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

Poirot watched keenly for any reaction, but he saw none.

“Ought I to know his name? Have I met him elsewhere?”

“I do not think you have met him. He is a friend of your niece, Miss Olivera’s.”

“Oh, one of Jane’s friends.”

“Her mother, I gather, does not approve of the friendship.”

Alistair Blunt said absently:

“I don’t suppose that will cut any ice with Jane.”

“So seriously does her mother regard the friendship that I gather she brought her daughter over from the States on purpose to get her away from this young man.”

“Oh!” Blunt’s face registered comprehension. “It’s that fellow, is it?”

“Aha, you become more interested now.”

“He’s a most undesirable young fellow in every way, I believe. Mixed up in a lot of subversive activities.”

“I understand from Miss Olivera that he made an appointment that morning in Queen Charlotte Street, solely in order to get a look at you.”

“To try and get me to approve of him?”

“Well—no—I understand the idea was that he should be induced to approve of you.”

“Well, of all the damned cheek!”

Poirot concealed a smile.

“It appears you are everything that he most disapproves of.”

“He’s certainly the kind of young man I disapprove of! Spends his time tub-thumping and talking hot air, instead of doing a decent job of work!”

Poirot was silent for a minute, then he said:

“Will you forgive me if I ask you an impertinent and very personal question?”

“Fire ahead.”

“In the event of your death, what are your testamentary dispositions?”

Blunt stared. He said sharply:

“Why do you want to know that?”

“Because, it is just possible,” he shrugged his shoulders—“that it might be relevant to this case.”

“Nonsense!”

“Perhaps. But perhaps not.”

Alistair Blunt said coldly:

“I think you are being unduly melodramatic, M. Poirot. Nobody has been trying to murder me—or anything like that!”

“A bomb on your breakfast table—a shot in the street—”