ii
it was late evening a week later when the summons came. japp’s voice was brusque over the
telephone.
“that you, poirot? we’ve found her. you’d better come round. king leopold mansions.
battersea park. number 45.”
a quarter of an hour later a taxi deposited poirot outside king leopold mansions.
it was a big block of mansion flats looking out over battersea park. number 45 was on the
second floor. japp himself opened the door.
his face was set in grim lines.
“come in,” he said. “it’s not particularly pleasant, but i expect you’ll want to see for yourself.”
poirot said—but it was hardly a question:
“dead?”
“what you might describe as very dead!”
poirot cocked his head at a familiar sound coming from a door on his right.
“that’s the porter,” said japp. “being sick in the scullery sink! i had to get him up here to see if
he could identify her.”
he led the way down the passage and poirot followed him. his nose wrinkled.
“not nice,” said japp. “but what can you expect? she’s been dead well over a month.”
the room they went into was a small lumber and box room. in the middle of it was a big metal
chest of the kind used for storing furs. the lid was open.
poirot stepped forward and looked inside.
he saw the foot first, with the shabby shoe on it and the ornate buckle. his first sight of miss
sainsbury seale had been, he remembered, a shoe buckle.
his gaze travelled up, over the green wool coat and skirt till it reached the head.
he made an inarticulate noise.
“i know,” said japp. “it’s pretty horrible.”
the face had been battered out of all recognizable shape. add to that the natural process of
decomposition, and it was no wonder that both men looked a shade pea green as they turned away.
“oh well,” said japp. “it’s all in a day’s work—our day’s work. no doubt about it, ours is a
lousy job sometimes. there’s a spot of brandy in the other room. you’d better have some.”
the living room was smartly furnished in an up-to-date style—a good deal of chromium and
some large square-looking easy chairs upholstered in a pale fawn geometric fabric.
poirot found the decanter and helped himself to some brandy. as he finished drinking, he said:
“it was not pretty, that! now tell me, my friend, all about it.”
japp said:
“this flat belongs to a mrs. albert chapman. mrs. chapman is, i gather, a well-upholstered
smart blonde of forty- odd. pays her bills, fond of an occasional game of bridge with her
neighbours but keeps herself to herself more or less. no children. mr. chapman is a commercial
traveller.
“sainsbury seale came here on the evening of our interview with her. about seven fifteen. so
she probably came straight here from the glengowrie court. she’d been here once before, so the
porter says. you see, all perfectly clear and aboveboard—nice friendly call. the porter took miss
sainsbury seale up in the lift to this flat. the last he saw of her was standing on the mat pressing
the bell.”
poirot commented:
“he has taken his time to remember this!”
“he’s had gastric trouble, it seems, been away in hospital while another man took on
temporarily for him. it wasn’t until about a week ago that he happened to notice in an old paper
the description of a ‘wanted woman’ and he said to his wife, ‘sounds quite like that old cup of tea
who came to see mrs. chapman on the second floor. she had on a green wool dress and buckles on
her shoes.’ and after about another hour he registered again—‘believe she had a name, too,
something like that. blimey, it was—miss something or other seale!’
“after that,” continued japp, “it took him about four days to overcome his natural distrust of
getting mixed up with the police and come along with his information.
“we didn’t really think it would lead to anything. you’ve no idea how many of these false
alarms we’ve had. however, i sent sergeant beddoes along—he’s a bright young fellow. a bit too
much of this high-class education but he can’t help that. it’s fashionable now.
“well, beddoes got a hunch at once that we were on to something at last. for one thing this
mrs. chapman hadn’t been seen about for over a month. she’d gone away without leaving any
address. that was a bit odd. in fact everything he could learn about mr. and mrs. chapman
seemed odd.
“he found out the porter hadn’t seen miss sainsbury seale leave again. that in itself wasn’t
unusual. she might easily have come down the stairs and gone out without his seeing her. but then
the porter told him that mrs. chapman had gone away rather suddenly. there was just a big
printed notice outside the door the next morning:
no milk. tell nellie i am called away.
