end to her romantic involvement with the man, did
he not? Whereas the conversation that Rafal Bobak
overheard between the three murder victims was
about a man no longer romantically interested in a
woman who still craved his love. How can these be
the same people, the same couple? The very opposite
must be true: they cannot possibly be the same
people!”
“You’re right,” I said, dejected. “I didn’t think of
that.”
“You were too delighted with your pattern—that is
why. A much older woman and much younger man
over here, and a much older woman and much
younger man over there. Voilà, you assume they must
be the same!”
“Yes, I did. Perhaps I’m in the wrong job.”
“Non. You are perceptive, Catchpool. Not always,
but sometimes. You have helped to steer me through
the tunnel of confusion. Do you remember when you
said that whatever Thomas Brignell was withholding,
he was doing so for reasons of personal
embarrassment? That was a remark that proved very
helpful to me—very helpful indeed!”
“Well, I’m afraid I’m still in the tunnel and can’t
see a flicker of light at either end.”
“I will make you a promise,” said Poirot.
“Tomorrow, immediately after breakfast, we will pay
a little visit, you and I. After that, you will
comprehend more than you do now. I hope that I will
also.”
“I don’t suppose I am permitted to ask whom we
will be visiting?”
“You may ask, mon ami.” Poirot smiled. “I
telephoned to Scotland Yard for the address. It is one
you would recognize, I think, if I told it to you.”
Which, needless to say, he had no intention of
doing.
Knock and See Who Comes to the
Door
AS WE MADE OUR way across town the following
morning to pay our mysterious “visit,” Poirot’s mood
was as changeable as the London weather, which
could not make up its mind between sunny and cloudy.
At one moment he would appear to be pleased with
himself and at ease, and the next he would furrow his
brow as if worrying away at something.
We finally arrived at a modest house on a narrow
street. “Number 3 Yarmouth Cottages,” said Poirot,
standing outside it. “From where do you know this
address, Catchpool? It is familiar to you, no?”
“Yes. Hold on a moment. It will come to me.
That’s right—it’s Samuel Kidd’s address, isn’t it?”
“Indeed. Our helpful witness who saw Nancy
Ducane run from the Bloxham Hotel and drop two
keys, even though Nancy Ducane could not have
been at the Bloxham Hotel just after eight o’clock
on the night of the murders. ”
“Because she was at Louisa Wallace’s house,” I
agreed. “So we’re here to give Mr. Kidd a scare, are
we, and find out who put him up to lying?”
“Non. Mr. Kidd is not at home today. He has gone
to work, I expect.”
“Then . . .”
“Let us play a little game, called Knock-and-See-
Who-Comes-to-the-Door,” said Poirot with an
enigmatic smile. “Go ahead. I would knock myself if
it were not for my gloves. I do not wish to make them
dirty.”
I knocked and waited, wondering why Poirot
expected anyone to come to the door of a house
whose only known occupant was elsewhere. I opened
my mouth to ask him, then closed it again. There was,
of course, no point. Wistfully, I remembered a time
(less than a fortnight ago) when I believed that asking
a straight question of someone who knew the answer
was a worthwhile thing to do.
The front door of number 3 Yarmouth Cottages
opened, and I found myself looking into the large eyes
of a person who was not Samuel Kidd. At first I was
puzzled, for this was a face I did not know. Then I
watched as terror twisted the features, and I knew
who it had to be.
“Good morning, Mademoiselle Jennie,” said
Poirot. “Catchpool, this is Jennie Hobbs. And this,
mademoiselle, is my friend Mr. Edward Catchpool.
You might remember that we talked about him at
Pleasant’s Coffee House. Allow me to express my
profound relief at finding you alive.”
That was when I knew for sure that I knew nothing.
The few paltry scraps of certainty upon which I had
been relying had proved themselves untrustworthy.
How the deuce had Poirot known he would find
Jennie Hobbs here? It was simply impossible! And
yet, here we were.
After Jennie had composed herself and arranged
her expression into something less abject and more
guarded, she invited us into the house and bade us
wait in a small dark room with shabby furniture. She
then excused herself, saying that she would be back
shortly.
“You said it was too late to save her!” I said
angrily to Poirot. “You lied to me.”
He shook his head. “How did I know that I would
find her here? It is thanks to you, mon ami. Again you
help Poirot.”
“How?”
