they all lived and find out who they are, Catchpool.”
“Me? You mean us?”
“Non, mon ami. Poirot, he will stay in London. I
need only to move my mind, not my body, in order to
make progress. No, you will go, and you will bring
back to me the fullest account of your travels. That
will be sufficient. Take with you two lists of names:
guests at the Bloxham Hotel on Wednesday and
Thursday nights, and employees of the Bloxham
Hotel. Find out if anyone in this cursed village
recognizes any of the names. Ask about Jennie and
PIJ. Make sure not to return until you have discovered
the story about this vicar and his wife and their tragic
deaths in 1913.”
“Poirot, you’ve got to come with me,” I said rather
desperately. “I’m out of my depth with this Bloxham
business. I am relying on you.”
“You may continue to do so, mon ami. We will go
to the house of Mrs. Blanche Unsworth and there we
will assemble our thoughts so that you do not arrive in
Great Holling unprepared.”
He always called it “the house of Mrs. Blanche
Unsworth.” Every time he did, it reminded me that I
too had once thought of it in those terms, before I
started to call it “home.”
“ASSEMBLING OUR THOUGHTS” TURNED out to mean
Poirot standing by the fire in the excessively
lavender-fringed drawing room and dictating to me,
while I sat in a chair nearby and wrote down every
word he said. I have never, before or since, heard
anyone speak in such a perfectly orderly way. I tried
to protest that he was making me write down many
things of which I was already fully aware, and I got
the benefit of his long and earnest disquisition on the
subject of “the importance of the method.” Apparently
my pincushion brain cannot be expected to remember
anything, so I need a written record to refer to.
After dictating a list of everything we knew, Poirot
followed the same procedure for everything we didn’t
know but were hoping to find out. (I considered
reproducing these two lists here, but I do not wish to
bore or infuriate others as I was bored and
infuriated.)
To be fair to Poirot, once I had scribbled it all
down and looked over what I had written, I did feel
that I had a clearer view of things: clear, and
inordinately discouraging. I put down my pen and said
with a sigh, “I’m not sure I want to carry around with
me an endless list of questions I can’t answer and
probably have no hope of ever answering.”
“You lack the confidence, Catchpool.”
“Yes. What does one do about that?”
“I do not know. It is not a problem that I suffer
from. I do not worry that I will meet a problem for
which I will be unable to find the solution.”
“Do you think you’ll be able to find the solution
for this one?”
Poirot smiled. “You wish me to encourage you to
have confidence in me, since you have none in
yourself? Mon ami, you know more than you are
aware of knowing. Do you remember you made a
joke, at the hotel, about all three victims arriving on
Wednesday, the day before the murders? You said,
‘It’s almost as if they had an invitation to present
themselves for slaughter, one that said, “Please come
to the day before, so that Thursday can be devoted
entirely to your getting murdered.’ ”
“Well, what about it?”
“Your joke relied on the idea that getting murdered
is more than enough activity for one day—to travel
across the country by train and get murdered on the
same day, that would be too much for anyone! And the
killer does not want his victims to have to exert
themselves unduly! This is funny!”
Poirot smoothed his mustache, as if he imagined
that laughing might have shaken it out of shape.
“Your words made me wonder, my friend: since
getting murdered is really no effort for the victim, and
since no killer is so considerate of those he intends to
poison, why does he not kill the three victims on the
Wednesday night?”
“He might have been busy on Wednesday night,” I
said.
“Then why not arrange for the three victims to
arrive at the hotel on Thursday morning and afternoon
instead of Wednesday morning and afternoon? The
killer would still have been able to kill them when he
did, n’est-ce pas? On Thursday evening, between a
quarter past seven and ten past eight?”
I did my best to look patient. “You’re
overcomplicating things, Poirot. If the victims all
knew each other, which we know they did, maybe
they had a reason for all being in London for two
nights, a reason that had nothing to do with the killer.
He chose to kill them on the second night because it
was more convenient for him. He didn’t invite them to
the Bloxham; he simply knew that they would be
there, and when. Also. . .” I stopped. “No, never
mind. It’s silly.”
