Read The Monogram Murders for Free Online

they were able to tell me nothing.”
    “Bad luck,” I said, unsurprised by the news. I
    hadn’t for a moment imagined that Jennie might revisit
    the coffee house, and I felt guilty. I should perhaps
    have tried harder to make Poirot see sense: she had
    run away from him and from Pleasant’s, having
    declared that confiding in him had been a mistake.
    Why on earth would she return the following day and
    allow him to take charge of protecting her?
    “So!” Poirot looked at me expectantly. “What do
    you have to tell me?”
    “I too am here to provide the information you
    need,” said Lazzari, beaming. “Luca Lazzari, at your
    disposal. Have you visited the Bloxham Hotel before,
    Monsieur Poirot?”
    “ Non. ”
    “Is it not superb? Like a palace of the belle
    époque, no? Majestic! I hope you notice and admire
    the artistic masterpieces that are all around us!”
    “ Oui. It is superior to the lodging house of Mrs.
    Blanche Unsworth, though that house has the better
    view from the window,” Poirot said briskly. His glum
    spirits had certainly dug themselves in.
    “Ah, the views from my charming hotel!” Lazzari
    clasped his hands together in delight. “From the
    rooms facing the hotel gardens there are sights of
    great beauty, and on the other side there is splendid
    London—another exquisite scene! Later I will show
    you.”
    “I would prefer to be shown the three rooms in
    which murders have taken place,” Poirot told him.
    That put a momentary crimp in Lazzari’s smile.
    “Monsieur Poirot, you may rest assured that this
    terrible crime—three murders on one night, it is
    scarcely credible to me!—that this will never happen
    again at the world-renowned Bloxham Hotel.”
    Poirot and I exchanged a look. The point was not
    so much preventing it from happening again but
    dealing with the fact that it had happened on this
    occasion.
    I decided I had better take the reins and not allow
    Lazzari the chance to say too much more. Poirot’s
    mustache was already twitching with suppressed
    rage.
    “The victims’ names are Mrs. Harriet Sippel, Miss
    Ida Gransbury and Mr. Richard Negus,” I told Poirot.
    “All three were guests in the hotel and each one was
    the sole occupant of his or her room.”
    “Each one? His or her room, you say?” Poirot
    smiled at his little joke. I attributed the rapid
    improvement in his spirits to the fact that Lazzari had
    fallen silent. “I do not mean to interrupt you,
    Catchpool. Continue.”
    “All three victims arrived here at the hotel on
    Wednesday, the day before they were murdered.”
    “Did they arrive together?”
    “No.”
    “Most definitely not,” said Lazzari. “They arrived
    separately, one by one. They checked in one by one.”
    “And they were murdered one by one,” said
    Poirot, which happened to be exactly what I was
    thinking. “You are certain of this?” he asked Lazzari.
    “I could not be more so. I have the word of my
    clerk, Mr. John Goode, the most dependable man of
    my entire acquaintance. You will meet him. We have
    only the most impeccable persons working here at the
    Bloxham Hotel, Monsieur Poirot, and when my clerk
    tells me a thing is so, I know that it is so. From across
    the country and across the world, people come to ask
    if they can work at the Bloxham Hotel. I say yes only
    to the best.”
    It’s funny but I didn’t realize how well I had come
    to know Poirot until that moment—until I saw that
    Lazzari did not know how to manage him at all. If he
    had written “Suspect This Man of Murder” on a large
    sign and hung it around Mr. John Goode’s neck, he
    could not have done a better job of inciting Poirot to
    distrust the fellow. Hercule Poirot will not allow
    anyone else to dictate to him what his opinion should
    be; he will, rather, determine to believe the opposite,
    contrary old cove that he is.
    “So,” he said now, “it is a remarkable
    coincidence, is it not? Our three murder victims—
    Mrs. Harriet Sippel, Miss