One, Two, Buckle My Shoe Read online

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Mr. Reilly. You are, then, abandoning your practice in Queen Charlotte Street.”

  “If you’d say it was abandoning me, you’d be nearer the mark.”

  “Indeed? That is very sad.”

  “It doesn’t worry me. When I think of the debts I shall leave behind me unpaid, I’m a happy man.”

  He grinned engagingly.

  “It’s not I who’ll be shooting myself because of money troubles. Leave them behind you, I say, and start afresh. I’ve got my qualifications and they’re good ones if I say so myself.”

  Poirot murmured:

  “I saw Miss Morley the other day.”

  “Was that a pleasure to you? I’d say it was not. A more sour-faced woman never lived. I’ve often wondered what she’d be like drunk—but that’s what no one will ever know.”

  Poirot said:

  “Did you agree with the verdict of the Coroner’s Court on your partner’s death?”

  “I did not,” said Reilly emphatically.

  “You don’t think he made a mistake in the injection?”

  Reilly said:

  “If Morley injected that Greek with the amount that they say he did, he was either drunk or else he meant to kill the man. And I’ve never seen Morley drink.”

  “So you think it was deliberate?”

  “I’d not like to be saying that. It’s a grave accusation to be making. Truly now, I don’t believe it.”

  “There must be some explanation.”

  “There must indeed—but I’ve not thought of it yet.”

  Poirot said:

  “When did you last actually see Mr. Morley alive?”

  “Let me see now. It’s a long time after to be asking me a thing like that. It would be the night before—about a quarter to seven.”

  “You didn’t see him on the actual day of the murder?”

  Reilly shook his head.

  “You are sure?” Poirot persisted.

  “Oh, I’d not say that. But I don’t remember—”

  “You did not, for instance, go up to his room about eleven thirty five when he had a patient there?”

  “You’re right now. I did. There was a technical question I had to ask him about some instruments I was ordering. They’d rung me up about it. But I was only there for a minute, so it slipped my memory. He had a patient there at the time.”

  Poirot nodded. He said:

  “There is another question I always meant to ask you. Your patient, Mr. Raikes, cancelled his appointment by walking out. What did you do during that half hour’s leisure?”

  “What I always do when I have any leisure. Mixed myself a drink. And as I’ve been telling you, I put through a telephone call and ran up to see Morley for a minute.”

  Poirot said:

  “And I also understand that you had no patient from half past twelve to one after Mr. Barnes left. When did he leave, by the way?”

  “Oh! Just after half past twelve.”

  “And what did you do then?”

  “The same as before. Mixed myself another drink!”

  “And went up to see Morley again?”

  Mr. Reilly smiled.

  “Are you meaning did I go up and shoot him? I’ve told you already, long ago, that I did not. But you’ve only my word for it.”

  Poirot said:

  “What did you think of the house-parlourmaid, Agnes?”

  Reilly stared:

  “Now that’s a funny question to be asking.”

  “But I should like to know.”

  “I’ll answer you. I didn’t think about her. Georgina kept a strict eye on the maids—and quite right too. The girl never looked my way once—which was bad taste on her part.”

  “I have a feeling,” said Hercule Poirot, “that that girl knows something.”

  He looked inquiringly at Mr. Reilly. The latter smiled and shook his head.

  “Don’t ask me,” he said. “I know nothing about it. I can’t help you at all.”

  He gathered up the tickets which were lying in front of him and went off with a nod and a smile.

  Poirot explained to a disillusioned clerk that he would not make up his mind about that cruise to the Northern Capitals after all.

  II

  Poirot paid another visit to Hampstead. Mrs. Adams was a little surprised, perhaps, to see him. Though he had been vouched for, so to speak, by a Chief Inspector of Scotland Yard, she nevertheless regarded him as a “quaint little foreigner” and had not taken his pretentions very seriously. She was, however, very willing to talk.

