She might have had an old pair of shoes, yes.
She might have changed into them after a tiring day to go out in the evening, yes? But if so, the other pair would have been at the hotel. It was curious, you will admit?"
Blunt smiled a little.
He said: "I can't see that it is important."
"No, not important.
Not at all important.
But one does not like things that one cannot explain.
I stood by the fur chest and I looked at the shoe – the buckle had recently been sewn on by hand.
I will confess that I then had a moment of doubt – of myself.
Yes, I said to myself, Hercule Poirot, you were a little light-headed perhaps this morning.
You saw the world through rosy spectacles.
Even the old shoes looked like new ones to you!"
"Perhaps that was the explanation?"
"But, no, it was not.
My eyes do not deceive me!
To continue, I studied the dead body of this woman and I did not like what I saw.
Why had the face been wantonly, deliberately smashed and rendered unrecognizable?"
Alistair Blunt moved restlessly.
He said: "Must we go over that again? We know -"
Hercule Poirot said firmly: "It is necessary.
I have to take you over the steps that led me at last to the truth.
I said to myself:
'Something is wrong here.
Here is a dead woman in the clothes of Miss Sainsbury Seale (except, perhaps, the shoes?) and with the handbag of Miss Sainsbury Seale – but why is her face unrecognizable?
Is it, Perhaps, because the face is not the face of Miss Sainsbury Seale?'
And immediately I begin to put together what I have heard of the appearance of the other woman – the woman to whom the flat belongs, and I ask myself – might it not, perhaps be this other woman who lies dead here?
I go then and look at the other woman's bedroom. I try to picture to myself what sort of woman she is. In superficial appearance, very different to the other.
Smart, showily dressed, very much made up. But in essentials, not unlike.
Hair, build, age… But there is one difference.
Mrs. Albert Chapman took a five in shoes.
Miss Sainsbury Seale, I knew, took a size ten stocking – that is to say she would take at least a six in shoes.
Mrs. Chapman, then, had smaller feet than Miss Sainsbury Seale.
I went back to the body.
If my half-formed ideas were right, and the body was that of Mrs. Chapman wearing Miss Sainsbury Seale's clothes, then the shoes should be too big.
I took hold of one. But it was not loose. It fitted tightly.
That looked as though it were the body of Miss Sainsbury Seale after all!
But in that case, why was the face disfigured?
Her identity was already proved by the handbag, which could easily have been removed, but which had not been removed.
"It was a puzzle – a tangle.
In desperation I seized on Mrs. Chapman's address book – a dentist was the only person who could prove definitely who the dead woman was – or was not.
By a coincidence, Mrs. Chapman's dentist was Mr. Morley.
Morley was dead, but identification was still possible. You know the result.
The body was identified in the coroner's court by' Mr. Morley's successor as that of Mrs. Albert Chapman."
Blunt was fidgeting with some impatience, but Poirot took no notice.
He went on: "I was left now with a psychological problem.
What sort of a woman was Mabelle Sainsbury Seale?
There were two answers to that question.
The first was the obvious one borne out by her whole life in India and by the testimony of her personal friends.
That depicted her as an earnest, conscientious, slightly stupid woman.
Was there another Miss Sainsbury Seale?