“Tell me the thing that is silly,” Poirot ordered.
“Well, it’s possible that if the murderer is a
meticulous planner by nature, he would not plan the
murders for the same day that he knew his victims
would be traveling to London, in case their trains
were delayed.”
“Perhaps the killer also had to travel to London,
from Great Holling or somewhere else. It is possible
that he—or she, for it might be a woman—did not
want to make a long, tiring journey and commit three
murders on the same day.”
“Even if that’s so, the victims could still have
arrived on the Thursday, couldn’t they?”
“They did not,” said Poirot simply. “We know that
they arrived the day before, on Wednesday. So, I
begin to wonder: did something need to happen that
involved the murderer and all three victims before the
murders could be committed? If so, then perhaps the
murderer did not travel from far to come here, but
lives here in London.”
“Could be,” I said. “All of which is a long-winded
way of saying that we have not the faintest idea of
what happened or why. I seem to remember that being
my original assessment of the situation. Oh, and
Poirot . . . ?”
“Yes, mon ami?”
“I haven’t had the heart to tell you before now, and
I know you’re not going to like it. The monogrammed
cufflinks . . .”
“Oui?”
“You asked Henry Negus about PIJ. I don’t think
those are the chap’s initials, whoever he is—the
owner of the cufflinks. I think his initials are PJI.
Look.” I reproduced the monogram on the back of one
of my pieces of paper. As closely as I could from
memory, I replicated the way the letters appeared on
the cufflinks. “Do you see that the ‘I’ is larger and the
‘P’ and the ‘J’ on either side are considerably
smaller? That’s a popular style of monogram. The
larger initial signifies the surname and is in the
middle.”
Poirot was frowning and shaking his head. “The
initials in the monogram are in the wrong order,
deliberately? I have never heard of this. Who would
have such an idea? It is nonsensical!”
“Common practice, I’m afraid. Trust me on this
one. Chaps at work have monogrammed cufflinks of
this sort.”
“Incroyable. The English have no sense of the
proper order of things.”
“Yes, well, be that as it may . . . It’s PJI we’ll need
to be asking about when we go to Great Holling, not
PIJ.”
It was a feeble effort, and one that Poirot saw
through straight away. “You, my friend, will go to
Great Holling,” he said. “Poirot will stay in London.”
A Visit to Great Holling
THE FOLLOWING MONDAY MORNING, I set off to Great
Holling as instructed. My impression upon arrival
was that it was similar to many other English villages
I had visited, and that there was not much more to say
about it than that. There is, I think, more difference
between cities than between villages, as well as more
to say about cities. I could certainly talk at length
about the intricacies of London. Perhaps it is simply
that I am not as finely attuned to places such as Great
Holling. They make me feel out of my element—if I
have an element, that is. I’m not convinced that I do.
I had been told that I could not fail to spot the
King’s Head Inn, where I would be staying, but fail I
did. Luckily, a bespectacled young man with a
boomerang-shaped scattering of freckles across the
bridge of his nose and a newspaper tucked under his
arm was on hand to help me. He appeared at first
behind me, startling me. “Lost, are you?” he said.
“I believe I am, yes. I’m looking for the King’s
Head.”
“Ah!” He grinned. “Thought so, with your case and
all. You’re not a native, then? King’s Head looks like
a house from the street, so you’d not notice it, not
unless you went along the lane there—see? Go down
there, turn right and you’ll see the sign and the way
in.”
I thanked him and was about to follow his advice
when he called me back with, “So where are you
from, then?”
I told him, and he said, “I’ve never been to
London. What brings you to our neck of the woods,
then?”
“Work,” I said. “Listen, I hope this doesn’t sound
rude, and I’d be glad to talk to you later, but I’d like
to get myself settled in first.”
“Well, don’t let me keep you, then,” he said. “What
kind of work is it you do? Oh—there I go again,
asking another question. Maybe I’ll ask you later.” He
waved and set off down the street.
I tried again to proceed to the King’s Head and he
shouted after me, “Down the lane and turn right!”
More jovial waving followed.
He was trying to be friendly and helpful, and I
should have been grateful. Normally I would have
been, except . . .
