The Monogram Murders by Sophie Hannah Read Free Book Online Page B

ones I remember best of all.
    “All three cufflinks were in the mouths of the
    victims,” I repeated with determined obstinacy.
    “That’s good enough for me.”
    “This I see,” said Poirot with an air of dejection.
    “Good enough for you, and good enough also for your
    hundred people that you might ask, and also, I have no
    doubt, for your bosses at Scotland Yard. But not good
    enough for Hercule Poirot!”
    I had to remind myself that he was talking about
    definitions of similarity and difference, and not about
    me personally.
    “What about the open window, when all the
    windows in the other two rooms are closed?” he
    asked. “Is that a difference worth noting?”
    “It’s unlikely to be relevant,” I said. “Richard
    Negus might have opened the window himself. There
    would be no reason for the murderer to close it.
    You’ve said it often yourself, Poirot—we Englishmen
    open windows in the dead of winter because we
    believe it’s good for our character.”
    “ Mon ami, ” said Poirot patiently. “Consider: these
    three people did not drink poison, fall out of their
    armchairs and quite naturally land flat on their backs
    with their arms at their sides and their feet pointing
    toward the door. It is impossible. Why would one not
    stagger across the room? Why would one not fall out
    of the chair on the other side? The killer, he arranged
    the bodies so that each one was in the same position,
    at an equal distance from the chair and from the little
    table. Eh bien, if he cares so much to arrange his
    three murder scenes to look exactly the same, why
    does he not wish to close the window that, yes,
    perhaps Mr. Richard Negus has opened—but why
    does the murderer not close it in order to make it
    conform with the appearance of the windows in the
    other two rooms?”
    I had to think about this. Poirot was right: the
    bodies had been laid out in this way deliberately. The
    killer must have wanted them all to look the same.
    Laying out the dead . . .
    “I suppose it depends where you choose to draw
    your frame around the scene of the crime,” I said
    hurriedly, as my mind tried to drag me back to my
    childhood’s darkest room. “Depends whether you
    want to extend it as far as the window.”
    “Frame?”
    “Yes. Not a real frame, a theoretical one. Perhaps
    our murderer’s frame for his creations was no larger
    than a square like this.” I walked around Richard
    Negus’s body, turning corners when necessary. “You
    see? I’ve just walked a small frame around Negus,
    and the window is outside the frame.”
    Poirot was smiling and trying to hide it beneath his
    mustache. “A theoretical frame around the murder.
    Yes, I see. Where does the scene of a crime begin and
    where does it end? This is the question. Can it be
    smaller than the room that contains it? This is a
    fascinating matter for the philosophers.”
    “Thank you.”
    “ Pas du tout. Catchpool, will you please tell me
    what you believe happened here at the Bloxham Hotel
    yesterday evening? Let us leave motive to one side
    for the moment. Tell me what you think the killer did.
    First, and next, and next, and so on.”
    “I have no idea.”
    “Try to have an idea, Catchpool.”
    “Well . . . I suppose he came to the hotel, cufflinks
    in pocket, and went to each of the three rooms in turn.
    He probably started where we did, with Ida
    Gransbury in Room 317, and worked his way down
    so that he would be able to leave the hotel fairly
    quickly after killing his final victim—Harriet Sippel
    in Room 121, on the first floor. Only one floor down
    and he can escape.”
    “And what does he do in the three rooms?”
    I sighed. “You know the answer to that. He
    commits a murder and arranges the body in a straight
    line. He places a cufflink in the person’s mouth. Then
    he closes and locks the door and leaves.”
    “And to each room he is admitted without
    question? In each room, he finds his victim waiting
    with a most convenient drink for