  After the first sensational announcement about the identity of the victim, the finding of the inquest had received very little publicity. It had been a case of mistaken identity—the body of Mrs. Chapman had been mistaken for that of Miss Sainsbury Seale. That was all that the public knew. The fact that Miss Sainsbury Seale had been probably the last person to see the unfortunate Mrs. Chapman alive was not stressed. There had been no hint in the Press that Miss Sainsbury Seale might possibly be wanted by the police on a criminal charge.

  Mrs. Adams had been very relieved when she knew that it was not her friend’s body which had been discovered so dramatically. She appeared to have no idea that any suspicion might attach to Mabelle Sainsbury Seale.

  “But it is so extraordinary that she has disappeared like this. I feel sure, M. Poirot, that it must be loss of memory.”

  Poirot said that it was very probable. He had known cases of the kind.

  “Yes—I remember a friend of one of my cousins. She’d had a lot of nursing and worry, and it brought it on. Amnesia, I think they called it.”

  Poirot said that he believed that that was the technical term.

  He paused and then asked if Mrs. Adams had ever heard Miss Sainsbury Seale speak of a Mrs. Albert Chapman?

  No, Mrs. Adams never remembered her friend mentioning anyone of that name. But then, of course, it wasn’t likely that Miss Sainsbury Seale should happen to mention everyone with whom she was acquainted. Who was this Mrs. Chapman? Had the police any idea who could have murdered her?

  “It is still a mystery, Madame.” Poirot shook his head and then asked if it was Mrs. Adams who had recommended Mr. Morley as a dentist to Miss Sainsbury Seale.

  Mrs. Adams replied in the negative. She herself went to a Mr. French in Harley Street, and if Mabelle had asked her about a dentist she would have sent her to him.

  Possibly, Poirot thought, it might have been this Mrs. Chapman who recommended Miss Sainsbury Seale to go to Mr. Morley.

  Mrs. Adams agreed that it might have been. Didn’t they know at the dentist’s?

  But Poirot had already asked Miss Nevill that question and Miss Nevill had not known or had not remembered. She recollected Mrs. Chapman, but did not think the latter had ever mentioned a Miss Sainsbury Seale—the name being an odd one, she would have remembered it had she heard it then.

  Poirot persevered with his questions.

  Mrs. Adams had known Miss Sainsbury Seale first in India, had she not? Mrs. Adams agreed.

  Did Mrs. Adams know if Miss Sainsbury Seale had met Mr. or Mrs. Alistair Blunt at any time out there?

  “Oh, I don’t think so, M. Poirot. You mean the big banker? They were out some years ago staying with the Viceroy, but I’m sure if Mabelle had met them at all, she would have talked about it or mentioned them.”

  “I’m afraid,” added Mrs. Adams, with a faint smile, “one does usually mention the important people. We’re all such snobs at heart.”

  “She never did mention the Blunts—Mrs. Blunt in particular?”

  “Never.”

  “If she had been a close friend of Mrs. Blunt’s probably you would have known?”

  “Oh yes. I don’t believe she knew anyone like that. Mabelle’s friends were all very ordinary people—like us.”

  “That, Madame, I cannot allow,” said Poirot gallantly.

  Mrs. Adams went on talking of Mabelle Sainsbury Seale as one talks of a friend who has
recently died. She recalled all Mabelle’s good works, her kindnesses, her indefatigable work for the mission, her zeal, her earnestness.

  Hercule Poirot listened. As Japp had said, Mabelle Sainsbury Seale was a real person. She had lived in Calcutta and taught elocution and worked amongst the native population. She had been respectable, well-meaning, a little fussy and stupid perhaps, but also what is termed a woman with a heart of gold.

  And Mrs. Adams’ voice ran on: “She was so much in earnest over everything, M. Poirot. And she found people so apathetic—so hard to rouse. It was very difficult to get subscriptions out of people—worse every year, with the income tax rising and the cost of living and everything. She said to me once: ‘When one knows what money can do—the wonderful good you can accomplish with it—well, really sometimes, Alice, I feel I would commit a crime to get it.’ That shows, doesn’t it, M. Poirot, how strongly she felt?”

