One, Two, Buckle My Shoe (Hercule Poirot 23)

Poirot shook his head. He said:

“You seem to overlook the most ordinary reason for being in a dentist’s waiting room—which is that one is waiting to have one’s teeth attended to.”

“So that’s what you were doing?” Mr. Raikes’ tone expressed contemptuous unbelief. ?

?Waiting to have your teeth seen to?”

“Certainly.”

“You’ll excuse me if I say I don’t believe it.”

“May I ask then, Mr. Raikes, what you were doing there?”

Mr. Raikes grinned suddenly. He said:

“Got you there! I was waiting to have my teeth seen to also.”

“You had perhaps the toothache?”

“That’s right, big boy.”

“But all the same, you went away without having your teeth attended to?”

“What if I did? That’s my business.”

He paused—then he said, with a quick savagery of tone: “Oh, what the hell’s the use of all this slick talking? You were there to look after your big shot. Well, he’s all right, isn’t he? Nothing happened to your precious Mr. Alistair Blunt. You’ve nothing on me.”

Poirot said:

“Where did you go when you went so abruptly out of the waiting room?”

“Left the house, of course.”

“Ah!” Poirot looked up at the ceiling.

“But nobody saw you leave, Mr. Raikes.”

“Does that matter?”

“It might. Somebody died in that house not long afterwards, remember.”

Raikes said carelessly:

“Oh, you mean the dentist fellow.”

Poirot’s tone was hard as he said:

“Yes, I mean the dentist fellow.”

Raikes stared. He said:

“You trying to pin that on me? Is that the game? Well, you can’t do it. I’ve just read the account of the inquest yesterday. The poor devil shot himself because he’d made a mistake with a local anesthetic and one of his patients died.”

Poirot went on unmoved: “Can you prove that you left the house when you say you did? Is there anyone who can say definitely where you were between twelve and one?”

The other’s eyes narrowed.

“So you are trying to pin it on me? I suppose Blunt put you up to this?”