“You did do that, but since it was necessary that you should know just what I was doing, you sent for me and urged me to find the missing woman for you. And you continued, steadily, to ‘force a card’ upon me. Your accomplice rang me up with a melodramatic warning—the same idea—espionage—the public aspect. She is a clever actress, this wife of yours, but to disguise one’s voice the natural tendency is to imitate another voice. Your wife imitated the intonation of Mrs. Olivera. That puzzled me, I may say, a good deal.
“Then I was taken down to Exsham—the final performance was staged. How easy to arrange a loaded pistol amongst laurels so that a man, clipping them, shall unwittingly cause it to go off. The pistol falls at his feet. Startled, he picks it up. What more do you want? He is caught red-handed—with a ridiculous story and with a pistol which is a twin to the one with which Morley was shot.
“And all a snare for the feet of Hercule Poirot.”
Alistair Blunt stirred a little in his chair. His face was grave and a little sad. He said:
“Don’t misunderstand me, M. Poirot. How much do you guess? And how much do you actually know?”
Poirot said:
“I have a certificate of the marriage—at a registry office near Oxford—of Martin Alistair Blunt and Gerda Grant. Frank Carter saw two men leave Morley’s surgery just after twenty-five past twelve. The first was a fat man—Amberiotis. The second was, of course, you. Frank Carter did not recognize you. He only saw you from above.”
“How fair of you to mention that!”
“He went into the surgery and found Morley’s body. The hands were cold and there was dried blood round the wound. That meant that Morley had been dead some time. Therefore the dentist who attended to Amberiotis could not have been Morley and must have been Morley’s murderer.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes. Helen Montressor was arrested this afternoon.”
Alistair Blunt gave one sharp movement. Then he sat very still. He said:
“That—rather tears it.”
Hercule Poirot said:
“Yes. The real Helen Montressor, your distant cousin, died in Canada seven years ago. You suppressed that fact, and took advantage of it.”
A smile came to Alistair Blunt’s lips. He spoke naturally and with a kind of boyish enjoyment.
“Gerda got a kick out of it all, you know. I’d like to make you understand. You’re such a clever fellow. I married her without letting my people know. She was acting in repertory at the time. My people were the straitlaced kind, and I was going into the firm. We agreed to keep it dark. She went on acting. Mabelle Sainsbury Seale was in the company too. She knew about us. Then she went abroad with a touring company. Gerda heard of her once or twice from India. Then she stopped writing. Mabelle got mixed up with some Hindu. She was always a stupid, credulous girl.
“I wish I could make you understand about my meeting with Rebecca and my marriage. Gerda understood. The only way I can put it is that it was like Royalty. I had the chance of marrying a Queen and playing the part of Prince Consort or even King. I looked on my marriage to Gerda as morganatic. I loved her. I didn’t want to get rid of her. And the whole thing worked splendidly. I liked Rebecca immensely. She was a woman with a first-class financial brain and mine was just as good. We were good at team work. It was supremely exciting. She was an excellent companion and I think I made her happy. I was genuinely sorry when she died. The queer thing was that Gerda and I grew to enjoy the secret thrill of our meetings. We had all sorts of ingenious devices. She was an actress by nature. She had a repertoire of seven or eight characters—Mrs. Albert Chapman was only one of them. She was an American widow in Paris. I met her there when I went over on business. And she used to go to Norway with painting things as an artist. I went there for the fishing. And then, later, I passed her off as my cousin. Helen Montressor. It was great fun for us both, and it kept romance alive, I suppose. We could have married officially after Rebecca died—but we didn’t want to. Gerda would have found it hard to live my official life and, of course, something from the past might have been raked up, but I think the real reason we went on more or less the same was that we enjoyed the secrecy of it. We should have found open domesticity dull.”
