One, two, buckle my shoe - Agatha Christie [64]
‘What was that?’
‘A fragment of conversation. Really a very illuminating fragment if only I had had the sense to realize its significance at the time.’
Mr Barnes scratched his nose thoughtfully with the trowel. A small piece of earth adhered to the side of his nose.
‘Being rather cryptic, aren’t you?’ he asked genially.
Hercule Poirot shrugged his shoulders. He said:
‘I am, perhaps, aggrieved that you were not more frank with me.’
‘I?’
‘Yes.’
‘My dear fellow — I never had the least idea of Carter’s guilt. As far as I knew, he’d left the house long before Morley was killed. I suppose now they’ve found he didn’t leave when he said he did?’
Poirot said:
‘Carter was in the house at twenty-six minutes past twelve. He actually saw the murderer.’
‘Then Carter didn’t —’
‘Carter saw the murderer, I tell you!’
Mr Barnes said:
‘Did he recognize him?’
Slowly Hercule Poirot shook his head.
Seventeen, Eighteen,
Maids in Waiting
I
On the following day Hercule Poirot spent some hours with a theatrical agent of his acquaintance. In the afternoon he went to Oxford. On the day after that he drove down to the country — it was late when he returned.
He had telephoned before he left to make an appointment with Mr Alistair Blunt for that same evening.
It was half-past nine when he reached the Gothic House.
Alistair Blunt was alone in his library when Poirot was shown in.
He looked an eager question at his visitor as he shook hands.
He said:
‘Well?’
Slowly, Hercule Poirot nodded his head.
Blunt looked at him in almost incredulous appreciation.
‘Have you found her?’
‘Yes. Yes, I have found her.’
He sat down. And he sighed.
Alistair Blunt said:
‘You are tired?’
‘Yes. I am tired. And it is not pretty — what I have to tell you.’
Blunt said:
‘Is she dead?’
‘That depends,’ said Hercule Poirot slowly, ‘on how you like to look at it.’
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 pre-meditated — 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