D.’ I recalled his words some time later and made the
idle speculation in my mind: what if murder did begin
with a D? What if the first to kill was not Ida
Gransbury but you, Miss Hobbs?
“Over time, this speculation hardened into
certainty. I understood why it must have been you who
killed Harriet Sippel. She and Ida Gransbury shared
neither a train nor a car from Great Holling to the
Bloxham Hotel. Therefore each was unaware of the
presence of the other, and there was no plan agreed by
all for one to kill the other. That had to be a lie.”
“What was the truth?” I asked rather desperately.
“Harriet Sippel believed, and so did Ida
Gransbury, that she alone was going to London, for a
very private reason. Harriet had been contacted by
Jennie, who said she needed to meet with her
urgently. The highest level of secrecy was required.
Jennie told Harriet that a room at the Bloxham Hotel
was booked and paid for, and that she, Jennie, would
come to the hotel on Thursday afternoon, perhaps at
half past three or four o’clock, so that they could
conduct their important business. Harriet accepted
Jennie’s invitation because Jennie had written in her
letter of invitation something that Harriet could not
resist.
“You offered her what Patrick Ive had refused her
all those years ago, n’est-ce pas, mademoiselle?
Communication with her late beloved husband. You
told her that George Sippel had sought to speak to her
through you—you, who had tried to help him reach
her sixteen years earlier, and failed. And now, again,
George was trying to send a message to his dearest
wife, using you as his channel. He had spoken to you
from the afterlife! Oh, I have no doubt that you made it
extremely convincing! Harriet was unable to resist.
She believed because she so ardently wished it to be
true. The lie you had told her so long ago, about the
souls of dead loved ones making contact with the
living—she believed it then, and she had never
stopped believing it.”
“Clever old you, Monsieur Poirot,” said Jennie.
“Top marks.”
“Catchpool, tell me: do you understand now about
the old woman enamored of a man possibly young
enough to be her son? These people with whom you
became so obsessed, who featured in the gossip
between Nancy Ducane and Samuel Kidd in Room
317?”
“I’d hardly say obsessed. And, no, I don’t
understand.”
“Let us recall précisément what Rafal Bobak told
us. He heard Nancy Ducane, posing as Harriet Sippel,
say, ‘She’s no longer the one he confides in. He’d
hardly be interested in her now—she’s let herself go,
and she’s old enough to be his mother.’ Think about
those words: ‘he’d hardly be interested in her
now’ — that fact is asserted first, before the two
reasons for his lack of interest are given. One of these
is that she is old enough to be his mother. Now, she is
old enough to be his mother. Do you not see,
Catchpool? If she is old enough to be his mother
now, then she must always have been old enough to
be his mother. Nothing else is possible!”
“Isn’t that stretching it a bit?” I said. “I mean,
without the ‘now’ it makes perfect sense: he’d hardly
be interested in her—she’s let herself go and she’s
old enough to be his mother.”
“But, mon ami, what you say, it is ridiculous,”
Poirot spluttered. “It is not logical. The ‘now’ was
there, in the sentence. We cannot pretend to be without
it when we are with it. We cannot ignore a ‘now’ that
is right in front of our ears!”
“I’m afraid I disagree with you,” I said with some
trepidation. “If I had to guess, I should say that the
intended meaning was something along these lines:
before she let herself go, this chap didn’t especially
mind or notice the age difference between them.
Maybe it wasn’t quite so visible. However, now that
she is no longer in tip-top shape, the chap has moved
on to a younger, more attractive companion, the one
he now confides in—”
Poirot had begun to speak over me, red faced and
impatient. “There is no point in your guessing,
Catchpool, when I know! Listen to Poirot! Listen one
more time to exactly what was said, and in what
order: ‘He’d hardly be interested in her now— she’s
let herself go, and she’s old enough to be his mother!’
Reason one that he would no longer be interested in
her, followed by reason two! The construction of the
sentence makes it clear that both of these unfortunate
circumstances that are the case now were once not the
case.”
“There is no need to shout at me, Poirot. I have
grasped your point, and I still disagree. Not
everybody is as precise in their speech as you are.
My interpretation has to be the correct one, and yours
incorrect, because, as you have pointed out, it makes
no sense otherwise. You said it yourself: if she is old
enough to be his mother now, then she must always
have been old enough to be his mother.”
