“Please don’t make the comparison,” I said. “You’re likely to put me off my favorite pastime if you compare it to this case.”

“Only when one sees all the answers together does one know for certain that one is right,” Poirot went on, ignoring me. “Until then, for as long as some answers are missing, one may yet discover that a detail that seems to fit in fact does not fit at all.”

“In that case, think of me as an empty crossword grid, with no words filled in,” I said.

“Not for long, my friend—not for long. Poirot, he will require the dining room of the Bloxham Hotel one last time!”

22. The Monogram Murders

The Monogram Murders

THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON AT a quarter past four, Poirot and I stood at one end of the Bloxham Hotel’s dining room and waited as people took their places at the various tables. The hotel staff had all arrived promptly at four o’clock as Luca Lazzari had promised they would. I smiled at the familiar faces: John Goode, Thomas Brignell, Rafal Bobak. They acknowledged me with nervous nods.

Lazzari was standing by the door, throwing his arms around in wild gesticulation as he spoke to Constable Stanley Beer. Beer kept having to duck and step back in order to avoid being clonked in the face. I was too far away to catch most of what Lazzari was saying, and the room was too noisy, but I did hear “these Monogram Murders” more than once.

Was that what Lazzari had decided to call them? Everybody else in the country was calling them by the name the newspapers had chosen from the first day: the Bloxham Hotel Murders. Evidently Lazzari had come up with a more imaginative alternative, in the hope that his beloved establishment would not be forever tarnished by association. I found this so transparent as to be irritating, but I knew that my mood was colored by my failure on the suitcase-packing front. I am easily capable of packing for myself before a trip, but that is because I take as little as possible when I travel. Ida Gransbury’s clothes must have expanded during her short stay at the Bloxham; I had spent an infuriating time pressing and leaning down with my full weight, and still I could not fit many of her clothes in her case. No doubt there is a feminine knack to these things that oafish men like me will never master. I was exceedingly relieved to be told by Poirot that I must stop trying and make my way to the hotel’s dining room at the appointed hour of four o’clock.