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

A nice-looking dark-haired girl brought in the tea at this moment. As she closed the door behind her again, Poirot said:

“That girl was with you in London, was she not?”

“Agnes? Yes, she was house-parlourmaid. I let the cook go—she didn’t want to come to the country anyway—and Agnes does everything for me. She is turning into quite a nice little cook.”

Poirot nodded.

He knew very accurately the domestic arrangements of 58, Queen Charlotte Street. They had been thoroughly gone into at the time of the tragedy. Mr. Morley and his sister had occupied the two top floors of the house as a maisonette. The basement had been shut up altogether except for a narrow passage leading from the area to the back yard where a wire cage ran up to the top floor with the tradesmen’s deliveries and where a speaking tube was installed. Therefore the only entrance to the house was by the front door which it was Alfred’s business to answer. This had enabled the police to be sure that no outsider could have entered the house on that particular morning.

Both cook and house-parlourmaid had been with the Morleys for some years and bore good characters. So, although it was theoretically possible that one or the other of them might have crept down to the second floor and shot her master, the possibility had never been taken seriously into account. Neither of the two had appeared unduly flustered or upset at being questioned, and there certainly seemed no possible reason for connecting either of them with his death.

Nevertheless, as Agnes handed Poirot his hat and stick on leaving, she asked him with an unusually nervous abruptness:

“Does—does anyone know anything more about the master’s death, sir??

?

Poirot turned to look at her. He said:

“Nothing fresh has come to light.”

“They’re still quite sure as he did shoot himself because he’d made a mistake with that drug?”

“Yes. Why do you ask?”

Agnes pleated her apron. Her face was averted. She said rather indistinctly:

“The—the mistress doesn’t think so.”

“And you agree with her, perhaps?”

“Me? Oh, I don’t know nothing, sir. I only—I only wanted to be sure.”

Hercule Poirot said in his most gentle voice:

“It would be a relief to you to feel beyond any possible doubt that it was suicide?”

“Oh, yes, sir,” Agnes agreed quickly, “it would indeed.”

“For a special reason, perhaps?”

Her startled eyes met his. She shrank back a little.

“I—I don’t know anything about it, sir. I only just asked.”

“But why did she ask?” Hercule Poirot demanded of himself, as he walked down the path to the gate.

He felt sure that there was an answer to that question. But as yet he could not guess what it was.

All the same, he felt a step nearer.

VI

When Poirot returned to his flat he was surprised to find an unexpected visitor waiting for him.

A bald head was visible above the back of a chair, and the small neat figure of Mr. Barnes rose to his feet.

With eyes that twinkled as usual, he made a dry little apology.