“Catchpool, Catchpool. How I begin to despair of
you! Think of what came later in the same
conversation. Rafal Bobak heard Samuel Kidd,
posing as Richard Negus, say, ‘I dispute the old-
enough-to-be-his-mother claim. I dispute it utterly.’ To
which Nancy, posing as Harriet, replied, ‘Well,
neither of us can prove we’re right, so let’s agree to
disagree!’ But why could neither prove they were
right? Surely it is a matter of simple biological fact
whether or not a woman is old enough to be a man’s
mother? If she is four years older than him, then she is
not old enough. No one would dispute this! If she is
twenty years older, then she is old enough to be his
mother—that is equally certain.”
“What if she were thirteen years older?” said
Jennie Hobbs, who had closed her eyes. “Or twelve?
One does hear of rare cases . . . That does not apply
here, of course.”
So Jennie knew where Poirot was going with all
this. I was the only ignorant one in the room.
“Thirteen, twelve—it is irrelevant! One asks a
doctor, a medical expert: is it theoretically possible
for a female of thirteen, or twelve, to give birth to a
child? The answer is either yes or no. Please let us
not debate the borderline cases of potential
childbearing ages! Have you forgotten the other
intriguing statement made by Samuel Kidd in
connection with this allegedly younger man: ‘His
mind? I’d argue he has no mind.’ No doubt you will
say that Mr. Kidd meant nothing more than that the
man in question was an imbecile.”
“No doubt I will,” I said peevishly. “Why don’t
you tell me what I’m missing, since you’re so much
cleverer than I am?”
Poirot made a dismissive clicking noise. “Sacré
tonnerre. The couple under discussion in Room 317
were Harriet Sippel and her husband George. The
conversation was not a serious debate—it was
mockery. George Sippel died when he and Harriet
were both very young. Samuel Kidd argues that he has
no mind because, if George Sippel exists at all after
his death, it is not in human form. He is a ghost, n’est-
ce pas? Since the mind is inside the brain, and the
soul does not possess human organs, George Sippel
the ghost cannot have a mind.”
“I . . . Oh, heavens. Yes, now I see.”
“Samuel Kidd introduces his point of view in the
way that he does—‘I would argue . . .’—because he
expects Nancy Ducane to disagree. She might well
have said, “Of course a ghost must have a mind.
Ghosts have agency, do they not, and free will? From
where do these things come if not the mind?”
Philosophically, it was an interesting point. In
different circumstances, I could imagine taking a view
on the matter myself.
Poirot continued: “Nancy’s ‘old-enough-to-be-his-
mother’ remark was based on her belief that, when a
man dies, his age is then fixed forevermore. In the
afterlife, he does not age. George Sippel, if he were
to return as a spirit to visit his widow, would be a
young man in his twenties, the age he was when he
died. And she, as a woman in her forties, is now old
enough to be his mother.”
“Bravo,” said Jennie in a matter-of-fact tone of
voice. “I was not there, but the conversation was
continued later in my presence. Monsieur Poirot
really is formidably perceptive, Mr. Catchpool. I
hope you appreciate him.” To Poirot, she said, “The
argument went on . . . oh, just for ever! Nancy insisted
she was right, but Sam would not concede the point.
He said ghosts do not exist in the dimension of age—
they are timeless, so it is incorrect to say that anyone
could be old enough to be a ghost’s mother.”
Poirot said to me, “It is distasteful, is it not,
Catchpool? When Rafal Bobak delivered the food,
Nancy Ducane, with the dead body of Ida Gransbury
propped up in a chair beside her, was mocking the
woman in whose murder she had conspired earlier
that same day. Poor stupid Harriet: her husband is not
interested in talking directly to her from beyond the
grave. No, he will speak only to Jennie Hobbs,
leaving Harriet with no choice if she wants to receive
his message: she must meet Jennie at the Bloxham,
and, in doing so, meet her own doom.”
“Nobody has ever deserved to be murdered more
than Harriet Sippel did,” said Jennie. “I have many
regrets. Killing Harriet is not one of them.”
“WHAT ABOUT IDA GRANSBURY?” I asked. “Why did she
go to the Bloxham Hotel?”
