Apparently there was.
There was a woman who had lunched with a well-known foreign agent, who had accosted you in the street and claimed to be a close friend of your wife's (a statement that was almost certainly untrue), a woman who had left a man's house very shortly before a murder had been committed, a woman who had visited another woman on the evening when in all probability that other woman had been murdered, and who had since disappeared, although she must be aware that the police force of England was looking for her.
Were all these actions compatible with the character which her friends gave her?
It would seem that they were not.
Therefore, if Miss Sainsbury Seale were not the good, amiable creature she seemed, then it would appear that she was quite possibly a cold-blooded murderess, or almost certainly an accomplice after the fact.
"I had one more criterion – my own personal impression.
I had talked to Mabelle Sainsbury Seale myself.
How had she struck me?
And that, Mr. Blunt, was the most difficult question to answer of all.
Everything that she said, her way of talking, her manner, her gestures, all were perfectly in accord with her given character.
But they were equally in accord with a clever actress playing a part.
And, after all, Mabelle Sainsbury Seale had started life as an actress.
"I had been much impressed by a conversation I had had with Mr. Barnes of Ealing who had also been a patient at 58 Queen Charlotte Street on that particular day.
His theory, expressed very forcibly, was that the deaths of Morley and of Amberiotis were only incidental, so to speak – that the intended victim was you."
Alistair Blunt said: "Oh, come now – that's a bit farfetched."
"Is it, Mr. Blunt?
Is it not true that at this moment there are various groups of people to whom it is vital that you should be – removed, shall we say? Shall be no longer capable of exerting your influence?"
Blunt said: "Oh, yes, that's true enough. But why mix up this business of Morley's death with that?"
Poirot said: "Because there is a certain – how shall I put it? – lavishness about the case – expense is no object – human life is no object. Yes, there is a recklessness, a lavishness – that points to a big crime!"
"You don't think Morley shot himself because of a mistake?"
"I never thought so – not for a minute.
No, Morley was murdered, Amberiotis was murdered, an unrecognizable woman was murdered – Why?
For some big stake.
Barnes' theory was that somebody had tried to bribe Morley or his partner to put you out of the way."
Alistair Blunt said sharply: "Nonsense!"
"Ah, but is it nonsense?
Say one wishes to put someone out of the way.
Yes, but that someone is forewarned, forearmed, difficult of access.
To kill that person it is necessary to be able to approach him without awakening his suspicions – and where would a man be less suspicious than in a dentist's chair?"
"Well, that's true, I suppose.
I never thought of it like that."
"It is true.
And once I realized it I had my first vague glimmering of the truth."
"So you accepted Barnes' theory?
Who is Barnes, by the way?"
"Barnes was Reilly's twelve o'clock patient.
He is retired from the Home Office and lives at Ealing. An insignificant little man.
But you are wrong when you say I accepted his theory.
I did not.
I only accepted the principle of it."
"What do you mean?"
Hercule Poirot said: "All along, all the way through, I have been led astray – sometimes unwittingly, sometimes deliberately and for a purpose.
All along it was presented to me, forced upon me, that this was what you might call a public crime.
That is to say, that you, Mr. Blunt, were the focus of it all, in your public character.
You, the banker, you, the controller of finance, you, the upholder of conservative tradition!
"But every public character has a private life also. That was my mistake, I forgot the private life.
There existed private reasons for killing Morley – Frank Carter's, for instance.
"There could also exist private reasons for killing you… You had relations who would inherit money when you died.
You had people who loved and hated you – as a man – not as a public figure.
"And so I came to the supreme instance of what I call 'the forced card.'