searing scorn.
After his exuberant performance as master of ceremonies in the dining room, Poirot had lapsed once more into quiet gloom. ‘You’re fretting about Jennie again, aren’t you?’ I asked him.
He admitted that he was. ‘I do not want to hear that she has been found with a cufflink in her mouth, with the monogram PIJ. That is the news I dread.’
‘Since there is nothing you can do about Jennie for the time being, I suggest you think about something else,’ I advised.
‘How practical you are, Catchpool. Very well. Let us think about teacups.’
‘Teacups?’
‘Yes. What do you make of them?’
After some consideration, I said, ‘I believe I have no opinions whatever on the subject of teacups.’
Poirot made an impatient noise. ‘Three teacups are brought to Ida Gransbury’s room by the waiter Rafal Bobak. Three teacups for three people, as one would expect. But when the bodies of the three are found, there are only two teacups in the room.’
‘The other one is in Harriet Sippel’s room with Harriet Sippel’s dead body,’ I said.
‘Exactement. And this is most curious, is it not? Did Mrs Sippel carry her teacup and saucer back to her room before or after the poison was put into it? In either scenario, who would carry a cup of tea along a hotel corridor, and then take it into a lift or walk down two flights of stairs with it in their hands? Either it is full and there is a risk of spillage, or it is half full or almost empty, and hardly worth transporting. Usually one drinks a cup of tea in the room in which one pours the cup of tea, n’est-ce pas?’
‘Usually, yes. This killer strikes me as being as far from usual as it’s possible to be,’ I said with some vehemence.
‘And his victims? Are they not ordinary people? What about their behaviour? Do you ask me to believe that Harriet Sippel carries her tea down to her room, sits in a chair to drink it, and then almost immediately the murderer knocks on her door, finds an opportunity to put cyanide in her drink? And Richard Negus, remember, has also left Ida Gransbury’s room for some unknown reason, but he arranges to be back in his own room soon afterwards, with a glass of sherry that nobody at the hotel gave him.’
‘I suppose when you put it like that …’ I said.
Poirot carried on as if I had not just conceded the point. ‘Ah, yes, Richard Negus too, he is sitting alone with his drink when the killer pays him a visit. He too says, “By all means, drop your poison into my sherry.” And Ida Gransbury, she is all the while waiting patiently in Room 317, alone, for the murderer to come calling? She sips her tea very slowly. It would be inconsiderate of her to finish it before the killer arrives, of course—how then would he poison her? Where would he put his cyanide?’
‘Damn it, Poirot—what do you want me to say? I don’t understand it any more than you do! Look, it seems to me that the three murder victims must have had some kind of altercation. Why else would they plan to dine together and then all go their separate ways?’
‘I do not think a woman leaving a room in anger would take a half-finished cup of tea with her,’ said Poirot. ‘Would it not in any case be cold by the time it reached Room 121?’
‘I often drink tea cold,’ I said. ‘I quite like it.’
Poirot raised his eyebrows. ‘If I did not know you to be an honest man, I should not believe it possible. Cold tea! Déguelasse!’
‘Well, I should say I’ve grown to like it,’ I added in my defence. ‘There’s no hurry, with cold tea. You can drink it at a time to suit you, and nothing bad’s going to happen to it if you take a while. There’s no time constraint and no pressure. That counts for a lot, in my book.’
There was a knock at the door. ‘That will be Lazzari, coming to check that no one has disturbed us during our important conversation,’ I said.
‘Enter, please,’ Poirot called out.
It was not Luca Lazzari but Thomas Brignell, the junior clerk who had spoken up about having seen Richard Negus by the lift at half past seven. ‘Ah, Monsieur Brignell,’ said Poirot. ‘Do join us. Your account of yesterday evening was most helpful. Mr Catchpool and I are grateful.’
‘Yes, very much so,’ I said heartily. I’d have said almost anything to make it easier for Brignell to cough up whatever was bothering him. It was obvious that something was. The poor chap looked no more confident now than he had in the dining room. He rubbed the palms of his hands together, sliding them up and down. I could see sweat on his forehead, and he looked paler than he had before.
‘I’ve let you down,’ he said. ‘I’ve let Mr Lazzari down, and he’s been so good to me, he has. I didn’t … in the dining room before, I didn’t …’ He broke off and rubbed his palms together some more.
‘You did not tell us the truth?’ Poirot suggested.
‘Every word I spoke was the truth, sir!’ said Thomas Brignell indignantly. ‘I’d be no better than the murderer myself if I lied to the police on a matter as important as this.’
‘I do not think that you would be quite as guilty as him, monsieur.’
‘There were two things I neglected to mention. I can’t tell you how sorry I am, sir. You see, speaking in front of a room full of people isn’t something as comes easy to me. I’ve always been that way. And what made it harder in there, before’—he nodded in the direction of the dining room—‘was that I’d have been reluctant to say the other thing Mr Negus said to me because he paid me a compliment.
‘What compliment?’
‘It wasn’t one I’d done anything to deserve, sir, I’m sure. I’m just an ordinary man. There’s nothing notable about me at all. I do my job, as I’m paid to, and I try to do my best but there’s no reason for anyone to single me out for special praise.’
‘And Mr Negus did this?’ asked Poirot. ‘He singled you out for praise?’
Brignell winced. ‘Yes, sir. Like I said: I didn’t ask for it and I’m sure I’d done nothing to earn it. But when I saw him and he saw me, he said, “Ah, Mr Brignell, you seem a most efficient fellow. I know I can trust you with this.” Then he proceeded to discuss the matter I mentioned before, sir—about the bill, and him wanting to pay it.’
‘And you did not want to repeat the compliment you had received in front of everybody else, is that right?’ I said. ‘You feared it might sound boastful?’
‘Yes, I did, sir. I did indeed. There’s something else, too. Once we’d agreed the matter of the bill, Mr Negus asked me to fetch him a sherry. I was the person that did that. I offered to take it up to his room, but he said he was happy to wait. I brought it to him, and then up he went with it, in the lift.’
Poirot sat forward in his chair. ‘Yet you said nothing when I asked if anyone in the room had given Richard Negus a glass of sherry?’
Brignell looked confused and frustrated—as if the right answer was on the tip of his tongue, but still, somehow, eluded him. ‘I ought to have done, sir. I ought to have offered a full account
