seventeen, eighteen, maids in waiting
i
on the following day hercule poirot spent some hours with a theatrical agent of his acquaintance.
in the afternoon he went to oxford. on the day after that he drove down to the country—it was
late when he returned.
he had telephoned before he left to make an appointment with mr. alistair blunt for that same
evening.
it was half past nine when he reached the gothic house.
alistair blunt was alone in his library when poirot was shown in.
he looked an eager question at his visitor as he shook hands.
he said:
“well?”
slowly, hercule poirot nodded his head.
blunt looked at him in almost incredulous appreciation.
“have you found her?”
“yes. yes, i have found her.”
he sat down. and he sighed.
alistair blunt said:
“you are tired?”
“yes. i am tired. and it is not pretty—what i have to tell you.”
blunt said:
“is she dead?”
“that depends,” said hercule poirot slowly, “on how you like to look at it.”
blunt frowned.
he said:
“my dear man, a person must be dead or alive. miss sainsbury seale must be one or the other!”
“ah, but who is miss sainsbury seale?”
alistair blunt said:
“you don’t mean that—that there isn’t any such person?”
“oh no, no. there was such a person. she lived in calcutta. she taught elocution. she busied
herself with good works. she came to england in the maharanah—the same boat in which mr.
amberiotis travelled. although they were not in the same class, he helped her over something—
some fuss about her luggage. he was, it would seem, a kindly man in little ways. and sometimes,
m. blunt, kindness is repaid in an unexpected fashion. it was so, you know, with m. amberiotis.
he chanced to meet the lady again in the streets of london. he was feeling expansive, he good-
naturedly invited her to lunch with him at the savoy. an unexpected treat for her. and an
unexpected windfall for m. amberiotis! for his kindness was not premeditated—he had no idea
that this faded, middle-aged lady was going to present him with the equivalent of a gold mine. but
nevertheless, that is what she did, though she never suspected the fact herself.
“she was never, you see, of the first order of intelligence. a good, well-meaning soul, but the
brain, i should say, of a hen.”
blunt said:
“then it wasn’t she who killed the chapman woman?”
poirot said slowly:
“it is difficult to know just how to present the matter. i shall begin, i think, where the matter
began for me. with a shoe!”
blunt said blankly:
“with a shoe?”
hercule poirot nodded.
“yes, a buckled shoe. i came out from my séance at the dentist’s and as i stood on the steps of
58, queen charlotte street, a taxi stopped outside, the door opened and a woman’s foot prepared
to descend. i am a man who notices a woman’s foot and ankle. it was a well-shaped foot, with a
good ankle and an expensive stocking, but i did not like the shoe. it was a new, shining patent
leather shoe with a large ornate buckle. not chic—not at all chic!
“and whilst i was observing this, the rest of the lady came into sight—and frankly it was a
disappointment—a middle-aged lady without charm and badly dressed.”
“miss sainsbury seale?”
“precisely. as she descended a contretemps occurred—she caught the buckle of her shoe in the
door and it was wrenched off. i picked it up and returned it to her. that was all. the incident was
closed.
“later, on that same day, i went with chief inspector japp to interview the lady. (she had not as
yet sewn on the buckle, by the way.)
“on that same evening, miss sainsbury seale walked out of her hotel and vanished. that, shall
we say, is the end of part one.
“part two began when chief inspector japp summoned me to king leopold mansions. there
was a fur chest in a flat there, and in that fur chest there had been found a body. i went into the
room, i walked up to the chest—and the first thing i saw was a shabby buckled shoe!”
“well?”
“you have not appreciated the point. it was a shabby shoe—a well-worn shoe. but you see,
miss sainsbury seale had come to king leopold mansions on the evening of that same day—the
day of mr. morley’s murder. in the morning the shoes were new shoes—in the evening they were
old shoes. one does not wear out a pair of shoes in a day, you comprehend.”
alistair blunt said without much interest:
“she could have two pairs of shoes, i suppose?”
