“Oui, Catchpool. When I left the Wallaces’ home, I drew a picture of the crest so that I would not forget it. I am no artist, but it was accurate enough. I asked Constable Beer to find out for me where it came from. As you have all heard my friend Catchpool say, the crest on the white jug and bowl set in the Wallaces’ house is that of Saviour College, Cambridge, where Jennie Hobbs used to work as a bed-maker for the Reverend Patrick Ive. It was a leaving present to you, was it not, Miss Hobbs, when you left Saviour College and went to Great Holling with Patrick and Frances Ive? And then when you moved into the home of Lord and Lady Wallace, you took it with you. When you left that house in a hurry and went to hide at Mr. Kidd’s house, you did not take the jug and bowl—you were in no state of mind to think of such things. I believe that Louisa Wallace, at that point, moved the jug and bowl set from the servant’s quarters you had previously occupied into a guest bedroom, where it might be admired by those she wished to impress.”

Jennie didn’t answer. Her face was blank and expressionless.

“Nancy Ducane did not want to take even the tiniest risk,” said Poirot. “She knew that, after the murders in this hotel, Catchpool and I would ask questions in the village of Great Holling. What if the old drunkard Walter Stoakley, formerly Master of Saviour College, mentioned to us that he gave Jennie Hobbs a crested jug and bowl as a leaving present? If we then saw a crest in the portrait of Lady Wallace, we might discover the connection to Jennie Hobbs and, by extension, the link between Nancy Ducane and Jennie Hobbs, which was not one of enmity and envy, as we had been told by both women, but one of friendship and collusion. Madame Ducane could not take the chance that we would arrive at this suspicion because of the crest in the portrait, and so the white jug and bowl set was painted blue—hurriedly, and with little artistry.”

“Not all of one’s work can be one’s best work, Monsieur Poirot,” said Nancy. It alarmed me to hear how reasonable she sounded—to see somebody who had conspired in three unlawful killings being so polite and rational in conversation.