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 – is unusual!"
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 damned nasty!
I can't help feeling that there's something behind 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 to me.
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, "why should 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 – 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?