“Ah!” said Poirot, who never tired of sharing the
endless knowledge that he alone seemed to possess.
“Ida also accepted an irresistible invitation, from
Richard Negus. Not to be put in communication with a
dead loved one, but to meet, after sixteen years apart,
her former fiancé. It is not hard to imagine what the
lure would have been. Richard Negus abandoned Ida
and, no doubt, broke her heart. She never married. I
expect he alluded in a letter to the possibility of a
reconciliation, maybe matrimony. A happy ending. Ida
agreed—which lonely individual would not choose to
give a second chance to true love?—and Richard told
her that he would come to her room at the Bloxham
Hotel at half past three or perhaps four o’clock on the
Thursday. Do you remember your remark, Catchpool,
about arriving at the hotel on Wednesday, so that the
whole of Thursday could be devoted to getting
murdered? That makes more sense now, yes?”
I nodded. “Negus knew that on the Thursday he
would have to commit murder, and also to be killed
himself. It is only natural that he would wish to arrive
a day early to prepare himself mentally for a double
ordeal of that sort.”
“Also to avoid the delayed train or something
similar that might have interfered with his plans,”
said Poirot.
“So Jennie Hobbs murdered Harriet Sippel, and
Richard Negus murdered Ida Gransbury?” I said.
“Oui, mon ami. ” Poirot looked at Jennie, who
nodded. “At around the same time of day, in rooms
121 and 317 respectively. In both rooms, the same
method was used, I imagine, to induce Harriet and Ida
to drink the poison. Jennie said to Harriet, and
Richard Negus to Ida, ‘You will need a glass of water
before you hear what I have to say. Here, let me fetch
one for you. You sit down.’ While fetching the water,
using the glass next to the basin, Jennie and Negus
slipped in the poison. The glasses were then handed
to the two victims to drink. Death would have
followed shortly thereafter.”
“What about Richard Negus’s death?” I asked.
“Jennie killed him, according to the plan the two of
them made.”
“Much of what I told you at Sam’s house was
true,” said Jennie. “Richard did write to me after
years of silence. He was torn apart by guilt for what
he had done to Patrick and Frances, and he saw no
way out—no possibility of justice or peace of mind—
unless we all paid with our own lives, all four of us
who were responsible.”
“He asked you . . . to help him kill Harriet and
Ida?” I said, working it out as I spoke.
“Yes. Them, and him, and myself as well. It had to
be all of us, he insisted, or else it was meaningless.
He did not want to be a murderer but an executioner
—he used that word a lot—and that meant that he and
I could not avoid punishment. I agreed with him that
Harriet and Ida deserved to die. They were evil. But
. . . I didn’t want to die, nor did I want Richard dead.
It was enough for me that he was truly sorry for his
part in Patrick’s death. I . . . I knew it would have
been enough for Patrick too, and for any higher
authority that might or might not exist. But there was
no way to persuade Richard of this. I saw at once that
there was no point trying. He was as intelligent as he
always had been, but something in his mind had
slipped and turned him peculiar, given him weird
ideas. All those years of brooding on it, the guilt . . .
He had become a strange species of zealot. I knew
beyond a shadow of a doubt that he would murder me
too if I did not go along with what he was proposing.
He didn’t say so explicitly. He didn’t want to threaten
me, you see. He was kind to me. What he wanted and
needed was an ally. Someone of like mind. He
honestly believed I would agree to his scheme
because, unlike Harriet and Ida, I was reasonable. He
was so certain he was right—that his solution was the
only way for all of us. I thought perhaps he was right,
but I was afraid. I’m not any more. I don’t know what
has changed me. Maybe then, even in my unhappiness,
I still entertained the notion that my life might
improve. Sadness is different from despair.”
“You knew that you would have to pretend in order
to save your life,” said Poirot. “To lie convincingly to
Richard Negus—it was your only possible escape
from death. You did not know what to do, so you went
to Nancy Ducane for help.”
“Yes, I did. And she solved my problem, or so I
thought. Her plan was brilliant. Following her advice,
I suggested to Richard only one deviation from his
proposed plan. His idea was that once Harriet and Ida
were dead, he would kill me and then himself.
Naturally, as an authoritative man accustomed to
being in charge of whatever mattered to him, he
