The Monogram Murders (36 page)

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.

I don’t suppose this matters, but Patrick Ive never

wore monogrammed cufflinks. He didn’t own a pair

as far as I ever knew. Richard Negus ordered all the

cufflinks to be specially made, to set the police on the

right track. The leaving of the blood and my hat inside

the fourth hotel room was also part of our plan,

designed to make you believe I had been murdered in

that room—that Nancy Ducane had avenged her dead

love by killing all four of us. Richard was happy to

leave it to Sammy to provide the blood. It came from

a stray cat, if you want to know. It was also Sammy’s

job to leave the note on the hotel’s front desk on the

night of the killings: “MAY THEY NEVER REST IN

PEACE” and then the three room numbers. He was to

place it on the reception desk when no one was

looking, shortly after eight o’clock. My task,

meanwhile, was to stay alive and make sure that

Nancy Ducane hanged for the three murders, and

possibly four if the police believed that I too was

dead.

How was I to accomplish this? Well, as the fourth

person that Nancy would wish to kill—the fourth

person responsible for what happened to Patrick—I

was to let the police know that I feared for my life.

This I did at Pleasant’s Coffee House, and you were

my audience, Monsieur Poirot. You are quite right: I

deceived you. You are right too that I had heard the

waitresses at Pleasant’s discussing the detective from

the Continent who comes in every Thursday evening

at precisely half past seven, and who sometimes dines

with his much younger friend from Scotland Yard. As

soon as I heard the girls talking about you, I knew you

would be perfect.

But Monsieur Poirot, one of the conclusions you

have drawn is incorrect. You said that my saying,

“Once
I
am dead, justice will have been done,

finally” meant that I knew the other three were

already dead, but I absolutely did not know whether

Richard, Harriet and Ida were dead or alive, because

by then I had ruined everything. I was merely thinking,

when I spoke those words, that according to the plan

Richard and I made, I would outlive them. So you see,

they might well still have been alive when I uttered

those words.

I should make it clear: there were two plans—one

that Harriet and Ida agreed to, and a quite different

one known only to Richard and me. As far as Harriet

and Ida were concerned it would go like this: Ida

would kill Harriet, Richard would kill Ida, I would

kill Richard. Then I would fake my own murder, at the

Bloxham, using the blood that Sammy would get hold

of. I would live only as long as it took to see Nancy

Ducane hanged, and then I would take my own life. If

by some chance Nancy did not hang, I was to kill her

and then take my own life. I had to be the last to die,

because of the acting involved. I am a good actress

when I want to be. When I contrived to meet you at

the coffee house, Monsieur Poirot . . . Harriet Sippel

could not have produced such a performance. Neither

could Ida, or Richard. So you see, I had to be the one

to stay alive.

The plan that Harriet and Ida were party to was not

Richard’s true plan. When he came to see me alone,

two weeks after our first meeting in London with

Harriet and Ida, he told me that the question of

whether Nancy ought to die had been concerning him

greatly. Like me, he did not believe Nancy had

admitted to Harriet that she had spoken up at the

King’s Head for any reason apart from to defend

Patrick against lies.

On the other hand, Richard could see Harriet’s

point. Patrick and Frances Ive’s deaths had been

caused by the ill-judged behavior of several people,

and it was hard not to count Nancy Ducane among

those responsible.

I could not have been more surprised, or

frightened, when Richard confessed that he had been

unable to reach a decision in the matter of Nancy, and

that therefore he had decided to leave it up to me.

After he, Harriet and Ida were dead, he said, I was

free to choose: either to do my best to ensure that

Nancy hanged, or to take my own life and leave a

different note for the hotel staff to find—not “MAY

THEY NEVER REST IN PEACE,” but a note

containing the truth about our deaths.

I begged Richard not to force me to decide alone.

Why me? I demanded to know.

“Because, Jennie,” he said—and I shall never

forget this—“because you are the best of us. You

were never inflated with a sense of your own virtue.

Yes, you told a lie, but you realized your error as

soon as the words had left your mouth. I believed

your falsehood for an inexcusably long time when I

had no proof, and I helped to gather support for a

campaign against a good, innocent man. A flawed

man, yes—not a saint. But who among us is perfect?”

“All right,” I told Richard. “I will make the choice

that you have entrusted to me.” I was flattered to be so

praised, I suppose.

