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 ho
tel. 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?”