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 in 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 marvellous, 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 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.’
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 when Poirot arrived, talking to a Mr Luca Lazzari, the hotel’s manager. Lazzari was a friendly, helpful and startlingly enthusiastic man with black curly hair, a musical way of speaking, and moustaches that were 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, 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