And so our plans were made. Now, would you like

me to tell you how it all went wrong?

How It All Went Wrong

“INDEED,” SAID POIROT. “TELL us. Catchpool and I, we

are agog.”

“It was my fault,” said Jennie, whose voice was

hoarse by now. “I am a coward. I was afraid to die.

Desolate as I was without Patrick, I had grown

comfortable in my unhappiness and I didn’t want my

life to end. Any sort of life, even one filled with

torment, is preferable to a state of nothingness! Please

don’t condemn me as unchristian for saying so, but

I’m not sure I believe in an afterlife. I grew more and

more afraid as the agreed date for the executions

came closer—afraid of having to kill. I thought about

what would be involved, imagined standing in a

locked room and watching Richard drink poison, and

I didn’t want to have to do it. But I had agreed! I had

promised.”

“The plan that seemed so easy months before

started to seem impossible,” said Poirot. “And of

course you could not speak of your fears to Richard

Negus, who esteemed you so highly. He might think

less of you if you admitted to serious doubts. You

perhaps were afraid he would take it upon himself to

execute you with or without your consent.”

“Yes! I was terrified that he would. You see, from

our discussions of the subject, I knew how important

it was to him that all four of us should die. He told me

on one occasion that if Harriet and Ida had not

allowed themselves to be persuaded, he would have

‘done what needed to be done without their consent.’

That was how he put it. Knowing that, how could I go

to him and tell him I had changed my mind, that I was

prepared neither to die nor to kill?”

“I imagine you chided yourself for your reluctance,

mademoiselle. You believed, did you not, that this

killing and dying was the right and honorable thing to

do?”

“With the rational part of my mind, yes, I did,”

said Jennie. “I hoped and prayed that I would

discover in myself an extra reserve of courage that

would enable me to go through with it.”

“What did you plan to do about Nancy Ducane?” I

asked her.

“I did not know. My panic on the night we first met

was genuine, Monsieur Poirot. I could not decide

what to do about anything! I allowed Sammy to go

forward with his story about the keys, and to identify

Nancy. I let all that happen, telling myself that at any

moment I could go to the authorities with the truth and

save her. But . . . I did not do so. Richard thought me a

better person than him, but he was wrong—so wrong!

“There is a part of me, still, that envies Nancy

because Patrick loved her, the same spiteful part that

started all the trouble in Great Holling. And . . . I

knew that if I admitted to conspiring in a plot to

convict an innocent woman of murder, I would surely

go to prison. I was scared.”

“Tell us please, mademoiselle: what did you do?

What happened on the day of these . . . executions at

the Bloxham Hotel?”

“I was supposed to arrive there at six o’clock.

That was when we had agreed to meet.”

“The four conspirators?”

“Yes, and Sammy. I spent the whole day watching

the clock tick its way toward the awful moment. When

it got close to five o’clock, I simply knew I couldn’t

do it. I just couldn’t! I did not go to the hotel at all.

Instead, I ran through the streets of London, crying

with fear. I had no notion of where to go or what to

do, so I ran and ran. I felt as if Richard Negus was

bound to be out looking for me, furious that I had let

him and the others down. I went to Pleasant’s Coffee

House at the agreed time, thinking that I could at least

keep that part of my promise, even if I couldn’t kill

Richard as I was supposed to.

“When I arrived at the coffee house, I
was
afraid

for my life. That was no act that you saw. I thought

Richard,
not Nancy, might kill me—and, what is

more, I was convinced that if he did, he would be

doing the right thing. I
did
deserve to die! I said

nothing to you that wasn’t true, Monsieur Poirot.

Please, recall now what I said:

That I was scared of being murdered? I was—by

Richard. That I had done something terrible in the

past? I had—and if Richard did catch up with me and

kill me, as I believed he one day would, I honestly

did not want him to be punished for it. I knew that I

had let him down. Can you understand that? Richard

might have wanted to die, but I wanted him to live.

Despite the harm he did to Patrick, he was a good

man.”

“
Oui, mademoiselle.
”

“I longed to tell you the truth that night, Monsieur

Poirot, but I lacked the courage.”

“So you believed that Richard Negus would find

you and kill you because you did not arrive at the

Bloxham Hotel to kill him?”