Well, I’ll admit it: I don’t like villages. I didn’t say
so to Poirot before I left, but I said it to myself many
times during the train journey, and then again when I
got off at the pretty little station. I didn’t like this
charming narrow street in which I stood, which
curved in the exact shape of a letter S and had tiny
cottages on both sides that looked more suitable for
whiskery woodland creatures than for human beings.
I didn’t like being asked presumptuous questions
by complete strangers on the street, though I was fully
aware of my own hypocrisy since I was here in Great
Holling to interrogate strangers myself.
Now that the bespectacled man had gone on his
way, there was not a sound to be heard apart from the
occasional bird and my own breathing. Beyond the
houses I saw empty fields and hills in the distance
that, combined with the silence, made me feel
immediately lonely. Cities, of course, can also make a
person feel alone. In London, you look at those who
pass you by and you have no idea what is going on in
their minds. Each one looks utterly closed to you and
mysterious. In villages the same rule applies, except
that you suspect it is the same thing going on in every
mind.
The owner of the King’s Head turned out to be a
Mr. Victor Meakin, who looked to be between fifty
and sixty and had thin gray hair through which the tops
of his ears poked pinkly on both sides. He too seemed
eager to discuss London. “Were you born there, if you
don’t mind my asking, Mr. Catchpool? How many
people live there now? What’s the size of the
population? Is it very dirty there? My aunt went there
once—said it was very dirty. Still, I’ve always
thought I’d like to go one day. I never said so to my
aunt, though—I’d have had an argument from her, God
rest her soul. Does everybody in London have a car of
their own?”
I was relieved that his stream of chatter allowed
me no time to answer. My luck ran out when he got to
the question that really interested him: “What brings
you to Great Holling, Mr. Catchpool? I can’t think
what business you might have here.”
At that point he stopped, and I had no choice but to
answer. “I’m a policeman,” I told him. “From
Scotland Yard.”
“Policeman?” He maintained a determined smile,
but he looked at me now with very different eyes:
hard, probing and disdainful—as if he was
speculating about me and drawing conclusions that
were to my disadvantage. “A policeman,” he said,
more to himself than me. “Now, why would a
policeman be here? An important policeman from
London, too.” Since he seemed not to be asking me
directly, I neglected to reply.
As he carried my cases up the winding wooden
stairs, he stopped three times and turned to peer at me
for no discernible reason.
The room he had allocated to me was agreeably
sparse and chilly—a welcome change from Blanche
Unsworth’s frilly, fringed extravagance. Here,
thankfully, no hot water bottle with a knitted cover
had been laid out for my use. I can’t bear the things;
even the sight of them irks me. The warmest thing in
any bed should always be a person, in my opinion.
Meakin pointed out some features of the room that
I might have spotted myself, such as the bed and the
large wooden cupboard. I tried to respond with the
appropriate mixture of surprise and delight. Then,
because I knew I would have to do so at some point, I
told him the nature of my business in Great Holling,
hoping this would satisfy his curiosity and allow him
to look at me henceforth in a less penetrating way. I
told him about the Bloxham Hotel murders.
His mouth twitched as he listened. It looked rather
as if he was trying not to laugh, though I might have
been mistaken. “Murdered, you say? In a fancy
London hotel? Now, there’s a thing! Mrs. Sippel and
Miss Gransbury, murdered? And Mr. Negus?”
“You knew them, then?” I said, removing my coat
and hanging it up in the cupboard.
“Oh, yes, I knew them.”
“They weren’t friends of yours, I take it?”
“Weren’t friends, weren’t enemies,” said Meakin.
“That’s the best way, when you’ve got an inn to run.
Friends and enemies gets you into trouble. Looks like
it got Mrs. Sippel and Miss Gransbury into trouble.
Mr. Negus too.”
What was it that I could hear in his voice—that
strange emphasis? Was it relish?
“Forgive me, Mr. Meakin, but . . . does it please
you to learn of these three deaths, or am I imagining
it?”
“You are, Mr. Catchpool. Indeed you are.” He
delivered the denial with utmost confidence.
We stared at one another for a moment or two. I
