The Monogram Murders Read Online Free PDF

rooms.
    “First thing tomorrow will be soon enough,” I said,
    studiously avoiding his gleaming eyes. “I should tell
    you, I’m not going to make a fool of myself by
    bringing up this Jennie person. It would only confuse
    everybody. You have come up with a possible
    meaning for what she said, and I have come up with
    another. Yours is the more interesting, but mine is
    twenty times more likely to be correct.”
    “It is not” came the contradiction.
    “We shall have to disagree about it,” I said firmly.
    “If we were to ask a hundred people, they would all
    agree with me and not with you, I suspect.”
    “I too suspect this.” Poirot sighed. “Allow me to
    convince you if I can. A few moments ago, you said to
    me about the murders at the hotel, ‘Each of the victims
    had something in his or her mouth,’ did you not?”
    I agreed that I had.
    “You did not say, ‘in their mouth,’ you said, ‘his or
    her’—because you are an educated man and you
    speak in the singular and not the plural: ‘his or her,’ to
    go with ‘each’—it is grammatically correct.
    Mademoiselle Jennie, she is a housemaid, but she has
    the speech of an educated person and the vocabulary
    also. She used the word ‘inevitable’ when talking
    about her death, her murder. And then she said to me,
    ‘So you see, there is no help to be had, and even if
    there were, I should not deserve it. ’ She is a woman
    who uses the English language as it should be used.
    Therefore, mon ami . . . ” Poirot was up on his feet
    again. “Therefore! If you are correct and Jennie meant
    to say, ‘Please let no one open their mouths’ in the
    sense of ‘Please let no one give information to the
    police,’ why did she not say, ‘Please let no one open
    his or her mouth?’ The word ‘no one’ requires the
    singular, not the plural!”
    I stared up at him with an ache in my neck, too
    bewildered and weary to respond. Hadn’t he told me
    himself that Jennie was in a frightful panic? In my
    experience, people who are stricken with terror tend
    not to fuss about grammar.
    I had always thought of Poirot as among the most
    intelligent of men, but perhaps I had been wrong. If
    this was the sort of nonsense he was inclined to spout,
    then no wonder he had judged it time to submit his
    mind to a rest cure.
    “Naturally, you will now tell me that Jennie was
    distressed and was therefore not careful about her
    speech,” Poirot went on. “However, she spoke with
    perfect correctness apart from this one instance—
    unless I am right and you are wrong, in which case
    Jennie said nothing that was grammatically incorrect
    at all!”
    He clapped his hands together and seemed so
    gratified by his announcement that I was moved to say
    rather sharply, “That’s marvelous, Poirot. A man and
    two women are murdered, and it’s my job to sort it
    out, but I’m jolly pleased that Jennie, whoever she is,
    didn’t slip up in her use of the English language.”
    “And Poirot also, he is jolly pleased, ” said my
    hard-to-discourage friend, “because a little progress
    has been made, a little discovery. Non. ” His smile
    vanished and his expression became more serious.
    “Mademoiselle Jennie did not make the error of
    grammar. The meaning she intended was, ‘Please let
    no one open the mouths of the three murdered people
    — their mouths.’ ”
    “If you insist,” I muttered.
    “Tomorrow after breakfast you will return to the
    Bloxham Hotel,” said Poirot. “I will join you there
    later, after I look for Jennie.”
    “You?” I said, somewhat perturbed. Words of
    protest formed in my head, but I knew they would
    never reach Poirot’s ears. Famous detective or not,
    his ideas about the case had so far been, frankly,
    ridiculous, but if he was offering his company, I
    wouldn’t turn it down. He was very sure of himself
    and I was not—that was what it boiled down to. I
    already felt bolstered by the interest he was taking.
    “ Oui, ” he