Blunt paused. He said, and his voice changed and hardened:
“And then that damned fool of a woman messed up everything. Recognizing me—after all those years! And she told Amberiotis. You see—you must see—that something had to be done! It wasn’t only myself—not only the selfish point of view. If I was ruined and disgraced—the country, my country was hit as well. For I’ve done something for England, M. Poirot. I’ve held it firm and kept it solvent. It’s free from Dictators—from Fascism and from Communism. I don’t really care for money as money. I do like power—I like to rule—but I don’t want to tyrannize. We are democratic in England—truly democratic. We can grumble and say what we think and laugh at our politicians. We’re free. I care for all that—it’s been my lifework. But if I went—well, you know what would probably happen. I’m needed, M. Poirot. And a damned double-crossing, blackmailing rogue of a Greek was going to destroy my life work. Something had to be done. Gerda saw it, too. We were sorry about the Sainsbury Seale woman—but it was no good. We’d got to silence her. She couldn’t be trusted to hold her tongue. Gerda went to see her, asked her to tea, told her to ask for Mrs. Chapman, said she was staying in Mr. Chapman’s flat. Mabelle Sainsbury Seale came, quite unsuspecting. She never knew anything—the medinal was in the tea—it’s quite painless. You just sleep and don’t wake up. The face business was done afterwards—rather sickening, but we felt it was necessary. Mrs. Chapman was to exit for good. I had given my ‘cousin’ Helen a cottage to live in. We decided that after a while we would get married. But first we had to get Amberiotis out of the way. It worked beautifully. He hadn’t a suspicion that I wasn’t a real dentist. I did my stuff with the hand pricks rather well. I didn’t risk the drill. Of course, after the injection he couldn’t feel what I was doing. Probably just as well!”
Poirot asked:
“The pistols?”
“Actually they belonged to a secretary I once had in America. He bought them abroad somewhere. When he left he forgot to take them.”
There was a pause. Then Alistair Blunt asked:
“Is there anything else you want to know?”
Hercule Poirot said:
“What about Morley?”
Alistair Blunt said simply:
“I was sorry about Morley.”
Hercule Poirot said:
“Yes, I see….”
There was a long pause, then Blunt said:
“Well, M. Poirot, what about it?”
Poirot said:
“Helen Montressor is arrested already.”
“And now it’s my turn?”
“That was my meaning, yes.”
Blunt said gently:
“But you are not happy about it, eh?”
“No, I am not at all happy.”
Alistair Blunt said:
“I’ve killed three people. So presumably I ought to be hanged. But you’ve heard my defence.”
“Which is—exactly?”
“That I believe, with all my heart and soul, that I am necessary to the continued peace and well-being of this country.”
Hercule Poirot allowed:
“That may be—yes.”
“You agree, don’t you?”
“I agree, yes. You stand for all the things that to my mind are important. For sanity and balance and stability and honest dealing.”
Alistair Blunt said quietly:
“Thanks.”
He added:
“Well, what about it?”
“You suggest that I—retire from the case?”
“Yes.”
“And your wife?”
“I’ve got a good deal of pull. Mistaken identity, that’s the line to take.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Then,” said Ali
stair Blunt simply, “I’m for it.”
He went on:
“It’s in your hands, Poirot. It’s up to you. But I tell you this—and it’s not just self-preservation—I’m needed in the world. And do you know why? Because I’m an honest man. And because I’ve got common sense—and no particular axe of my own to grind.”
Poirot nodded. Strangely enough, he believed all that.
He said:
“Yes, that is one side. You are the right man in the right place. You have sanity, judgement, balance. But there is the other side. Three human beings who are dead.”
“Yes, but think of them! Mabelle Sainsbury Seale—you said yourself—a woman with the brains of a hen! Amberiotis—a crook and a blackmailer!”
“And Morley?”
“I’ve told you before. I’m sorry about Morley. But after all—he was a decent fellow and a good dentist—but there are other dentists.”
“Yes,” said Poirot, “there are other dentists. And Frank Carter? You would have let him die, too, without regret?”
Blunt said:
“I don’t waste any pity on him. He’s no good. An utter rotter.”
Poirot said:
“But a human being….”
“Oh well, we’re all human beings….”
“Yes, we are all human beings. That is what you have not remembered. You have said that Mabelle Sainsbury Seale was a foolish human being and Amberiotis an evil one, and Frank Carter a wastrel—and Morley—Morley was only a dentist and there are other dentists. That is where you and I, M. Blunt, do not see alike. For to me the lives of those four people are just as important as your life.”
“You’re wrong.”