“ah, but that was not so. for japp and i had gone up to her room at the glengowrie court and
had looked at all her possessions—and there was no pair of buckled shoes there. she might have
had an old pair of shoes, yes. she might have changed into them after a tiring day to go out in the
evening, yes? but if so, the other pair would have been at the hotel. it was curious, you will
admit?”
“i can’t see that it is important.”
“no, not important. not at all important. but one does not like things that one cannot explain. i
stood by the fur chest and i looked at the shoe—the buckle had recently been sewn on by hand. i
will confess that i then had a moment of doubt—of myself. yes, i said to myself, hercule poirot,
you were a little light-headed perhaps this morning. you saw the world through rosy spectacles.
even the old shoes looked like new ones to you?”
“perhaps that was the explanation?”
“but no, it was not. my eyes do not deceive me! to continue, i studied the dead body of this
woman and i did not like what i saw. why had the face been wantonly, deliberately smashed and
rendered unrecognizable?”
alistair blunt moved restlessly. he said:
“must we go over that again? we know—”
hercule poirot said firmly:
“it is necessary. i have to take you over the steps that led me at last to the truth. i said to myself:
‘something is wrong here. here is a dead woman in the clothes of miss sainsbury seale (except,
perhaps, the shoes?) and with the handbag of miss sainsbury seale — but why is her face
unrecognizable? is it, perhaps, because the face is not the face of miss sainsbury seale?’ and
immediately i begin to put together what i have heard of the appearance of the other woman—the
woman to whom the flat belongs, and i ask myself—might it not perhaps be this other woman
who lies dead here? i go then and look at the other woman’s bedroom. i try to picture to myself
what sort of woman she is. in superficial appearance, very different to the other. smart, showily
dressed, very much made up. but in essentials, not unlike. hair, build, age … but there is one
difference. mrs. albert chapman took a five in shoes. miss sainsbury seale, i knew, took a 10-
inch stocking—that is to say she would take at least a 6 in shoes. mrs. chapman, then, had smaller
feet than miss sainsbury seale. i went back to the body. if my half-formed idea was right, and the
body was that of mrs. chapman wearing miss sainsbury seale’s clothes, then the shoes should be
too big. i took hold of one. but it was not loose. it fitted tightly. that looked as though it were the
body of miss sainsbury seale after all! but in that case, why was the face disfigured? her identity
was already proved by the handbag, which could easily have been removed, but which had not
been removed.
“it was a puzzle—a tangle. in desperation i seized on mrs. chapman’s address book—a dentist
was the only person who could prove definitely who the dead woman was—or was not. by
coincidence, mrs. chapman’s dentist was mr. morley. morley was dead, but identification was
still possible. you know the result. the body was identified in the coroner’s court by mr.
morley’s successor as that of mrs. albert chapman.”
blunt was fidgeting with some impatience, but poirot took no notice. he went on:
“i was left now with a psychological problem. what sort of a woman was mabelle sainsbury
seale? there were two answers to that question. the first was the obvious one borne out by her
whole life in india and by the testimony of her personal friends. that depicted her as an earnest,
conscientious, slightly stupid woman. was there another miss sainsbury seale? apparently there
was. there was a woman who had lunched with a well-known foreign agent, who had accosted
you in the street and claimed to be a close friend of your wife’s (a statement that was almost
certainly untrue), a woman who had left a man’s house very shortly before a murder had been
committed, a woman who had visited another woman on the evening when in all probability that
other woman had been murdered, and who had since disappeared although she must be aware that
the police force of england was looking for her. were all these actions compatible with the
character which her friends gave her? it would seem that they were not. therefore, if miss
sainsbury seale were not the good, amiable creature she seemed, then it would appear that she
was quite possibly a cold-blooded murderess or almost certainly an accomplice after the fact.