  “She said that, did she?” said Poirot thoughtfully.

  He asked, casually, when Miss Sainsbury Seale had enunciated this particular statement, and learned that it had been about three months ago.

  He left the house and walked away lost in thought.

  He was considering the character of Mabelle Sainsbury Seale.

  A nice woman—an earnest and kindly woman—a respectable, decent type of woman. It was amongst that type of person that Mr. Barnes had suggested a potential criminal could be found.

  She had travelled back on the same boat from India as Mr. Amberiotis. There seemed reason to believe that she had lunched with him at the Savoy.

  She had accosted and claimed acquaintance with Alistair Blunt and laid claim to an intimacy with his wife.

  She had twice visited King Leopold Mansions where, later, a dead body had been found dressed in her clothes and with her handbag conveniently identifying it.

  A little too convenient, that!

  She had left the Glengowrie Court Hotel suddenly after an interview with the police.

  Could the theory that Hercule Poirot believed to be true account for and explain all those facts?

  He thought it could.

  III

  These meditations had occupied Hercule Poirot on his homeward way until reaching Regent’s Park. He decided to traverse a part of the Park before taking a taxi on. By experience, he knew to a nicety the moment when his smart patent leather shoes began to press painfully on his feet.

  It was a lovely summer’s day and Poirot looked indulgently on courting nursemaids and their swains, laughing and giggling while their chubby charges profited by nurse’s inattention.

  Dogs barked and romped.

  Little boys sailed boats.

  And under nearly every tree was a couple sitting close together….

  “Ah! Jeunesse, Jeunesse,” murmured Hercule Poirot, pleasurably affected by the sight.

  They were chic, these little London girls. They wore their tawdry clothes with an air.

  Their figures, however, he considered lamentably deficient. Where were the rich curves, the voluptuous lines that had formerly delighted the eye of an admirer?

  He, Hercule Poirot, remembered women … One woman, in particular—what a sumptuous creature—Bird of Paradise—a Venus …

  What woman was there amongst these pretty chits nowadays, who could hold a candle to Countess Vera Rossakoff? A genuine Russian aristocrat, an aristocrat to her fingertips! And also, he remembered, a most accomplished thief … One of those natural geniuses …

  With a sigh, Poirot wrenched his thoughts away from the flamboyant creature of his dreams.

  It was not only, he noted, the little nursemaids and their like who were being wooed under the trees of Regent’s Park.

  That was a Schiaparelli creation there, under that lime tree, with the young man who bent his head so close to hers, who was pleading so earnestly.

  One must not yield too soon! He hoped the girl understood that. The pleasure of the chase must be extended as long as possible….

  His beneficent eye still on them, he became suddenly aware of a familiarity in those two figures.

  So Jane Olivera had come to Regent’s Park to meet her young American revolutionary?

  His face grew suddenly sad and rather stern.

  After only a brief hesitation he crossed the grass to them. Sweeping off his hat with a flourish, he said:

  “Bonjour, Mademoiselle.”

  Jane Olivera, he thought, was not entirely displeased to see him.

  Howard Raikes, on the other hand, was a good deal annoyed at the interruption.

  He growled: “Oh, so it’s you again!”

  “Good afternoon, M. Poirot,” said Jane. “How unexpectedly you always pop up, don’t you?”

  “Kind of a Jack in the Box,” said Raikes, still eyeing Poirot with a considerable coldness.

  “I do not intrude?” Poirot asked anxiously.

  Jane Olivera said kindly:

  “Not at all.”

  Howard Raikes said nothing.

  “It is a pleasant spot you have found here,” said Poirot.

  “It was,” said Mr. Raikes.

  Jane said:

  “Be quiet, Howard. You need to learn manners!”

  Howard Raikes snorted and asked:

  “What’s the good of manners?”

  “You’ll find they kind of help you along,” said Jane. “I haven’t got any myself, but that doesn’t matter so much. To begin with I’m rich, and I’m moderately good-looking, and I’ve got a lot of influential friends—and none of those unfortunate disabilities they talk about so freely in the advertisements nowadays. I can get along all right without manners.”

