One, Two, Buckle My Shoe

‘I was wondering about something.’

‘What was it?’

Poirot said with a faint smile:

‘Why Chief Inspector Japp?’

‘Eh?’

‘I said, “Why Chief Inspector Japp?” An officer of your eminence—is he usually called in to a case of suicide?’

‘As a matter of fact, I happened to be nearby at the time. At Lavenham’s—in Wigmore Street. Rather an ingenious system of frauds they’ve had there. They telephoned me there to come on here.’

‘But why did they telephone you?’

‘Oh, that—that’s simple enough. Alistair Blunt. As soon as the Divisional Inspector heard he’d been here this morning, he got on to the Yard. Mr Blunt is the kind of person we take care of in this country.’

‘You mean that there are people who would like him—out of the way?’

‘You bet there are. The Reds, to begin with—and our Blackshirted friends, too. It’s Blunt and his group who are standing solid behind the present Government. Good sound Conservative finance. That’s why, if there were the least chance that there was any funny stuff intended against him this morning, they wanted a thorough investigation.’

Poirot nodded.

‘That is what I more or less guessed. And that is the feeling I have’—he waved his hands expressively—‘that there was, perhaps—a hitch of some kind. The proper victim was—should have been—Alistair Blunt. Or is this only a beginning—the beginning of a campaign of some kind? I smell—I smell—’ he sniffed the air, ‘—big money in this business!’

Japp said:

‘You’re assuming a lot, you know.’

‘I am suggesting that ce pauvre Morley was only a pawn in the game. Perhaps he knew something—perhaps he told Blunt something—or they feared he would tell Blunt something—’

He stopped as Gladys Nevill entered the room.

‘Mr Reilly is busy on an extraction case,’ she said. ‘He will be free in about ten minutes if that will be all right?’

Japp said that it would. In the meantime, he said, he would have another talk to the boy Alfred.

Alfred was divided between nervousness, enjoyment, and a morbid fear of being blamed for everything that had occurred! He had only been a fortnight in Mr Morley’s employment, and during that fortnight he had consistently and unvaryingly done everything wrong. Persistent blame had sapped his self-confidence.

‘He was a bit rattier than usual, perhaps,’ said Alfred in answer to a question, ‘nothing else as I can remember. I’d never have thought he was going to do himself in.’

Poirot interposed.

‘You must tell us,’ he said, ‘everything that you can remember about this morning. You are a very important witness, and your recollections may be of immense service to us.’

Alfred’s face was suffused by vivid crimson and his chest swelled. He had already given Japp a brief account of the morning’s happenings. He proposed now to spread himself. A comforting sense of importance oozed into him.

‘I can tell you orl right,’ he said. ‘Just you ask me.’

‘To begin with, did anything out of the way happen this morning?’

Alfred reflected a minute and then said rather sadly: ‘Can’t say as it did. It was orl just as usual.’

‘Did any strangers come to the house?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Not even among the patients?’

‘I didn’t know as you meant the patients. Nobody come what hadn’t got an appointment, if that’s what you mean. They were all down in the book.’

Japp nodded. Poirot asked:

‘Could anybody have walked in from outside?’

‘No, they couldn’t. They’d have to have a key, see?’

‘But it was quite easy to leave the house?’

‘Oh, yes, just turn the handle and go out and pull the door to after you. As I was saying most of ’em do. They often come down the stairs while I’m taking up the next party in the lift, see?’

‘I see. Now just tell us who came first this morning and so on. Describe them if you can’t remember their names.’

Alfred reflected a minute. Then he said: ‘Lady with a little girl, that was for Mr Reilly and a Mrs Soap or some such name for Mr Morley.’

Poirot said:

‘Quite right. Go on.’

‘Then another elderly lady—bit of a toff she was—come in a Daimler. As she went out a tall military gent come in, and just after him, you came,’ he nodded to Poirot.

‘Right.’

‘Then the American gent came—’

Japp said sharply:

‘American?’

‘Yes, sir. Young fellow. He was American all right—you could tell by his voice. Come early, he did. His appointment wasn’t till eleven-thirty—and what’s more he didn’t keep it—neither.’

Japp said sharply:

‘What’s that?’

‘Not him. Come in for him when Mr Reilly’s buzzer went at eleven-thirty—a bit later it was, as a matter of fact, might have been twenty to twelve—and he wasn’t there. Must have funked it and gone away.’ He added with a knowledgeable air, ‘They do sometimes.’

Poirot said: