One, two, buckle my shoe - Agatha Christie [24]
‘If you do not drink your coffee,’ said Hercule Poirot, ‘it will get cold.’
He spoke kindly and with authority.
Raikes stared at him.
‘Say, just what kind of an insect are you?’
‘The coffee in this country is very bad anyway —’ said Poirot.
‘I’ll say it is,’ agreed Mr Raikes with fervour.
‘But if you allow it to get cold it is practically undrinkable.’
The young man leant forward.
‘What are you getting at? What’s the big idea in coming round here?’
Poirot shrugged his shoulders.
‘I wanted to — see you.’
‘Oh yes?’ said Mr Raikes sceptically.
His eyes narrowed.
‘If it’s the money you’re after, you’ve come to the wrong man! The people I’m in with can’t afford to buy what they want. Better go back to the man who pays your salary.’
Poirot said, sighing:
‘Nobody has paid me anything — yet.’
‘You’re telling me,’ said Mr Raikes.
‘It is the truth,’ said Hercule Poirot. ‘I am wasting a good deal of valuable time for no recompense whatsoever. Simply, shall we say, to assuage my curiosity.’
‘And I suppose,’ said Mr Raikes, ‘you were just assuaging your curiosity at that darned dentist’s the other day.’
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 anæsthetic 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?’
Poirot sighed. He said:
‘You will pardon me, but it seems an obsession with you — this persistent harping on Mr Alistair Blunt. I am not employed by him, I never have been employed by him. I am concerned, not with his safety, but with the death of a man who did good work in his chosen profession.’
Raikes shook his head.
‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘I don’t believe you. You’re Blunt’s private dick all right.’ His face darkened as he leaned across the table. ‘But you can’t save him, you know. He’s got to go — he and everything he stands for! There’s got to be a new deal — the old corrupt system of finance has got to go — this cursed net of bankers all over the world like a spider’s web. They’ve got to be swept away. I’ve nothing against Blunt personally — but he’s the type of man I hate. He’s mediocre — he’s smug. He’s the sort you can’t move unless you use dynamite. He’s the sort of man who says, “You can’t disrupt the foundations of civilization.” Can’t you, though? Let him wait and see! He