One, two, buckle my shoe - Agatha Christie [73]
He got up.
‘So that’s your answer,’ said Alistair Blunt.
Hercule Poirot said in a tired voice:
‘Yes — that is my answer…’
He went to the door and opened it. Two men came in.
II
Hercule Poirot went down to where a girl was waiting.
Jane Olivera, her face white and strained, stood against the mantelpiece. Beside her was Howard Raikes.
She said:
‘Well?’
Poirot said gently:
‘It is all over.’
Raikes said harshly:
‘What do you mean?’
Poirot said:
‘Mr Alistair Blunt has been arrested for murder.’
Raikes said:
‘I thought he’d buy you off…’
Jane said:
‘No. I never thought that.’
Poirot sighed. He said:
‘The world is yours. The New Heaven and the New Earth. In your new world, my children, let there be freedom and let there be pity…That is all I ask.’
Nineteen, Twenty,
My Plate’s Empty
Hercule Poirot walked home along the deserted streets.
An unobtrusive figure joined him.
‘Well?’ said Mr Barnes.
Hercule Poirot shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands.
Barnes said:
‘What line did he take?’
‘He admitted everything and pleaded justification. He said that this country needed him.’
‘So it does,’ said Mr Barnes.
He added after a minute or two:
‘Don’t you think so?’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘Well, then —’
‘We may be wrong,’ said Hercule Poirot.
‘I never thought of that,’ said Mr Barnes. ‘So we may.’
They walked on for a little way, then Barnes asked curiously:
‘What are you thinking about?’
Hercule Poirot quoted:
‘Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king.’
‘Hm — I see —’ said Mr Barnes. ‘Saul — after the Amalekites. Yes, you could think of it that way.’
They walked on a little farther, then Barnes said:
‘I take the tube here. Good-night, Poirot.’ He paused, then said awkwardly: ‘You know — there’s something I’d like to tell you.’
‘Yes, mon ami?’
‘Feel I owe it to you. Led you astray unintentionally. Fact of the matter is, Albert Chapman, Q.X.912.’
‘Yes?’
‘I’m Albert Chapman. That’s partly why I was interested. I knew, you see, that I’d never had a wife.’
He hurried away, chuckling.
Poirot stood stock still. Then his eyes opened, his eyebrows rose.
He said to himself:
‘Nineteen, twenty, my plate’s empty —’
And went home.
E-Book Extras
The Poirots
Essay by Charles Osborne
The Poirots
The Mysterious Affair at Styles ;
The Murder on the Links ;
Poirot Investigates ;
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd ;
The Big Four ;
The Mystery of the Blue Train ;
Black Coffee ;
Peril at End House ;
Lord Edgware Dies ;
Murder on the Orient Express ;
Three-Act Tragedy ;
Death in the Clouds ;
The ABC Murders ;
Murder in Mesopotamia ;
Cards on the Table ;
Murder in the Mews ;
Dumb Witness ;
Death on the Nile ;
Appointment with Death ;
Hercule Poirot’s Christmas ;
Sad Cypress ;
One, Two, Buckle My Shoe ;
Evil Under the Sun ;
Five Little Pigs ;
The Hollow ;
The Labours of Hercules ;
Taken at the Flood ;
Mrs McGinty’s Dead ;
After the Funeral ;
Hickory Dickory Dock ;
Dead Man’s Folly ;
Cat Among the Pigeons ;
The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding ;
The Clocks ;
Third Girl ;
Hallowe’en Party ;
Elephants Can Remember ;
Poirot’s Early Cases ;
Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case
1. The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920)
Captain Arthur Hastings, invalided in the Great War, is recuperating as a guest of John Cavendish at Styles Court, the ‘country-place’ of John’s autocratic old aunt, Emily Inglethorpe — she of a sizeable fortune, and so recently remarried to a man twenty years her junior. When Emily’s sudden heart attack is found to be attributable to strychnine, Hastings recruits an old friend, now retired, to aid in the local investigation. With impeccable timing, Hercule Poirot, the renowned Belgian detective, makes his dramatic entrance into the pages of crime literature.
Of note: Written