me strolling toward him,

he stopped as if the soles of his shoes had been glued

to the pavement. “Hello!” I called out. “I found the

King’s Head, thanks to your help!”

The young man’s eyes widened as I approached.

He looked as if he wanted to flee; evidently he was

too polite to do so. If it hadn’t been for that distinctive

boomerang of freckles across his nose, I might have

concluded that this could not be the same person I had

met before. His manner had totally altered—exactly

as Victor Meakin’s had.

“I don’t know anything about who killed them, sir,”

he stammered before I had an opportunity to aim a

question at him. “I don’t know anything. I’ve never

been to London, like I told you.”

Well, that put the matter beyond doubt: my identity

and reason for being in Great Holling were common

knowledge. Silently, I cursed Meakin. “It isn’t London

that I’m here to find out about,” I said. “Did you know

Harriet Sippel, Ida Gransbury and Richard Negus?”

“I can’t stop, sir, I’m afraid. I have an errand.” He

was calling me “sir” all over the place. He had not

done so the first time we spoke, before he knew I was

a policeman.

“Oh,” I said. “Well, might we speak later today?”

“No, sir, I don’t think I’ll be able to spare the

time.”

“How about tomorrow?”

“No, sir.” He chewed his bottom lip.

“I see. And if I force the issue, I dare say you

would only clam up or lie, wouldn’t you?” I sighed.

“Thank you for exchanging these few words with me,

at any rate. Most people see me coming and take off

in the opposite direction.”

“It’s no reflection on you, sir. People are scared.”

“Of what?”

“Three are dead. No one wants to be next.”

I don’t know what answer I was expecting, but it

wasn’t that one. Before I could reply, the young man

darted past me and marched off down the street.

What, I wondered, made him believe that there was

likely to be a “next?” I thought about Poirot’s mention

of a fourth cufflink, waiting in the murderer’s pocket

to be placed in a future victim’s mouth, and my throat

tightened involuntarily. I could not allow the

possibility of another laid-out body.
Palms facing

downward
. . .

No. That was absolutely not going to happen.

Announcing this to myself made me feel better.

I walked up and down the street for a while,

hoping to catch sight of someone else, but nobody

appeared. I was not yet ready to return to the King’s

Head, so I walked to the very end of the village

where the railway station was. I stood on the platform

for the London trains, frustrated that I could not board

one and return home immediately. I wondered what

Blanche Unsworth would cook for dinner tonight, and

whether Poirot would judge it to be satisfactory. Then

I forced my thoughts back in the direction of Great

Holling.

What could I do if everybody in the village had

resolved to avoid and ignore me?

The church! I had walked past its graveyard

several times without noticing it properly—without

thinking about the tragic story of the vicar and his

wife who had died within hours of each other. How

could I have been so oblivious?

I walked back into the village and made straight

for the church. It was called Holy Saints and was a

smallish building of the same honey-colored stone as

the railway station. The grass in the churchyard was

well tended. Most of the graves had flowers by them

that appeared newly laid.

Behind the church, on the other side of a low wall

into which a gate had been fitted, I saw two houses.

One, set back, looked as if it must be the vicarage.

The other, much smaller, was a long, low cottage, the

back of which was almost pressed up against the

wall. It had no back door but I counted four windows

—large ones for a cottage—that would have afforded

views of nothing but rows of gravestones. One would