“Did you know that Miss Sainsbury Seale was a close friend of the late Mrs. Alistair Blunt?”
“Who says so? I don’t believe it. Not in the same class.”
“She said so.”
“Who’d she say that to?”
“Mr. Alistair Blunt.”
“Oh! That sort of thing. He must be used to that lay. Do you mean that Amberiotis was using her that way? It wouldn’t work. Blunt would get rid of her with a subscription. He wouldn’t ask her down for a weekend or anything of that kind. He’s not so unsophisticated as that.”
This was so palpably true that Poirot could only agree. After a minute or two, Japp went on with his summing up of the Sainsbury Seale situation.
“I suppose her body might have been lowered into a tank of acid by a mad scientist—that’s another solution they’re very fond of in books! But take my word for it, these things are all my eye and Betty Martin. If the woman is dead, her body has just been quietly buried somewhere.”
“But where?”
“Exactly. She disappeared in London. Nobody’s got a garden there—not a proper one. A lonely chicken farm, that’s what we want!”
A garden! Poirot’s mind flashed suddenly to that neat prim garden in Ealing with its formal beds. How fantastic if a dead woman should be buried there! He told himself not to be absurd.
“And if she isn’t dead,” went on Japp, “where is she? Over a month now, description published in the Press, circulated all over England—”
“And nobody has seen her?”
“Oh yes, practically everybody has seen her! You’ve no idea how many middle-aged faded-looking women wearing olive green cardigan suits there are. She’s been seen on Yorkshire moors, and in Liverpool hotels, in guest houses in Devon and on the beach at Ramsgate! My men have spent their time patiently investigating all these reports—and one and all they’ve led nowhere, except to getting us in wrong with a number of perfectly respectable middle-aged ladies.”
Poirot clicked his tongue sympathetically.
“And yet,” went on Japp, “she’s a real person all right. I mean, sometimes you come across a dummy, so to speak—someone who just comes to a place and poses as a Miss Spinks—when all the time there isn’t a Miss Spinks. But this woman’s genuine—she’s got a past, a background! We know all about her from her childhood upwards! She’s led a perfectly normal, reasonable life—and suddenly, hey presto—vanish!”
“There must be a reason,” said Poirot.
“She didn’t shoot Morley, if that’s what you mean. Amberiotis saw him alive after she left—and we’ve checked up on her movements after she left Queen Charlotte Street that morning.”
Poirot said impatiently:
“I am not suggesting for a moment that she shot Morley. Of course she did not. But all the same—”
Japp said:
“If you are right about Morley, then it’s far more likely that he told her something which, although she doesn’t suspect it, gives a clue to his murderer. In that case, she might have been deliberately got out of the way.”
Poirot said:
“All this involves an organization, some big concern quite out of proportion to the death of a quiet dentist in Queen Charlotte Street.”
“Don’t you believe everything Reginald Barnes tells you! He’s a funny old bird—got spies and communists on the brain.”
Japp got up and Poirot said:
“Let me know if you have news.”
When Japp had gone out, Poirot sat frowning down at the table in front of him.
He had definitely the feeling of waiting for something. What was it?
He remembered how he had sat before, jotting down various unrelated facts and a series of names. A bird had flown past the window with a twig in its mouth.
He, too, had been collecting twigs. Five, six, picking up sticks …
He had the sticks—quite a number of them now. They were all there, neatly pigeonholed in his orderly mind—but he had not as yet attempted to set them in order. That was the next step—lay them straight.
What was holding him up? He knew the answer. He was waiting for something.
Something inevitable, foreordained, the next link in the chain. When it came—then—then he could go on….
II
It was late evening a week later when the summons came. Japp’s voice was brusque over the telephone.
“That you, Poirot? We’ve found her. You’d better come round. King Leopold Mansions. Battersea Park. Number 45.”
A quarter of an hour later a taxi deposited Poirot outside King Leopold Mansions.
It was a big block of mansion flats looking out over Battersea Park. Number 45 was on the second floor. Japp himself opened the door.
His face was set in grim lines.
“Come in,” he said. “It’s not particularly pleasant, but I expect you’ll want to see for yourself.”
Poirot said—but it was hardly a question:
“Dead?”
“What you might describe as very dead!”
Poirot cocked his head at a familiar sound coming from a door on his right.
“That’s the porter,” said Japp. “Being sick in the scullery sink! I had to get him up here to see if he could identify her.”
He led the way down the passage and Poirot followed him. His nose wrinkled.
“Not nice,” said Japp. “But what can you expect? She’s been dead well over a month.”
The room they went into was a small lumber and box room. In the middle of it was a big metal chest of the kind used for storing furs. The lid was open.
Poirot stepped forward and looked inside.
He saw the foot first, with the shabby shoe on it and the ornate buckle. His first sight of Miss Sainsbury Seale had been, he remembered, a shoe buckle.
His gaze travelled up, over the green wool coat and skirt till it reached the head.
He made an inarticulate noise.
“I know,” said Japp. “It’s pretty horrible.”
The face had been battered out of all recognizable shape. Add to that the natural process of decomposition, and it was no wonder that both men looked a shade pea green as they turned away.