“i had one more criterion—my own personal impression. i had talked to mabelle sainsbury
seale myself. how had she struck me? and that, m. blunt, was the most difficult question to
answer of all. everything that she said, her way of talking, her manner, her gestures, all were
perfectly in accord with her given character. but they were equally in accord with a clever actress
playing a part. and, after all, mabelle sainsbury seale had started life as an actress.
“i had been much impressed by a conversation i had had with mr. barnes of ealing who had
also been a patient at 58, queen charlotte street on that particular day. his theory, expressed very
forcibly, was that the deaths of morley and of amberiotis were only incidental, so to speak—that
the intended victim was you.”
alistair blunt said:
“oh, come now—that’s a bit far-fetched.”
“is it, m. blunt? is it not true that at this moment there are various groups of people to whom it
is vital that you should be—removed, shall we say? shall be no longer capable of exerting your
influence?”
blunt said:
“oh yes, that’s true enough. but why mix up this business of morley’s death with that?”
poirot said:
“because there is a certain—how shall i put it?—lavishness about the case—expense is no
object—human life is no object. yes, there is a recklessness, a lavishness—that points to a big
crime!”
“you don’t think morley shot himself because of a mistake?”
“i never thought so—not for a minute. no, morley was murdered, amberiotis was murdered, an
unrecognizable woman was murdered — why? for some big stake. barnes’ theory was that
somebody had tried to bribe morley or his partner to put you out of the way.”
alistair blunt said sharply:
“nonsense!”
“ah, but is it nonsense? say one wishes to put someone out of the way. yes, but that someone is
forewarned, forearmed, difficult of access. to kill that person it is necessary to be able to approach
him without awakening his suspicions—and where would a man be less suspicious than in a
dentist’s chair?”
“well, that’s true, i suppose. i never thought of it like that.”
“it is true. and once i realized it i had my first vague glimmering of the truth.”
“so you accepted barnes’ theory? who is barnes, by the way?”
“barnes was reilly’s twelve o’clock patient. he is retired from the home office and lives in
ealing. an insignificant little man. but you are wrong when you say i accepted his theory. i did
not. i only accepted the principle of it.”
“what do you mean?”
hercule poirot said:
“all along, all the way through, i have been led astray—sometimes unwittingly, sometimes
deliberately and for a purpose. all along it was presented to me, forced upon me, that this was
what you might call a public crime. that is to say, that you, m. blunt, were the focus of it all, in
your public character. you, the banker, you the controller of finance, you, the upholder of
conservative tradition!
“but every public character has a private life also. that was my mistake, i forgot the private
life. there existed private reasons for killing morley—frank carter’s for instance.
“there could also exist private reasons for killing you … you had relations who would inherit
money when you died. you had people who loved and hated you—as a man—not as a public
figure.
“and so i came to the supreme instance of what i call ‘the forced card.’ the purported attack
upon you by frank carter. if that attack was genuine—then it was a political crime. but was there
any other explanation? there could be. there was a second man in the shrubbery. the man who
rushed up and seized carter. a man who could easily have fired that shot and then tossed the pistol
to carter’s feet so that the latter would almost inevitably pick it up and be found with it in his
hand….
“i considered the problem of howard raikes. raikes had been at queen charlotte street that
morning of morley’s death. raikes was a bitter enemy of all that you stood for and were. yes, but
raikes was something more. raikes was the man who might marry your niece, and with you dead,
your niece would inherit a very handsome income, even though you had prudently arranged that
she could not touch the principal.
“was the whole thing, after all, a private crime — a crime for private gain, for private
satisfaction? why had i thought it a public crime? because, not once, but many times, that idea
had been suggested to me, had been forced upon me like a forced card. …
“it was then, when that idea occurred to me, that i had my first glimmering of the truth. i was in
church at the time and singing a verse of a psalm. it spoke of a snare laid with cords….
