Mabelle Sainsbury Seale met Amberiotis, went to lunch with him and babbled to him of this meeting with a friend's husband – 'after all these years!
Looked older, of course, but had hardly changed!'
That, I admit, is pure guesswork on my part but I believe it is what happened.
I do not think that Mabelle Sainsbury Seale realized for a moment that the Mr. Blunt her friend had married was the shadowy figure behind the finance of the world.
The name, after all, is not an uncommon one.
But Amberiotis, remember, in addition to his espionage activities, was a blackmailer. Blackmailers have an uncanny nose for a secret.
Amberiotis wondered.
Easy to find out just who the Mr. Blunt was.
And then, I have no doubt, he wrote to you… or telephoned.
Oh! yes – a gold mine for Amberiotis."
Poirot paused, then went on:
"There is only one effectual method of dealing with a really efficient and experienced blackmailer. Silence him.
"It was not a case, as I had had erroneously suggested to me, of
'Blunt must go.'
It was, on the contrary,
'Amberiotis must go.'
But the answer was the same!
The easiest way to get at a man is when he is off his guard, and when is a man more off his guard then in the dentist's chair?"
Poirot paused again. A faint smile came to his lips.
He said: "The truth about the case was mentioned very early.
The page boy, Alfred, was reading a crime story called Death at 11:45.
We should have taken that as an omen.
For, of course, that is just about the time when Morley was killed.
You shot him just as you were leaving.
Then you pressed his buzzer, turned on the taps of the wash basin and left the room.
You timed it so that you came down the stairs just as Alfred was taking the false Mabelle Sainsbury Seale to the elevator.
You actually opened the front door, perhaps you passed out, but as the elevator doors shut and the elevator went up you slipped inside again and went up the stairs.
"I know, from my own visits, just what Alfred did when he took up a patient.
He knocked on the door, opened it, and stood back to let the patient pass in.
Inside the water was running – inference, Morley was washing his hands as usual.
But Alfred couldn't actually see him.
"As soon as Alfred had gone down again in the elevator, you slipped along into the surgery.
Together you and your accomplice lifted the body and carried it into the adjoining office.
Then a quick hunt through the files and the charts of Mrs. Chapman and Miss Sainsbury Seale were cleverly falsified.
You put on a white linen coat, perhaps your wife applied a trace of make-up.
But nothing much was needed. It was Amberiotis' first visit to Morley. He had never met you. And your photograph seldom appears in the papers.
Besides, why should he have suspicions?
A blackmailer does not fear his dentist.
Miss Sainsbury Seale goes down and Alfred shows her out.
The buzzer goes and Amberiotis is taken up.
He finds the dentist washing his hands behind the door in approved fashion.
He is conducted to the chair.
He indicates the painful tooth. You talk the accustomed patter. You explain it will be best to freeze the gum.
The procaine and adrenaline are there. You inject a big enough dose to kill.
And incidentally he will not feel any lack of skill in your dentistry!
"Completely unsuspicious, Amberiotis leaves.
You bring out Morley's body and arrange it on the floor, dragging it slightly on the carpet now that you have to manage it single-handed.
You wipe the pistol and put it in his hand – wipe the door handle so that your prints shall not be the last.
The instruments you used have all been passed into the sterilizer.
You leave the room, go down the stairs and slip out of the front door at a suitable moment.