'Alive or dead?'

Alistair Blunt's eyebrows rose.

'You think it's possible that she is dead?'

Hercule Poirot was silent for a minute or two, then he said, speaking slowly and with weight: 'If you want my opinion-but it is only an opinion, remember-then, yes, I think she is dead...'

'Why do you think so?'

Hercule Poirot smiled slightly.

He said: 'It would not make sense to you if I said it was because of a pair of unworn stockings in a drawer.'

Alistair Blunt stared at him curiously.

'You're an odd man, M. Poirot.'

'I am very odd. That is to say, I am methodical, orderly and logical-and I do not like distorting facts to support a theory-that, I find-isunusual!'

Alistair Blunt said: 'I've been turning the whole thing over in my mind-it takes me a little time always to think a thing out. And the whole business is deuced odd! I mean-that dentist chap shooting himself, and then this Chapman woman packed away in her own fur chest with her face smashed in. It's nasty! It's d.a.m.ned nasty! I can't help feeling that there's somethingbehind it all.'

Poirot nodded.

Blunt said: 'And you know-the more I think of it-I'm quite sure that woman never knew my wife. It was just a pretext to speak tome . But why? What good did it do her? I mean-bar a small subscription-and even that was made out to the society, not to her personally. And yet I do feel-that-that it was engineered-just meeting me on the steps of the house. It was all so pat. So suspiciously well-timed! But why ? That's what I keep asking myself-why?'

'It is indeed the word-why? I too ask myself-and I cannot see it-no, I cannot see it.'

'You've no ideas at all on the subject?'

Poirot waved an exasperated hand.

'My ideas are childish in the extreme. I tell myself, it was perhaps a ruse to indicate you to someone-to point you out. But that again is absurd-you are quite a well-known man-and anyway how much more simple to say "See, that is he-the man who entered now by that door."'

'And anyway,' said Blunt, 'whyshould anyone want to point me out?'

'Mr Blunt, think back once more on your time that morning in the dentist's chair. Did nothing that Morley said strike an unusual note? Is there nothing at all that you can remember which might help as a clue?'

Alistair Blunt frowned in an effort of memory. Then he shook his head.

'I'm sorry. I can't think of anything.'

'You're quite sure he didn't mention this woman-this Miss Sainsbury Seale?'

'No.'

'Or the other woman-Mrs Chapman?'

'No-no-we didn't speak of people at all. We mentioned roses, gardens needing rain, holidays-nothing else.'

'And no one came into the room while you were there?'

'Let me see-no, I don't think so. On other occasions I seem to remember a young woman being there-fair-haired girl. But she wasn't there this time. Oh, another dentist fellow came in, I remember-the fellow with an Irish accent.'

'What did he say or do?'

'Just asked Morley some question and went out again. Morley was a bit short with him, I fancy. He was only there a minute or so.'

'And there is nothing else you can remember? Nothing at all?'

'No. He was absolutely normal.'

Hercule Poirot said thoughtfully: 'I, too, found him absolutely normal.'

There was a long pause. Then Poirot said: 'Do you happen to remember, Monsieur, a young man who was in the waiting-room downstairs with you that morning?'

Alistair Blunt frowned.

'Let me see-yes, there was a young man-rather restless he was. I don't remember him particularly, though. Why?'

'Would you know him again if you saw him?'

Blunt shook his head.

'I hardly glanced at him.'

'He didn't try to enter into conversation with you at all?'

'No.'

Blunt looked with frank curiosity at the other.

'What's the point? Who is this young man?'

'His name is Howard Raikes.'

Poirot watched keenly for any reaction, but he saw none.

'Ought I to know his name? Have I met him elsewhere?'

'I do not think you have met him. He is a friend of your niece, Miss Olivera's.'

'Oh, one of Jane's friends.'

'Her mother, I gather, does not approve of the friendship.'

Alistair Blunt said absently: 'I don't suppose that will cut any ice with Jane.'

'So seriously does her mother regard the friendship that I gather she brought her daughter over from the States on purpose to get her away from this young man.'

'Oh!' Blunt's face registered comprehension. 'It'sthat fellow, is it?'

'Aha, you become more interested now.'