“a snare? laid for me? yes, it could be … but in that case who had laid it? there was only one
person who could have laid it … and that did not make sense—or did it? had i been looking at
the case upside down? money no object? exactly! reckless disregard of human life? yes again.
for the stakes for which the guilty person was playing were enormous. …
“but if this new, strange idea of mine were right, it must explain everything. it must explain, for
instance, the mystery of the dual nature of miss sainsbury seale. it must solve the riddle of the
buckled shoe. and it must answer the question: where is miss sainsbury seale now?
“eh bien—it did all that and more. it showed me that miss sainsbury seale was the beginning
and middle and end of the case. no wonder it had seemed to me that there were two mabelle
sainsbury seales. there were two mabelle sainsbury seales. there was the good, stupid, amiable
woman who was vouched for so confidently by her friends. and there was the other—the woman
who was mixed-up with two murders and who told lies and who vanished mysteriously.
“remember, the porter at king leopold mansions said that miss sainsbury seale had been
there once before….
“in my reconstruction of the case, that first time was the only time. she never left king leopold
mansions. the other miss sainsbury seale took her place. that other mabelle sainsbury seale,
dressed in clothes of the same type and wearing a new pair of shoes with buckles because the
others were too large for her, went to the russell square hotel at a busy time of day, packed up
the dead woman’s clothes, paid the bill and left. she went to the glengowrie court hotel. none of
the real miss sainsbury seale’s friends saw her after that time, remember. she played the part of
mabelle sainsbury seale there for over a week. she wore mabelle sainsbury seale’s clothes, she
talked in mabelle sainsbury seale’s voice, but she had to buy a smaller pair of evening shoes, too.
and then—she vanished, her last appearance being when she was seen reentering king leopold
mansions on the evening of the day morley was killed.”
“are you trying to say,” demanded alistair blunt, “that it was mabelle sainsbury seale’s dead
body in that flat, after all.”
“of course it was! it was a very clever double bluff—the smashed face was meant to raise a
question of the woman’s identity!”
“but the dental evidence?”
“ah! now we come to it. it was not the dentist himself who gave evidence. morley was dead.
he couldn’t give evidence as to his own work. he would have known who the dead woman was. it
was the charts that were put in as evidence—and the charts were faked. both women were his
patients, remember. all that had to be done was to relabel the charts, exchanging the names.”
hercule poirot added:
“and now you see what i meant when you asked me if the woman was dead and i replied, ‘that
depends.’ for when you say ‘miss sainsbury seale’—which woman do you mean? the woman
who disappeared from the glengowrie court hotel or the real mabelle sainsbury seale.”
alistair blunt said:
“i know, m. poirot, that you have a great reputation. therefore i accept that you must have
some grounds for this extraordinary assumption—for it is an assumption, nothing more. but all i
can see is the fantastic improbability of the whole thing. you are saying, are you not, that mabelle
sainsbury seale was deliberately murdered and that morley was also murdered to prevent his
identifying her dead body. but why? that’s what i want to know. here’s this woman—a perfectly
harmless, middle-aged woman—with plenty of friends and apparently no enemies. why on earth
all this elaborate plot to get rid of her?”
“why? yes, that is the question. why? as you say, mabelle sainsbury seale was a perfectly
harmless creature who wouldn’t hurt a fly! why, then, was she deliberately and brutally
murdered? well, i will tell you what i think.”
“yes?”
hercule poirot leaned forward. he said:
“it is my belief that mabelle sainsbury seale was murdered because she happened to have too
good a memory for faces.”
“what do you mean?”
hercule poirot said:
“we have separated the dual personality. there is the harmless lady from india. but there is one
incident that falls between the two roles. which miss sainsbury seale was it who spoke to you on
the doorstep of mr. morley’s house? she claimed, you will remember, to be ‘a great friend of your
wife’s.’ now that claim was adjudged by her friends and by the light of ordinary probability to be
untrue. so we can say: ‘that was a lie. the real miss sainsbury seale does not tell lies.’ so it was
a lie uttered by the impostor for a purpose of her own.”
alistair blunt nodded.
