Agatha Christie - One, Two, Buckle My Shoe

A bird had flown past the window with a twig in its mouth.

He too, had been collecting twigs. Five, six, pick up sticks…

He had the sticks – quite a number of them now.

They were all there, neatly pigeonholed in his orderly mind – but he had not as yet attempted to set them in order. That was the next step – lay them straight.

What was holding him up? He knew the answer.

He was waiting for something.

Something inevitable, foreordained, the next link in the chain. When it came – then – then he could go on.

It was late evening a week later when the summons came.

Japp's voice was brusque over the telephone.

"That you, Poirot? We've found her. You'd better come round. King Leopold Mansions. Battersea Park. Number 45."

A quarter of an hour later a taxi deposited Poirot outside King Leopold Mansions.

It was a big block of mansion flats looking out over Battersea Park. Number 45 was on the second floor. Japp himself opened the door.

His face was set in grim lines.

"Come in," he said. "It's not particularly pleasant, but I expect you'll want to see for yourself."

Poirot said – but it was hardly a question:

"Dead?"

"What you might describe as very dead!"

Poirot cocked his head at a familiar sound coming from a door on his right.

"That's the porter," said Japp. "Being sick in the scullery sink! I had to get him up here to see if he could identify her."

He led the way down the passage and Poirot followed him. His nose wrinkled.

"Not nice," said Japp. "But what can you expect? She's been dead well over a month."

The room they went into was a small lumber and box room. In the middle of it was a big metal chest of the kind used for storing furs. The lid was open.

Poirot stepped forward and looked inside.

He saw the foot first, with the shabby shoe on it and the ornate buckle. His first sight of Miss Sainsbury Seale had been, he remembered, a shoe buckle.

His gaze travelled up, over the green wool coat and skirt till it reached the head.

He made an inarticulate noise.

"I know," said Japp. "It's pretty horrible."

The face had been battered out of all recognizable shape. Add to that the natural processes of decomposition, and it was no wonder that both men looked a shade pea green as they turned away.

"Oh, well," said Japp. "It's all in the day's work. Our day's work. No doubt about it, ours is a lousy job sometimes. There's a spot of brandy in the other room. You'd better have some."

The living room was smartly furnished in an up to date style – a good deal of chromium and some large, square looking easy chairs upholstered in a pale fawn geometric fabric.

Poirot found the decanter and helped himself to some brandy. As he finished drinking, he said:

"It was not pretty, that! Now tell me, my friend, all about it."

Japp said:

"This flat belongs to a Mrs. Albert Chapman. Mrs. Chapman is, I gather, a well-upholstered smart blonde of forty-odd. Pays her bills, fond of an occasional game of bridge with her neighbors but keeps to herself more or less. No children. Mr. Chapman is a commercial traveller.

"Sainsbury Seale came here on the evening of our interview with her. About 7:15. So she probably came straight here from the Glengowrie Court. She'd been here once before, so the porter says. You see, all perfectly clear and above-board – nice friendly call. The porter took Miss Sainsbury Seale up in the elevator to this flat. The last he saw of her she was standing on the mat pressing the bell."

Poirot commented:

"He has taken his time to remember this!"

"He's had gastric trouble, it seems, been away in hospital while another man took on temporarily for him. It wasn't until about a week ago that he happened to notice in an old paper the description of a 'wanted woman' and he said to his wife, 'Sounds quite like that old cup of tea who came to see Mrs. Chapman on the second floor. She had on a green wool dress and buckles on her shoes.' And after about another hour he registered again. 'Believe she had a name, too, something like that. Blimey, it was – Miss Something or other Seale.'

"After that," continued Japp, "it took him about four days to overcome his natural distrust of getting mixed up with the police and come along with his information.

"We didn't really think it would lead to anything. You've no idea of how many of these false alarms we've had. However, I sent Sergeant Beddoes along – he's a bright young fellow. A bit too much of this high class education but he can't help that. It's fashionable now.

"Well, Beddoes got a hunch at once that we were on to something at last. For one thing, this Mrs. Chapman hadn't been seen about for over a month. She'd gone away without leaving any address. That was a bit odd. In fact, everything he could learn about Mr. and Mrs. Chapman seemed odd.

"He found out the porter hadn't seen Miss Sainsbury Seale leave again. That in itself wasn't unusual. She might easily have come down the stairs and gone out without his seeing her. But then the porter told him that Mrs. Chapman had gone away rather suddenly. There was just a big printed notice outside the door the next morning: NO MILK – TELL NELLIE I AM CALLED AWAY.

'"Nellie was the daily maid who did for her. Mrs. Chapman had gone away suddenly once or twice before, so the girl didn't think it odd, but what was odd was the fact that she hadn't rung for the porter to take her luggage down or get her a taxi.

"Anyway, Beddoes decided to get into the flat. We got a search warrant and a pass key from the manager. Found nothing of interest except in the bathroom. There had been some hasty clearing up done there. There was a trace of blood on the linoleum – in the corners where it had been missed when the floor was washed over. After that, it was just a question of finding the body. Mrs. Chapman couldn't have left with any luggage with her or the porter would have known. Therefore the body must still be in the flat. We soon spotted that fur chest – air-tight, you know – just the place. Keys were in the dressing table drawer.

"We opened it up – and there was the missing lady! Mistletoe Bough up to date."

Poirot asked:

"What about Mrs. Chapman?"

"What indeed? 'Who is Sylvia' (her name's Sylvia, by the way), 'what is she?' One thing is certain. Sylvia, or Sylvia's friends, murdered the lady and put her in the box."

Poirot nodded.

He asked:

"But why was her face battered in? It is not nice, that."

"I'll say it isn't nice! As to why – well, one can only guess. Sheer vindictiveness, perhaps. Or it may have been with the idea of concealing the woman's identity."

Poirot frowned. He said, "But it did not conceal her identity."

"No, because not only had we got a pretty good description of what Mabelle Sainsbury Seale was wearing when she disappeared, but her handbag had been stuffed into the fur box, too, and inside the handbag there was actually an old letter addressed to her at her hotel in Russell Square."

Poirot sat up. He said:

"But that – that does not make the common sense!"

"It certainly doesn't. I suppose it was a slip."

"Yes – perhaps – a slip. But -"

He got up.

"You have been over the flat?"

"Pretty well. There's nothing illuminating."

"I should like to see Mrs. Chapman's bedroom."

"Come along then."

The bedroom showed no signs of a hasty departure. It was neat and tidy. The bed had not been slept in, but was turned down ready for the night. There was a thick coating of dust everywhere.

Japp said:

"No fingerprints, so far as we can see. There are some on the kitchen things, but I expect they'll turn out to be the maid's."

"That means that the whole place was dusted very carefully after the murder?"