“No, I am not wrong. You are a man of great natural honesty and rectitude. You took one step aside—and outwardly it has not affected you. Publicly you have continued the same, upright, trustworthy, honest. But within you the love of power grew to over-whelming heights. So you sacrificed four human lives and thought them of no account.”
“Don’t you realize, Poirot, that the safety and happiness of the whole nation depends on me?”
“I am not concerned with nations, Monsieur. I am concerned with the lives of private individuals who have the right not to have their lives taken from them.”
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.”
About the Author
Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time and in any language, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. Her books have sold more than a billion copies in English and another billion in a hundred foreign languages. She is the author of eighty crime novels and short-story collections, nineteen plays, two memoirs, and six novels written under the name Mary Westmacott.
She first tried her hand at detective fiction while working in a hospital dispensary during World War I, creating the now legendary Hercule Poirot with her debut novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles. With The Murder in the Vicarage, published in 1930, she introduced another beloved sleuth, Miss Jane Marple. Additional series characters include the husband-and-wife crime-fighting team of Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, private investigator Parker Pyne, and Scotland Yard detectives Superintendent Battle and Inspector Japp.
Many of Christie’s novels and short stories were adapted into plays, films, and television series. The Mousetrap, her most famous play of all, opened in 1952 and is the longest-running play in history. Among her best-known film adaptations are Murder on the Orient Express (1974) and Death on the Nile (1978), with Albert Finney and Peter Ustinov playing Hercule Poirot, respectively. On the small screen Poirot has been most memorably portrayed by David Suchet, and Miss Marple by Joan Hickson and subsequently Geraldine McEwan and Julia McKenzie.
Christie was first married to Archibald Christie and then to archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan, whom she accompanied on expeditions to countries that would also serve as the settings for many of her novels. In 1971 she achieved one of Britain’s highest honors when she was made a Dame of the British Empire. She died in 1976 at the age of eighty-five. Her one hundred and twentieth anniversary was celebrated around the world in 2010.
www.AgathaChristie.com
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THE AGATHA CHRISTIE COLLECTION
The Man in the Brown Suit
The Secret of Chimneys
The Seven Dials Mystery
The Mysterious Mr. Quin
The Sittaford Mystery
Parker Pyne Investigates
Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?
Murder Is Easy
The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories
And Then There Were None
Towards Zero
Death Comes as the End
Sparkling Cyanide
The Witness for the Prosecution and
Other Stories
Crooked House
Three Blind Mice and Other Stories
They Came to Baghdad
Destination Unknown
Ordeal by Innocence
Double Sin and Other Stories
The Pale Horse
Star over Bethlehem: Poems and
Holiday Stories
Endless Night
Passenger to Frankfurt
The Golden Ball and Other Stories
The Mousetrap and Other Plays
The Harlequin Tea Set
The Hercule Poirot Mysteries
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
Peril at End House
Lord Edgware Dies
Murder on the Orient Express
Three Act Tragedy
Death in the Clouds
The A.B.C. 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 Labors of Hercules
Taken at the Flood
The Underdog and Other Stories
Mrs. McGinty’s Dead
After the Funeral
Hickory Dickory Dock
Dead Man’s Folly
Cat Among the Pigeons
The Clocks
Third Girl
Hallowe’en Party
Elephants Can Remember
Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case
The Miss Marple Mysteries
The Murder at the Vicarage
The Body in the Library
The Moving Finger
A Murder Is Announced
They Do It with Mirrors
A Pocket Full of Rye
4:50 from Paddington
The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side
A Caribbean Mystery
At Bertram’s Hotel
Nemesis
Sleeping Murder
Miss Marple: The Complete
Short Stories
The Tommy and Tuppence Mysteries
The Secret Adversary
Partners in Crime
N or M?
By the Pricking of My Thumbs
Postern of Fate
Memoirs
An Autobiography
Come, Tell Me How You Live
Credits
Cover design and illustration by Faith Laurel
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
This title was previously published as The Patriotic Murders and An Overdose of Death.
AGATHA CHRISTIE® POIROT® ONE, TWO, BUCKLE MY SHOE™. Copyright © 1940 Agatha Christie Limited (a Chorion company). All rights reserved.
ONE, TWO, BUCKLE MY SHOE © 1941. Published by permission of G.P. Putnam’s Sons, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN: 978-0-06-207377-8