“yes, that reasoning is quite clear. though i still don’t know what the purpose was.”
poirot said:
“ah, pardon—but let us first look at it the other way round. it was the real miss sainsbury
seale. she does not tell lies. so the story must be true.”
“i suppose you can look at it that way—but it seems very unlikely—”
“of course it is unlikely! but taking that second hypothesis as fact—the story is true. therefore
miss sainsbury seale did know your wife. she knew her well. therefore—your wife must have
been the type of person miss sainsbury seale would have known well. someone in her own station
of life. an anglo-indian—a missionary—or, to go back farther still—an actress—therefore—not
rebecca arnholt!
“now, m. blunt, do you see what i meant when i talked of a private and a public life? you are
the great banker. but you are also a man who married a rich wife. and before you married her you
were only a junior partner in the firm—not very long down from oxford.
“you comprehend—i began to look at the case the right way up. expense no object? naturally
not—to you. reckless of human life—that, too, since for a long time you have been virtually a
dictator and to a dictator his own life becomes unduly important and those of others unimportant.”
alistair blunt said:
“what are you suggesting, m. poirot?”
poirot said quietly:
“i am suggesting, m. blunt, that when you married rebecca arnholt, you were married already.
that, dazzled by the vista, not so much of wealth, as of power, you suppressed that fact and
deliberately committed bigamy. that your real wife acquiesced in the situation.”
“and who was this real wife?”
“mrs. albert chapman was the name she went under at king leopold mansions—a handy spot,
not five minutes’ walk from your house on the chelsea embankment. you borrowed the name of a
real secret agent, realizing that it would give support to her hints of a husband engaged in
intelligence work. your scheme succeeded perfectly. no suspicion was ever aroused.
nevertheless, the fact remained, you had never been legally married to rebecca arnholt and you
were guilty of bigamy. you never dreamt of danger after so many years. it came out of the blue—
in the form of a tiresome woman who remembered you after nearly twenty years, as her friend’s
husband. chance brought her back to this country, chance let her meet you in queen charlotte
street—it was chance that your niece was with you and heard what she said to you. otherwise i
might never have guessed.”
“i told you about that myself, my dear poirot.”
“no, it was your niece who insisted on telling me and you could not very well protest too
violently in case it might arouse suspicions. and after that meeting, one more evil chance (from
your point of view) occurred. mabelle sainsbury seale met amberiotis, went to lunch with him
and babbled to him of this meeting with a friend’s husband—‘after all these years!’—‘looked
older, of course, but had hardly changed!’ that, i admit, is pure guesswork on my part but i
believe it is what happened. i do not think that mabelle sainsbury seale realized for a moment that
the mr. blunt her friend had married was the shadowy figure behind the finance of the world. the
name, after all, is not an uncommon one. but amberiotis, remember, in addition to his espionage
activities, was a blackmailer. blackmailers have an uncanny nose for a secret. amberiotis
wondered. easy to find out just who the mr. blunt was. and then, i have no doubt, he wrote to you
or telephoned … oh, yes—a gold mine for amberiotis.”
poirot paused. he went on:
“there is only one effectual method of dealing with a really efficient and experienced
blackmailer. silence him.
“it was not a case, as i had had erroneously suggested to me, of ‘blunt must go.’ it was, on the
contrary, ‘amberiotis must go.’ but the answer was the same! the easiest way to get at a man is
when he is off his guard, and when is a man more off his guard than in the dentist’s chair?”
poirot paused again. a faint smile came to his lips. he said:
“the truth about the case was mentioned very early. the page boy, alfred, was reading a crime
story called death at eleven forty-five. we should have taken that as an omen. for, of course,
that is just about the time when morley was killed. you shot him just as you were leaving. then
you pressed his buzzer, turned on the taps of the wash basin and left the room. you timed it so that
you came down the stairs just as alfred was taking the false mabelle sainsbury seale to the lift.
you actually opened the front door, perhaps you passed out, but as the lift doors shut and the lift
went up you slipped inside again and went up the stairs.