“I invite you to think back to your conversation
with Walter Stoakley at the King’s Head Inn, to what
he said about a woman who could have had a
husband, children, a home of her own and a happy
life. Do you recall?”
“What about it?”
“A woman who devoted her life to a substantial
man? Who sacrificed everything for him? Then, later,
Mr. Stoakley said, “She couldn’t marry some kid, not
once she had fallen in love with a man of substance.
So she left him behind.’ You remember telling me this,
mon ami?”
“Of course I do! I’m not an imbecile.”
“You thought that you had found our older woman
and much younger man, n’est-ce pas? Rafal Bobak
had referred to them at the Bloxham Hotel—he told us
that the three murder victims were talking about them
—and you thought Walter Stoakley had in mind the
same couple, so you asked Mr. Stoakley how much
older this woman was than the man whose love she
had spurned because you believed that you heard him
say, ‘She couldn’t marry some kid.’ But, my friend,
you did not hear him say this! ”
“Yes—I did, as a matter of fact.”
“Non. What you heard him say was, ‘She couldn’t
marry Sam Kidd, ’ Mr. Samuel Kidd.”
“But . . . but . . . Oh, dash it all!”
“You leapt to an incorrect conclusion because
Walter Stoakley had already used the word ‘kid’ more
than once. The young man with whom he had been
drinking he had called a kid. Eh bien, your error was
one that many in your position would have made. Do
not chastise yourself too severely.”
“And then, having misunderstood, I asked Stoakley
about the difference in age between the woman who
could have married but didn’t and the ne’er-do-well
he had been drinking with before I arrived. He must
have wondered why I wanted to know, when Jennie
Hobbs had nothing to do with the ne’er-do-well.”
“Oui. This he might have asked you, had he not
been stupefied by alcohol. Ah, well.” Poirot
shrugged.
“So Jennie Hobbs was engaged to Samuel Kidd,” I
said, trying to take it all in. “And . . . she left him
behind in Cambridge in order to come to Great
Holling with Patrick Ive?”
Poirot nodded his agreement. “Fee Spring, the
waitress from Pleasant’s—she told me that Jennie
suffered a heartbreak in her past. I wonder what it
was.”
“Haven’t we just answered that question?” I said.
“It must have been leaving Samuel Kidd behind.”
“I think it is more likely to have been the death of
Patrick Ive, the man Jennie truly loved. Incidentally, I
am certain that this is why she altered her way of
speaking: to sound more like someone of his class, in
the hope that he might see her as an equal and not
merely as a servant.”
“Are you not afraid that she might disappear on
you again?” I asked, looking toward the closed door
of the sitting room. “What is she doing that is taking
so long? You know, we ought to take her straight to a
hospital, if she hasn’t already been.”
“A hospital?” Poirot looked surprised.
“Yes. She lost a fair amount of blood in that hotel
room.”
“You assume too much,” said Poirot. He looked as
if he had considerably more to say, but at that moment
Jennie opened the door.
“PLEASE FORGIVE ME, MONSIEUR Poirot,” she said.
“For what, mademoiselle?”
Silence of an uncomfortable sort filled the room. I
wanted to speak and put an end to it, but doubted my
ability to contribute anything useful.
“Nancy Ducane,” Poirot said very slowly and
deliberately. “Was she the person from whom you
fled, when you sought refuge in Pleasant’s Coffee
House? Was she the one you feared?”
“I know she killed Harriet, Ida and Richard at the
Bloxham Hotel,” Jennie whispered. “I’ve read about
it in the papers.”
“Since we find you in the home of Samuel Kidd,
your former fiancé, can we assume that Mr. Kidd has
told you what he saw on the night of the murders?”
Jennie nodded. “Nancy, running from the Bloxham.
She dropped two keys on the pavement, he said.”
“It is a coincidence incroyable, mademoiselle:
Nancy Ducane, who has murdered three people
already and wishes to murder you also, is seen
running from the scene of her crimes by none other
than the man you once intended to marry!”
Jennie uttered an almost inaudible “Yes.”
“Poirot, he is suspicious of a coincidence so large.
You are lying now, and you were lying when we last
met!”
“No! I swear—”
“Why did you take a room at the Bloxham Hotel,
knowing it was where Harriet Sippel, Ida Gransbury
and Richard Negus had met their deaths? You have no
answer for that, I see!”
