The Monogram Murders Read Online Free PDF Page B

said. “Three murders have been
    committed that share an extremely unusual feature: the
    monogrammed cufflink in the mouth. Most assuredly I
    will go to the Bloxham Hotel.”
    “Aren’t you supposed to be avoiding stimulation
    and resting your brain?” I asked.
    “ Oui. Précisément.” Poirot glared at me. “It is not
    restful for me to sit in this chair all day and think of
    you omitting to mention to anybody my meeting with
    Mademoiselle Jennie, a detail of the utmost
    importance! It is not restful for me to consider that
    Jennie runs around London giving her murderer every
    opportunity to kill her and put his fourth cufflink in
    her mouth.”
    Poirot leaned forward in his chair. “Please tell me
    that this at least has struck you: that cufflinks come in
    pairs ? You have three in the mouths of the dead at the
    Bloxham Hotel. Where is the fourth, if not in the
    pocket of the killer, waiting to go into the mouth of
    Mademoiselle Jennie after her murder?”
    I’m afraid I laughed. “Poirot, that’s just plain silly.
    Yes, cufflinks normally come in pairs but really, it’s
    quite simple: he wanted to kill three people, so he
    only used three cufflinks. You can’t use the notion of
    some dreamed-up fourth cufflink to prove anything—
    certainly not to link the hotel murders to this Jennie
    woman.”
    Poirot’s face had taken on a stubborn cast. “When
    you are a killer who decides to use cufflinks in this
    way, mon ami, you invite the thought of the pairs. It is
    the killer who has put before us the notion of the
    fourth cufflink and the fourth victim, not Hercule
    Poirot!”
    “But . . . then how do we know he doesn’t have six
    victims in mind, or eight? Who is to say that the
    pocket of this killer doesn’t contain five more
    cufflinks with the monogram PIJ?”
    To my amazement, Poirot nodded and said, “You
    make a good point.”
    “No, Poirot, it’s not a good point,” I said
    despondently. “I conjured it up out of nowhere. You
    might enjoy my flights of fancy, but I can promise you
    my bosses at Scotland Yard won’t.”
    “Your bosses, they do not like you to consider
    what is possible? No, of course they do not,” Poirot
    answered himself. “And they are the people in charge
    of catching this murderer. They, and you. Bon. This is
    why Hercule Poirot must go tomorrow to the Bloxham
    Hotel.”

    At the Bloxham Hotel
    THE FOLLOWING MORNING AT the Bloxham, I could not
    help but feel unsettled, knowing that Poirot might
    arrive at any moment to tell us simple police folk how
    foolishly we were approaching the investigation of
    our three murders. I was the only one who knew he
    was coming, which set me rather on edge. His
    presence would be my responsibility, and I was
    afraid that he might demoralize the troops. If truth be
    told, I feared that he might demoralize me. In the
    optimistic light of an unusually bright February day,
    and after a surprisingly satisfactory night’s sleep, I
    couldn’t understand why I hadn’t forbidden him from
    coming anywhere near the Bloxham.
    I didn’t suppose it mattered, however; he would
    not have listened to me if I had.
    I was in the hotel’s opulent lobby, talking to a Mr.
    Luca Lazzari, the hotel’s manager, when Poirot
    arrived. Lazzari was a friendly, helpful and startlingly
    enthusiastic man with black curly hair, a musical way
    of speaking, and a mustache that was in no way the
    equal of Poirot’s. Lazzari seemed determined that I
    and my fellow policemen should enjoy our time at the
    Bloxham every bit as much as the paying guests did—
    those that did not end up getting murdered, that is.
    I introduced him to Poirot, who nodded curtly. He
    seemed out of sorts and I soon learned why. “I did not
    find Jennie,” he said. “Half the morning I waited at
    the coffee house! But she did not come.”
    “Hardly ‘half the morning,’ Poirot,” I said, for he
    was prone to exaggeration.
    “Mademoiselle Fee also was not there. The other
    waitresses,