The Monogram Murders

The Monogram Murders Read Free Page B

Book: The Monogram Murders Read Free
Author: Sophie Hannah
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the life of anybody else?”
    “Too true!” Fee looked impressed. “There’s not a
    scrap of curiosity in her. I’ve never known anyone
    more wrapped up in her own cares. Just doesn’t see
    the world or the rest of us in it. She never asks you
    how you’re rubbing along, or what you’ve been doing
    with yourself.” Fee tilted her head to one side.
    “You’re quick to catch on, aren’t you?”
    “I know what I know only from listening to you
    speak to the other waitresses, mademoiselle.”
    Fee’s face turned red. “I’m surprised you’d go to
    the bother of listening.”
    Poirot had no wish to embarrass her further, so he
    did not tell her that he greatly looked forward to her
    descriptions of the individuals he had come to think
    of, collectively, as “The Coffee-House Characters”—
    Mr. Not Quite, for instance, who, each time he came
    in, would order his food and then, immediately
    afterward, cancel the order because he had decided it
    was not quite what he wanted.
    Now was not the appropriate time to enquire if
    Fee had a name of the same order as Mr. Not Quite
    for Hercule Poirot that she used in his absence—
    perhaps one that made reference to his exquisite
    mustache.
    “So Mademoiselle Jennie does not wish to know
    the business of other people,” Poirot said thoughtfully,
    “but unlike many who take no interest in the lives and
    ideas of those around them, and who talk only about
    themselves at great length, she does not do this either
    —is that not so?”
    Fee raised her eyebrows. “Powerful memory
    you’ve got there. Dead right again. No, Jennie’s not
    one to talk about herself. She’ll answer a question,
    but she won’t linger on it. Doesn’t want to be kept too
    long from what’s in her head, whatever it is. Her
    hidden treasure—except it don’t make her happy,
    whatever she’s dwelling on. I’ve long since given up
    trying to fathom her.”
    “She dwells on the heartbreak,” Poirot murmured.
    “And the danger.”
    “Did she say she was in danger?”
    “ Oui, mademoiselle. I regret that I was not quick
    enough to stop her from leaving. If something should
    happen to her . . .” Poirot shook his head and wished
    he could recover the settled feeling with which he had
    arrived. He slapped the tabletop with the flat of his
    hand as he made his decision. “I will return here
    demain matin . You say she is here often, n’est-ce
    pas ? I will find her before the danger does. This time,
    Hercule Poirot, he will be quicker!”
    “Fast or slow, don’t matter,” said Fee. “No one
    can find Jennie, not even with her right in front of
    their noses, and no one can help her.” She stood and
    picked up Poirot’s plate. “There’s no point letting
    good food go cold over it,” she concluded.

    Murder in Three Rooms
    THAT WAS HOW IT started, on the evening of Thursday,
    February 7, 1929, with Hercule Poirot, and Jennie,
    and Fee Spring; amid the crooked, teapot-huddled
    shelves of Pleasant’s Coffee House.
    Or, I should say, that was how it appeared to start.
    I’m not convinced that stories from real life have
    beginnings and ends, as a matter of fact. Approach
    them from any vantage point and you’ll see that they
    stretch endlessly back into the past and spread
    inexorably forward into the future. One is never quite
    able to say “That’s that, then,” and draw a line.
    Luckily, true stories do have heroes and heroines.
    Not being one myself, having no hope of ever being
    one, I am all too aware that they are real.
    I wasn’t present that Thursday evening at the
    coffee house. My name was mentioned—Edward
    Catchpool, Poirot’s policeman friend from Scotland
    Yard, not much older than thirty (thirty-two, to be
    precise)—but I was not there. I have, nevertheless,
    decided to try to fill the gaps in my own experience in
    order make a written record of the Jennie story.
    Fortunately, I have the testimony of Hercule Poirot to
    help me, and there is no better

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