  Raikes said:

  “I’m not in the mood for small talk, Jane. I guess I’ll take myself off.”

  He got up, nodded curtly to Poirot and strode away.

  Jane Olivera stared after him, her chin cupped in her palm.

  Poirot said with a sigh:

  “Alas, the proverb is true. When you are courting, two is company, is it not, three is none?”

  Jane said:

  “Courting? What a word!”

  “But yes, it is the right word, is it not? For a young man who pays attention to a young lady before asking her hand in marriage? They say, do they not, a courting couple?”

  “Your friends seem to say some very funny things.”

  Hercule Poirot chanted softly:

  “Thirteen, fourteen, maids are courting. See, all around us they are doing it.”

  Jane said sharply:

  “Yes—I’m just one of the crowd, I suppose….”

  She turned suddenly to Poirot.

  “I want to apologize to you. I made a mistake the other day. I thought you had wormed your way in and come down to Exsham just to spy on Howard. But afterwards Uncle Alistair told me that he had definitely asked you because he wanted you to clear up this business of that missing woman—Sainsbury Seale. That’s right, isn’t it?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “So I’m sorry for what I said to you that evening. But it did look like it, you know. I mean—as though you were just following Howard and spying on us both.”

  “Even if it were true, Mademoiselle—I was an excellent witness to the fact that Mr. Raikes bravely saved your uncle’s life by springing on his assailant and preventing him from firing another shot.”

  “You’ve got a funny way of saying things, M. Poirot. I never know whether you’re serious or not.”

  Poirot said gravely:

  “At the moment I am very serious, Miss Olivera.”

  Jane said with a slight break in her voice:

  “Why do you look at me like that? As though—as though you were sorry for me?”

  “Perhaps because I am sorry, Mademoiselle, for the things that I shall have to do so soon….”

  “Well, then—don’t do them!”

  “Alas, Mademoiselle, but I must….”

  She stared at him for a minute or two, then she said:

  “Have you—
found that woman?”

  Poirot said:

  “Let us say—that I know where she is.”

  “Is she dead?”

  “I have not said so.”

  “She’s alive, then?”

  “I have not said that either.”

  Jane looked at him with irritation. She exclaimed:

  “Well, she’s got to be one or the other, hasn’t she?”

  “Actually, it’s not quite so simple.”

  “I believe you just like making things difficult!”

  “It has been said of me,” admitted Hercule Poirot.

  Jane shivered. She said:

  “Isn’t it funny? It’s a lovely warm day—and yet I suddenly feel cold….”

  “Perhaps you had better walk on, Mademoiselle.”

  Jane rose to her feet. She stood a minute irresolute. She said abruptly:

  “Howard wants me to marry him. At once. Without letting anyone know. He says—he says it’s the only way I’ll ever do it—that I’m weak—” She broke off, then with one hand she gripped Poirot’s arm with surprising strength. “What shall I do about it, M. Poirot?”

  “Why ask me to advise you? There are those who are nearer!”

  “Mother? She’d scream the house down at the bare idea! Uncle Alistair? He’d be cautious and prosy. Plenty of time, my dear. Got to make quite sure, you know. Bit of an odd fish—this young man of yours. No sense in rushing things—”

  “Your friends?” suggested Poirot.

  “I haven’t got any friends. Only a silly crowd I drink and dance and talk inane catchwords with! Howard’s the only real person I’ve ever come up against.”

  “Still—why ask me, Miss Olivera?”

  Jane said:

  “Because you’ve got a queer look on your face—as though you were sorry about something—as though you knew something that—that—was—coming. …”

  She stopped.

  “Well?” she demanded. “What do you say?”

  Hercule Poirot slowly shook his head.

  IV

  When Poirot reached home, George said:

  “Chief Inspector Japp is here, sir.”

  Japp grinned in a rueful way as Poirot came into the room.

  “Here I am, old boy. Come round to say: ‘Aren’t you a marvel? How do you do it? What makes you think of these things?’”