The Monogram Murders(2)
The woman stepped inside. She closed the door but did not apologize for having left it open so long. Her jagged breathing could be heard across the room. She seemed not to notice that there were other people present. Poirot greeted her with a quiet “Good evening.” She half turned toward him but made no response. Her eyes were wide with alarm of an uncommon kind—powerful enough to take hold of a stranger, like a physical grip.
Poirot no longer felt calm and contented as he had when he’d arrived. His peaceful mood was shattered.
The woman hurried over to the window and peered out. She will not see whatever she looks for, Poirot thought to himself. Staring into the blackness of night from a well-lit room, it is impossible to see very much at all when the glass reflects only an image of the room you are in. Yet she continued to stare out for some time, seemingly determined to watch the street.
“Oh, it’s you,” said Flyaway Hair a touch impatiently. “What’s the matter? Has something happened?”
The woman in the brown coat and hat turned around. “No, I . . .” The words came out as a sob. Then she managed to get herself under control. “No. May I take the table in the corner?” She pointed to the one farthest from the door to the street.
“You’re welcome to any table except the one where the gentleman’s sitting. They’re all laid.” Having reminded herself of Poirot, Flyaway Hair said to him, “Your dinner’s cooking nicely, sir.” Poirot was delighted to hear it. The food at Pleasant’s was almost as good as the coffee. Indeed, when he considered the two together, Poirot found it hard to believe what he knew to be the case: that everybody who worked in the kitchen here was English. Incroyable.
Flyaway Hair turned back to the distressed woman. “You sure there’s nothing wrong, Jennie? You look as if you’ve come face to face with the devil.”
“I’m all right, thank you. A cup of strong, hot tea is all I need. My usual, please.” Jennie hurried over to a table in the far corner, passing Poirot without looking at him. He turned his chair slightly so that he could observe her. Most assuredly something was the matter with her; it was something she did not wish to discuss with the coffee house waitresses, evidently.
Without taking off her hat or coat, she sat down in a chair that faced away from the door to the street, but no sooner had she done so than she turned again and looked over her shoulder. Having the opportunity to examine her face in more detail, Poirot guessed that she was around forty years of age. Her large blue eyes were wide and unblinking. They looked, Poirot reflected, as if there was a shocking sight before them—“Face to face with the devil,” as Flyaway Hair had remarked. Yet as far as Poirot could see, there was no such sight for Jennie to behold, only the square room with its tables, chairs, wooden hat and coat stand in the corner, and its crooked shelves bearing the weight of many teapots of different colors, patterns and sizes.
Those shelves, they were enough to make a person shudder! Poirot saw no reason why a warped shelf could not easily be replaced with a straight one, in the same way that he could not comprehend why anybody would place a fork on a square table and not ensure that it lay parallel to the straight line of the table’s edge. However, not everyone had the ideas of Hercule Poirot; he had long ago accepted this—both the advantages and the disadvantages it brought him.
Twisted in her seat, the woman—Jennie—stared wildly at the door, as if expecting somebody to burst through it at any moment. She was trembling, perhaps partly from the cold.
No—Poirot changed his mind—not at all from the cold. It was warm once again in the coffee house. And, since Jennie was intent upon watching the door and yet had sat with her back to it and as far as possible from it, there was only one sensible conclusion to draw.
Picking up his coffee cup, Poirot left his table and made his way over to where she sat. She wore no wedding ring on her finger, he noticed. “Will you permit me to join you for a short while, mademoiselle?” He would have liked to arrange her cutlery, napkin and water glass as he had his own, but he restrained himself.
“Pardon? Yes, I suppose so.” Her tone revealed how little she cared. She was concerned only with the coffee house door. She was still watching it avidly, still twisted in her chair.
“I am pleased to introduce myself to you. My name is . . . ah . . .” Poirot broke off. If he told her his name, Flyaway Hair and the other waitress would hear it, and he would no longer be their anonymous “foreign gent,” the retired policeman from the Continent. The name Hercule Poirot had a powerful effect upon some people. Over the past few weeks, since he had entered into a most enjoyable state of hibernation, Poirot had experienced for the first time in an age the relief of being nobody in particular.
It could not have been more apparent that Jennie was not interested in his name or his presence. A tear had escaped from the corner of her eye and was making its way down her cheek.
“Mademoiselle Jennie,” Poirot said, hoping that by using her Christian name he might have more luck in getting her attention. “I used to be a policeman. I am retired now, but before I retired, in my work I encountered many people in states of agitation similar to the one that you are in now. I do not mean those who were unhappy, though they are abundant in every country. No, I am talking about people who believed themselves to be in danger.”
At last, he had made an impression. Jennie fixed her wide, frightened eyes on him. “A . . . a policeman?”