“i know, from my own visits, just what alfred did when he took up a patient. he knocked on
the door, opened it, and stood back to let the patient pass in. inside the water was running—
inference, morley was washing his hands as usual. but alfred couldn’t actually see him.
“as soon as alfred had gone down again in the lift, you slipped along into the surgery. together
you and your accomplice lifted the body and carried it into the adjoining office. then a quick hunt
through the files, and the charts of mrs. chapman and miss sainsbury seale were cleverly
falsified. you put on a white linen coat, perhaps your wife applied a trace of makeup. but nothing
much was needed. it was amberiotis’ first visit to morley. he had never met you. and your
photograph seldom appears in the papers. besides, why should he have suspicions? a blackmailer
does not fear his dentist. miss sainsbury seale goes down and alfred shows her out. the buzzer
goes and amberiotis is taken up. he finds the dentist washing his hands behind the door in
approved fashion. he is conducted to the chair. he indicates the painful tooth. you talk the
accustomed patter. you explain it will be best to freeze the gum. the procaine and adrenalin are
there. you inject a big enough dose to kill. and incidentally he will not feel any lack of skill in
your dentistry!
“completely unsuspicious, amberiotis leaves. you bring out morley’s body and arrange it on
the floor, dragging it slightly on the carpet now that you have to manage it single-handed. you
wipe the pistol and put it in his hand—wipe the door handle so that your prints shall not be the
last. the instruments you used have all been passed into the sterilizer. you leave the room, go
down the stairs and slip out of the front door at a suitable moment. that is your only moment of
danger.
“it should all have passed off so well! two people who threatened your safety—both dead. a
third person also dead—but that, from your point of view, was unavoidable. and all so easily
explained. morley’s suicide explained by the mistake he had made over amberiotis. the two
deaths cancel out. one of these regrettable accidents.
“but alas for you, i am on the scene. i have doubts. i make objections. all is not going as easily
as you hoped. so there must be a second line of defences. there must be, if necessary, a
scapegoat. you have already informed yourself minutely, of morley’s household. there is this
man, frank carter, he will do. so your accomplice arranges that he shall be engaged in a
mysterious fashion as gardener. if, later, he tells such a ridiculous story no one will believe it. in
due course, the body in the fur chest will come to light. at first it will be thought to be that of miss
sainsbury seale, then the dental evidence will be taken. big sensation! it may seem a needless
complication, but it was necessary. you do not want the police force of england to be looking for
a missing mrs. albert chapman. no, let mrs. chapman be dead—and let it be mabelle sainsbury
seale for whom the police look. since they can never find her. besides, through your influence,
you can arrange to have the case dropped.
“you did do that, but since it was necessary that you should know just what i was doing, you
sent for me and urged me to find the missing woman for you. and you continued, steadily, to
‘force a card’ upon me. your accomplice rang me up with a melodramatic warning—the same
idea—espionage—the public aspect. she is a clever actress, this wife of yours, but to disguise
one’s voice the natural tendency is to imitate another voice. your wife imitated the intonation of
mrs. olivera. that puzzled me, i may say, a good deal.
“then i was taken down to exsham—the final performance was staged. how easy to arrange a
loaded pistol amongst laurels so that a man, clipping them, shall unwittingly cause it to go off. the
pistol falls at his feet. startled, he picks it up. what more do you want? he is caught red-handed—
with a ridiculous story and with a pistol which is a twin to the one with which morley was shot.
