One, two, buckle my shoe - Agatha Christie [65]
‘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 hotel. 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?’
‘Perhaps that was the explanation?’
‘But no, it was not. My eyes do not deceive me! To continue, I studied the dead body of this woman and I did not like what I saw. Why had the face been wantonly, deliberately smashed and rendered unrecognizable?’
Alistair Blunt moved restlessly. He said:
‘Must we go over that again? We know —’
Hercule Poirot said firmly:
‘It is necessary. I have to take you over the steps that led me at last to the truth. I said to myself: “Something is wrong here. Here is a dead woman in the clothes of Miss Sainsbury Seale (except, perhaps, the shoes?) and with the handbag of Miss Sainsbury Seale — but why is her face unrecognizable? Is it, perhaps, because the face is not the face of Miss Sainsbury Seale?” And immediately I begin to put together what I have heard of the appearance of the other woman — the woman to whom the flat belongs, and I ask myself — Might it not perhaps be this other woman who lies dead here? I go then and look at the other woman’s bedroom. I try to picture to myself what sort of woman she is. In superficial appearance, very different to the other. Smart, showily dressed, very much made up. But in essentials, not unlike. Hair, build, age…But there is one difference. Mrs Albert Chapman took a five in shoes. Miss Sainsbury Seale, I knew, took a 10-inch stocking — that is to say she would take at least a 6 in shoes. Mrs Chapman, then, had smaller feet than Miss Sainsbury Seale. I went back to the body. If my half-formed idea was right, and the body was that of Mrs Chapman wearing Miss Sainsbury Seale’s clothes, then the shoes should be too big. I took hold of one. But it was not loose. It fitted tightly. That looked as though it were the body of Miss Sainsbury Seale after all! But in that case, why was the face disfigured? Her identity was already proved by the handbag, which could easily have been removed, but which had not been removed.
‘It was a puzzle — a tangle. In desperation