After she had stabbed Nancy, I did not wish to be near Jennie Hobbs. I was not curious to learn why she had done it; I simply wanted to go home, sit by one of Blanche Unsworth’s roaring fires, work on my crossword puzzle and forget all about the Bloxham Hotel Murders or Monogram Murders or whatever anybody wanted to call them.

Poirot, however, had enough curiosity for both of us, and his will was stronger than mine. He insisted that I stay. This was my case, he said—I had to tie it up neatly. He made a gesture with his hands that suggested meticulous wrapping, as if a murder investigation were a parcel.

So it was that several hours later, he and I were seated in a small, square room at Scotland Yard, with Jennie Hobbs across the table from us. Samuel Kidd had also been arrested and was being questioned by Stanley Beer. I would have given anything to tackle Kidd instead, who was a crook and a rotten egg for sure, but in whose voice I had never heard the extinction of all hope.

On the subject of voices, I was surprised by the gentleness of Poirot’s as he spoke. “Why did you do it, mademoiselle? Why kill Nancy Ducane, when the two of you have been friends and allies for so long?”

“Nancy and Patrick were lovers in every sense of the word. I did not know that until I heard her say so today. I always thought she and I were the same: we both loved Patrick, but knew we could not be with him in that way—had not been with him in that way. All these years, I have believed that their love was chaste, but that was a lie. If Nancy had really loved Patrick, she would not have made an adulterer of him and sullied his moral character.”

Jennie wiped away a tear. “I believe I did her a favor. You heard her express the desire to be reunited with Patrick. I helped her with that, didn’t I?”

“Catchpool,” said Poirot. “Do you recall that I said to you, after we found the blood in the Room 402 of the Bloxham Hotel, that it was too late for me to save Mademoiselle Jennie?”

“Yes.”

“You thought I meant that she was dead, but you misunderstood me. You see, I knew even then that Jennie was beyond help. She had already done things so terrible that her own death was guaranteed, I feared. That was my meaning.”

“In every way that counts, I have been dead since Patrick died,” Jennie said in that same tone of unending hopelessness.