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

“Now M. Poirot, come into my room.”

Alistair Blunt’s own sanctum was a low, long room at the back of the house, with windows opening upon the garden. It was comfortable, with deep armchairs and settees and just enough pleasant untidiness to make it livable.

(Needless to say, Hercule Poirot would have preferred a greater symmetry!)

After offering his guest a cigarette and lighting his own pipe, Alistair Blunt came to the point quite simply and directly.

He said:

“There’s a good deal that I’m not satisfied about. I’m referring, of course, to this Sainsbury Seale woman. For reasons of their own—reasons no doubt which are perfectly justified—the authorities have called off the hunt. I don’t know exactly who Albert Chapman is or what he’s doing—but whatever it is, it’s something pretty vital and it’s the sort of business that might land him in a tight spot. I don’t know the ins and outs of it, but the P.M. did just mention that they can’t afford any publicity whatever about this case and that the sooner it fades out of the public’s memory the better.

“That’s quite O.K. That’s the official view, and they know what’s necessary. So the police have got their hands tied.”

He leaned forward in his chair.

“But I want to know the truth, M. Poirot. And you’re the man to find it out for me. You aren’t hampered by officialdom.”

“What do you want me to do, M. Blunt?”

“I want you to find this woman—Sainsbury Seale.”

“Alive or dead?”

Alistair Blunt’s eyebrows rose.

“You think it’s possible that she is dead?”

Hercule Poirot was silent for a minute or two, then he said, speaking slowly and with weight:

“If you want my opinion—but it is only an opinion, remember—then, yes, I think she is dead….”

“Why do you think so?”

Hercule Poirot smiled slightly.

He said:

“It would not make sense to you if I said it was because of a pair of unworn stockings in a drawer.”

Alistair Blunt stared at him curiously.

“You’re an odd man, M. Poirot.”

“I am very odd. That is to say, I am methodical, orderly and logical—and I do not like distorting facts to support a theory—that, I find—is unusual!”

Alistair Blunt said:

“I’ve been turning the whole thing over in my mind—it takes me a little time always to think a thing out. And the whole business is deuced odd! I mean—that dentist chap shooting himself, and then this Chapman woman packed away in her own fur chest with her face smashed in. It’s nasty! It’s damned nasty! I can’t help feeling that there’s something behind it all.”

Poirot nodded.

Blunt said:

“And you know—the more I think of it—I’m quite sure that woman never knew my wife. It was just a pretext to speak to me. But why? What good did it do her? I mean—bar a small subscription—and even that was made out to the society, not to her personally. And yet I do feel—that—that it was engineered—just meeting me on the steps of the house. It was all so pat. So suspiciously well-timed! But why? That’s what I keep asking myself—why?”

“It is indeed the word—why? I too ask myself—and I cannot see it—no, I cannot see it.”

“You’ve no ideas at all on the subject?”