'He's a most undesirable young fellow in every way, I believe. Mixed up in a lot of subversive activities.'

'I understand from Miss Olivera that he made an appointment that morning in Queen Charlotte Street, solely in order to get a look at you.'

'To try and get me to approve of him?'

'Well-no-I understand the idea was thathe should be induced to approve ofyou .'

'Well, of all the d.a.m.ned cheek!'

Poirot concealed a smile.

'It appears you are everything that he most disapproves of.'

'He's certainly the kind of young manI disapprove of! Spends his time tub-thumping and talking hot air, instead of doing a decent job of work!'

Poirot was silent for a minute, then he said: 'Will you forgive me if I ask you an impertinent and very personal question?'

'Fire ahead.'

'In the event of your death, what are your testamentary dispositions?'

Blunt stared. He said sharply: 'Why do you want to know that?'

'Because, it is just possible,' he shrugged his shoulders-'that it might be relevant to this case.'

'Nonsense!'

'Perhaps. But perhaps not.'

Alistair Blunt said coldly: 'I think you are being unduly melodramatic, M. Poirot. n.o.body has been trying to murderme -or anything like that!'

'A bomb on your breakfast table-a shot in the street-'

'Oh those! Any man who deals in the world's finance in a big way is liable to that kind of attention from some crazy fanatic!'

'It might possibly be a case of someone who is not a fanatic and not crazy.'

Blunt stared.

'What are you driving at?'

'In plain language, I want to know who benefits by your death.'

Blunt grinned.

'Chiefly the St Edward's Hospital, the Cancer Hospital, and the Royal Inst.i.tute for the Blind.'

'Ah!'

'In addition, I have left a sum of money to my niece by marriage, Mrs Julia Olivera; an equivalent sum, but in trust, to her daughter, Jane Olivera, and also a substantial provision for my only surviving relative, a second cousin, Helen Montressor, who was left very badly off and who occupies a small cottage on the estate here.'

He paused and then said: 'This, M. Poirot, is strictly in confidence.'

'Naturally, Monsieur, naturally.'

Alistair Blunt added sarcastically: 'I suppose you do not suggest, M. Poirot, that either Julia or Jane Olivera or my cousin Helen Montressor, are planning to murder me for my money?'

'I suggest nothing-nothing at all.'

Blunt's slight irritation subsided. He said: 'And you'll take on that other commission for me?'

'The finding of Miss Sainsbury Seale? Yes, I will.'

Alistair Blunt said heartily: 'Good man.'

VII.

In leaving the room Poirot almost cannoned into a tall figure outside the door. He said: 'I beg your pardon, Mademoiselle.'

Jane Olivera drew apart a little.

She said. 'Do you know what I think of you, M. Poirot?'

'Eh bien-Mademoiselle-'

She did not give time to finish. The question, indeed, had but a rhetorical value. All that it meant was that Jane Olivera was about to answer it herself.

'You're a spy, that's what you are! A miserable, low, snooping spy, nosing round and making trouble!'

'I a.s.sure you, Mademoiselle-'

'I know just what you're after! And I know now just what lies you tell! Why don't you admit it straight out? Well, I'll tell you this-you won't find outanything-anything at all! There's nothing to find out! No one's going to harm a hair on my precious uncle's head.He's safe enough. He'll always be safe. Safe and smug and prosperous-and full of plat.i.tudes! He's just a stodgy John Bull, that's what he is-without an ounce of imagination or vision.'

She paused, then, her agreeable, husky voice deepening, she said venomously: 'I loathe the sight of you-you b.l.o.o.d.y littlebourgeois detective!'

She swept away from him in a whirl of expensive model drapery.

Hercule Poirot remained, his eyes very wide open, his eyebrows raised and his hand thoughtfully caressing his moustaches.

The epithetbourgeois was, he admitted, well applied to him. His outlook on life was essentiallybourgeois , and always had been, but the employment of it as an epithet of contempt by the exquisitely turned out Jane Olivera gave him, as he expressed it to himself, furiously to think. He went, still thinking, into the drawing room.

Mrs Olivera was playing patience.

She looked up as Poirot entered, surveyed him with the cold look she might have bestowed upon a black beetle and murmured distantly: 'Red knave on black queen.'