“and all a snare for the feet of hercule poirot.”
alistair blunt stirred a little in his chair. his face was grave and a little sad. he said:
“don’t misunderstand me, m. poirot. how much do you guess? and how much do you actually
know?”
poirot said:
“i have a certificate of the marriage—at a registry office near oxford—of martin alistair blunt
and gerda grant. frank carter saw two men leave morley’s surgery just after twenty-five past
twelve. the first was a fat man—amberiotis. the second was, of course, you. frank carter did not
recognize you. he only saw you from above.”
“how fair of you to mention that!”
“he went into the surgery and found morley’s body. the hands were cold and there was dried
blood round the wound. that meant that morley had been dead some time. therefore the dentist
who attended to amberiotis could not have been morley and must have been morley’s murderer.”
“anything else?”
“yes. helen montressor was arrested this afternoon.”
alistair blunt gave one sharp movement. then he sat very still. he said:
“that—rather tears it.”
hercule poirot said:
“yes. the real helen montressor, your distant cousin, died in canada seven years ago. you
suppressed that fact, and took advantage of it.”
a smile came to alistair blunt’s lips. he spoke naturally and with a kind of boyish enjoyment.
“gerda got a kick out of it all, you know. i’d like to make you understand. you’re such a clever
fellow. i married her without letting my people know. she was acting in repertory at the time. my
people were the straitlaced kind, and i was going into the firm. we agreed to keep it dark. she
went on acting. mabelle sainsbury seale was in the company too. she knew about us. then she
went abroad with a touring company. gerda heard of her once or twice from india. then she
stopped writing. mabelle got mixed up with some hindu. she was always a stupid, credulous girl.
“i wish i could make you understand about my meeting with rebecca and my marriage. gerda
understood. the only way i can put it is that it was like royalty. i had the chance of marrying a
queen and playing the part of prince consort or even king. i looked on my marriage to gerda as
morganatic. i loved her. i didn’t want to get rid of her. and the whole thing worked splendidly. i
liked rebecca immensely. she was a woman with a first-class financial brain and mine was just as
good. we were good at team work. it was supremely exciting. she was an excellent companion
and i think i made her happy. i was genuinely sorry when she died. the queer thing was that
gerda and i grew to enjoy the secret thrill of our meetings. we had all sorts of ingenious devices.
she was an actress by nature. she had a repertoire of seven or eight characters—mrs. albert
chapman was only one of them. she was an american widow in paris. i met her there when i
went over on business. and she used to go to norway with painting things as an artist. i went there
for the fishing. and then, later, i passed her off as my cousin. helen montressor. it was great fun
for us both, and it kept romance alive, i suppose. we could have married officially after rebecca
died—but we didn’t want to. gerda would have found it hard to live my official life and, of course,
something from the past might have been raked up, but i think the real reason we went on more or
less the same was that we enjoyed the secrecy of it. we should have found open domesticity dull.”
blunt paused. he said, and his voice changed and hardened:
“and then that damned fool of a woman messed up everything. recognizing me—after all those
years! and she told amberiotis. you see—you must see—that something had to be done! it wasn’t
only myself—not only the selfish point of view. if i was ruined and disgraced—the country, my
country was hit as well. for i’ve done something for england, m. poirot. i’ve held it firm and kept
it solvent. it’s free from dictators—from fascism and from communism. i don’t really care for
money as money. i do like power — i like to rule — but i don’t want to tyrannize. we are
democratic in england—truly democratic. we can grumble and say what we think and laugh at
our politicians. we’re free. i care for all that—it’s been my lifework. but if i went—well, you
know what would probably happen. i’m needed, m. poirot. and a damned double- crossing,
blackmailing rogue of a greek was going to destroy my life work. something had to be done.
gerda saw it, too. we were sorry about the sainsbury seale woman—but it was no good. we’d
got to silence her. she couldn’t be trusted to hold her tongue. gerda went to see her, asked her to
tea, told her to ask for mrs. chapman, said she was staying in mr. chapman’s flat. mabelle
sainsbury seale came, quite unsuspecting. she never knew anything—the medinal was in the tea
—it’s quite painless. you just sleep and don’t wake up. the face business was done afterwards—
rather sickening, but we felt it was necessary. mrs. chapman was to exit for good. i had given my
‘cousin’ helen a cottage to live in. we decided that after a while we would get married. but first
we had to get amberiotis out of the way. it worked beautifully. he hadn’t a suspicion that i wasn’t
a real dentist. i did my stuff with the hand pricks rather well. i didn’t risk the drill. of course, after
the injection he couldn’t feel what i was doing. probably just as well!”
poirot asked:
“the pistols?”
