Agatha Christie - One, Two, Buckle My Shoe

"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."

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 needs 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 further, 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 so interested. I knew, you see, that I'd never had a wife."

He hurried away, chuckling.

Poirot stood stock still. Then his eye opened, his eyebrows rose.

He said to himself:

"Nineteen, twenty, my plate's empty -"

And went home.