“Allow me to speak and I shall answer. I was tired
of running. It seemed easier to have it over with.”
“Is that so? You calmly accepted the fate that
awaited you? You embraced it and moved toward it?”
“Yes.”
“Then why—to Mr. Lazzari, the hotel manager—
why did you ask him to provide you with a room
‘quickly, quickly,’ as if you were still in flight from
your pursuer? And, since you do not appear to be
wounded, whose was the blood in Room 402?”
Jennie began to cry, swaying slightly on her feet.
Poirot rose and helped her to a chair. He said, “Sit,
mademoiselle. It is my turn to stand, and to tell you
how I know beyond doubt that nothing you have ever
said to me has been the truth.”
“Steady on, Poirot,” I cautioned him. Jennie
looked as if she might faint.
Poirot seemed unconcerned. “The murders of
Harriet Sippel, Ida Gransbury and Richard Negus
were announced in a note,” he said. “ ‘MAY THEY
NEVER REST IN PEACE. 121. 238. 317.’ Now, I
wonder to myself: a killer who walks in a state of
brazen calm to a hotel’s front desk and places a note
there advertising three murders—is this the sort of
person who would then panic, run from the hotel
panting, and drop two room keys in front of a
witness? Are we to believe that the killer Nancy
Ducane’s panic commenced only after she had left the
note on the desk? Why would it start only then? And if
Nancy Ducane was making her exit from the Bloxham
at shortly after eight o’clock, how could she also be
dining with her friend Lady Louisa Wallace at that
very same moment?”
“Poirot, don’t you think you ought to go easy on
her?”
“I do not. I ask you, Mademoiselle Jennie: why
should Nancy Ducane leave a note at all? Why did the
three dead bodies need to be found shortly after eight
o’clock that evening? The hotel maids would have
found them in due course. What was the hurry? And if
Madame Ducane was calm and composed enough to
approach the desk and leave the note without arousing
suspicion, that must mean she was able to think
sensibly about what needed to be done. Why, then, did
she not also put the two room keys safely in her deep
coat pocket at that point, before she left the hotel?
Foolishly, she keeps them in her hand and then drops
them in front of Mr. Kidd. He is able to see that they
have numbers on them: ‘one hundred and something’
and ‘three hundred and something.’ He also, by
fortunate coincidence, happens to recognize the face
of this mysterious woman, and after a short pretense
of being unable to recall her name, he is most
conveniently able to tell us the name of Nancy
Ducane. Does all of this sound plausible to you, Miss
Hobbs? It does not sound at all plausible to Hercule
Poirot—not when he finds you here, in Mr. Kidd’s
home, and he knows that Nancy Ducane has an alibi!”
Jennie was weeping into her sleeve.
Poirot turned to me. “Samuel Kidd’s testimony
was a lie from start to finish, Catchpool. He and
Jennie Hobbs conspired to frame Nancy Ducane for
the murders of Harriet Sippel, Ida Gransbury and
Richard Negus.”
“You don’t know how wrong you are!” Jennie
cried.
“I know that you are a liar, mademoiselle. I have
suspected all along that my encounter with you at
Pleasant’s was connected to the Bloxham Hotel
murders. The two happenings—if we can classify
three murders as one happening—had two very
important and most unusual features in common.”
That made me sit up straight. I had been waiting to
hear these points of likeness for too long.
Poirot went on: “One, a psychological similarity:
in both cases there is the suggestion that the victims
are guiltier than the murderer. The note left on the
desk at the Bloxham—‘MAY THEY NEVER REST
IN PEACE’—suggests that Harriet Sippel, Ida
Gransbury and Richard Negus deserved to die, and
that their killer brought them to justice. And at the
coffee house, Mademoiselle Jennie, you said to me
that you deserved to die, and that once you had been
killed, justice would have been done, finally.”
He was right. How had I missed that?
“Then there is the second similarity, which is not
psychological but circumstantial: attached to both the
Bloxham Hotel murders and my conversation with the
frightened Jennie at the coffee house, there were too
many clues—too much information available too
soon! Too many leads presenting themselves all at
once, almost as if someone wanted to offer the hand
of help to the police. From a brief meeting in a coffee
house, I was able to glean a surprisingly large number
of facts. This Jennie, she felt guilty. She had done
something terrible. She did not want her killer to be
punished. She made sure to say to me, ‘Oh, please let