“nellie was the daily maid who did for her. mrs. chapman had gone away suddenly once or
twice before, so the girl didn’t think it odd, but what was odd was the fact that she hadn’t rung for
the porter to take her luggage down or get her a taxi.
“anyway, beddoes decided to get into the flat. we got a search warrant and a pass key from the
manager. found nothing of interest except in the bathroom. there had been some hasty clearing
up done there. there was a trace of blood on the linoleum—in the corners where it had been
missed when the floor was washed over. after that, it was just a question of finding the body. mrs.
chapman couldn’t have left with any luggage with her or the porter would have known. therefore
the body must still be in the flat. we soon spotted that fur chest—airtight, you know—just the
place. keys were in the dressing table drawer.
“we opened it up—and there was the missing lady! mistletoe bough up-to-date.”
poirot asked:
“what about mrs. chapman?”
“what indeed? who is sylvia (her name’s sylvia, by the way), what is she? one thing is
certain. sylvia, or sylvia’s friends, murdered the lady and put her in the box.”
poirot nodded.
he asked:
“but why was her face battered in? it is not nice, that.”
“i’ll say it isn’t nice! as to why—well, one can only guess. sheer vindictiveness, perhaps. or it
may have been with the idea of concealing the woman’s identity.”
“but it did not conceal her identity.”
“no, because not only had we got a pretty good description of what mabelle sainsbury seale
was wearing when she disappeared, but her handbag had been stuffed into the fur box too and
inside the handbag there was actually an old letter addressed to her at her hotel in russell square.”
poirot sat up. he said:
“but that—that does not make the common sense!”
“it certainly doesn’t. i suppose it was a slip.”
“yes—perhaps—a slip. but—”
he got up.
“you have been over the flat?”
“pretty well. there’s nothing illuminating.”
“i should like to see mrs. chapman’s bedroom.”
“come along then.”
the bedroom showed no signs of a hasty departure. it was neat and tidy. the bed had not been
slept in, but was turned down ready for the night. there was a thick coating of dust everywhere.
japp said:
“no finger-prints, so far as we can see. there are some on the kitchen things, but i expect
they’ll turn out to be the maid’s.”
“that means that the whole place was dusted very carefully after the murder?”
“yes.”
poirot’s eyes swept slowly round the room. like the sitting room it was furnished in the modern
style—and furnished, so he thought, by someone with a moderate income. the articles in it were
expensive but not ultra expensive. they were showy but not first-class. the colour scheme was
rose pink. he looked into the built-in wardrobe and handled the clothes—smart clothes but again
not of first-class quality. his eyes fell to the shoes—they were largely of the sandal variety popular
at the moment, some had exaggerated cork soles. he balanced one in his hand, registered the fact
that mrs. chapman had taken a 5 in shoes and put it down again. in another cupboard he found a
pile of furs, shoved in a heap.
japp said:
“came out of the fur chest.”
poirot nodded.
he was handling a grey squirrel coat. he remarked appreciatively: “first-class skins.”
he went into the bathroom.
there was a lavish display of cosmetics. poirot looked at them with interest. powder, rouge,
vanishing cream, skin food, two bottles of hair application.
japp said:
“not one of our natural platinum blondes, i gather.”
poirot murmured:
“at forty, mon ami, the hair of most women has begun to go grey but mrs. chapman was not
one to yield to nature.”
“she’s probably gone henna red by now for a change.”
“i wonder.”
japp said:
“there’s something worrying you, poirot. what is it?”
poirot said:
“but yes, i am worried. i am very seriously worried. there is here, you see, for me an insoluble
problem.”
resolutely, he went once more into the box room….
he took hold of the shoe on the dead woman’s foot. it resisted and came off with difficulty.
he examined the buckle. it had been clumsily sewn on by hand.
hercule poirot sighed. he said:
“it is that i am dreaming!”
japp said curiously:
“what are you trying to do—make the thing more difficult?”
“exactly that.”
japp said:
“one patent leather shoe, complete with buckle. what’s wrong with that?”
hercule poirot said:
“nothing—absolutely nothing. but all the same—i do not understand.”