“actually they belonged to a secretary i once had in america. he bought them abroad
somewhere. when he left he forgot to take them.”
there was a pause. then alistair blunt asked:
“is there anything else you want to know?”
hercule poirot said:
“what about morley?”
alistair blunt said simply:
“i was sorry about morley.”
hercule poirot said:
“yes, i see….”
there was a long pause, then blunt said:
“well, m. poirot, what about it?”
poirot said:
“helen montressor is arrested already.”
“and now it’s my turn?”
“that was my meaning, yes.”
blunt said gently:
“but you are not happy about it, eh?”
“no, i am not at all happy.”
alistair blunt said:
“i’ve killed three people. so presumably i ought to be hanged. but you’ve heard my defence.”
“which is—exactly?”
“that i believe, with all my heart and soul, that i am necessary to the continued peace and well-
being of this country.”
hercule poirot allowed:
“that may be—yes.”
“you agree, don’t you?”
“i agree, yes. you stand for all the things that to my mind are important. for sanity and balance
and stability and honest dealing.”
alistair blunt said quietly:
“thanks.”
he added:
“well, what about it?”
“you suggest that i—retire from the case?”
“yes.”
“and your wife?”
“i’ve got a good deal of pull. mistaken identity, that’s the line to take.”
“and if i refuse?”
“then,” said alistair blunt simply, “i’m for it.”
he went on:
“it’s in your hands, poirot. it’s up to you. but i tell you this—and it’s not just self-preservation
—i’m needed in the world. and do you know why? because i’m an honest man. and because i’ve
got common sense—and no particular axe of my own to grind.”
poirot nodded. strangely enough, he believed all that.
he said:
“yes, that is one side. you are the right man in the right place. you have sanity, judgement,
balance. but there is the other side. three human beings who are dead.”
“yes, but think of them! mabelle sainsbury seale—you said yourself—a woman with the
brains of a hen! amberiotis—a crook and a blackmailer!”
“and morley?”
“i’ve told you before. i’m sorry about morley. but after all—he was a decent fellow and a good
dentist—but there are other dentists.”
“yes,” said poirot, “there are other dentists. and frank carter? you would have let him die,
too, without regret?”
blunt said:
“i don’t waste any pity on him. he’s no good. an utter rotter.”
poirot said:
“but a human being….”
“oh well, we’re all human beings….”
“yes, we are all human beings. that is what you have not remembered. you have said that
mabelle sainsbury seale was a foolish human being and amberiotis an evil one, and frank carter
a wastrel—and morley—morley was only a dentist and there are other dentists. that is where you
and i, m. blunt, do not see alike. for to me the lives of those four people are just as important as
your life.”
“you’re wrong.”
“no, i am not wrong. you are a man of great natural honesty and rectitude. you took one step
aside—and outwardly it has not affected you. publicly you have continued the same, upright,
trustworthy, honest. but within you the love of power grew to over-whelming heights. so you
sacrificed four human lives and thought them of no account.”
“don’t you realize, poirot, that the safety and happiness of the whole nation depends on me?”
“i am not concerned with nations, monsieur. i am concerned with the lives of private
individuals who have the right not to have their lives taken from them.”
he got up.
“so that’s your answer,” said alistair blunt.
hercule poirot said in a tired voice:
“yes—that is my answer….”
he went to the door and opened it. two men came in.