“Oh well,” said Japp. “It’s all in a day’s work—our day’s work. No doubt about it, ours is a lousy job sometimes. There’s a spot of brandy in the other room. You’d better have some.”
The living room was smartly furnished in an up-to-date style—a good deal of chromium and some large square-looking easy chairs upholstered in a pale fawn geometric fabric.
Poirot found the decanter and helped himself to some brandy. As he finished drinking, he said:
“It was not pretty, that! Now tell me, my friend, all about it.”
Japp said:
“This flat belongs to a Mrs. Albert Chapman. Mrs. Chapman is, I gather, a well-upholstered smart blonde of forty-odd. Pays her bills, fond of an occasional game of bridge with her neighbours but keeps herself to herself more or less. No children. Mr. Chapman is a commercial traveller.
“Sainsbury Seale came here on the evening of our interview with her. About seven fifteen. So she probably came straight here from the Glengowrie Court. She’d been here once before, so the porter says. You see, all perfectly clear and aboveboard—nice friendly call. The porter took Miss Sainsbury Seale up in the lift to this flat. The last he saw of her was standing on the mat pressing the bell.”
Poirot commented:
“He has taken his time to remember this!”
“He’s had gastric trouble, it seems, been away in hospital while another man took on temporarily for him. It wasn’t until about a week ago that he happened to notice in an old paper the description of a ‘wanted woman’ and he said to his wife, ‘Sounds quite like that old cup of tea who came to see Mrs. Chapman on the second floor. She had on a green wool dress and buckles on her shoes.’ And after about another hour he registered again—‘Believe she had a name, too, something like that. Blimey, it was—Mi
ss Something or other Seale!’
“After that,” continued Japp, “it took him about four days to overcome his natural distrust of getting mixed up with the police and come along with his information.
“We didn’t really think it would lead to anything. You’ve no idea how many of these false alarms we’ve had. However, I sent Sergeant Beddoes along—he’s a bright young fellow. A bit too much of this high-class education but he can’t help that. It’s fashionable now.
“Well, Beddoes got a hunch at once that we were on to something at last. For one thing this Mrs. Chapman hadn’t been seen about for over a month. She’d gone away without leaving any address. That was a bit odd. In fact everything he could learn about Mr. and Mrs. Chapman seemed odd.
“He found out the porter hadn’t seen Miss Sainsbury Seale leave again. That in itself wasn’t unusual. She might easily have come down the stairs and gone out without his seeing her. But then the porter told him that Mrs. Chapman had gone away rather suddenly. There was just a big printed notice outside the door the next morning:
NO MILK. TELL NELLIE I AM CALLED AWAY.
“Nellie was the daily maid who did for her. Mrs. Chapman had gone away suddenly once or twice before, so the girl didn’t think it odd, but what was odd was the fact that she hadn’t rung for the porter to take her luggage down or get her a taxi.
“Anyway, Beddoes decided to get into the flat. We got a search warrant and a pass key from the manager. Found nothing of interest except in the bathroom. There had been some hasty clearing up done there. There was a trace of blood on the linoleum—in the corners where it had been missed when the floor was washed over. After that, it was just a question of finding the body. Mrs. Chapman couldn’t have left with any luggage with her or the porter would have known. Therefore the body must still be in the flat. We soon spotted that fur chest—airtight, you know—just the place. Keys were in the dressing table drawer.
“We opened it up—and there was the missing lady! Mistletoe Bough up-to-date.”
Poirot asked:
“What about Mrs. Chapman?”
“What indeed? Who is Sylvia (her name’s Sylvia, by the way), what is she? One thing is certain. Sylvia, or Sylvia’s friends, murdered the lady and put her in the box.”
Poirot nodded.
He asked:
“But why was her face battered in? It is not nice, that.”
“I’ll say it isn’t nice! As to why—well, one can only guess. Sheer vindictiveness, perhaps. Or it may have been with the idea of concealing the woman’s identity.”
“But it did not conceal her identity.”
“No, because not only had we got a pretty good description of what Mabelle Sainsbury Seale was wearing when she disappeared, but her handbag had been stuffed into the fur box too and inside the handbag there was actually an old letter addressed to her at her hotel in Russell Square.”
Poirot sat up. He said:
“But that—that does not make the common sense!”
“It certainly doesn’t. I suppose it was a slip.”
“Yes—perhaps—a slip. But—”
He got up.
“You have been over the flat?”
“Pretty well. There’s nothing illuminating.”
“I should like to see Mrs. Chapman’s bedroom.”
“Come along then.”
The bedroom showed no signs of a hasty departure. It was neat and tidy. The bed had not been slept in, but was turned down ready for the night. There was a thick coating of dust everywhere.
Japp said:
“No finger-prints, so far as we can see. There are some on the kitchen things, but I expect they’ll turn out to be the maid’s.”
“That means that the whole place was dusted very carefully after the murder?”
“Yes.”
Poirot’s eyes swept slowly round the room. Like the sitting room it was furnished in the modern style—and furnished, so he thought, by someone with a moderate income. The articles in it were expensive but not ultra expensive. They were showy but not first-class. The colour scheme was rose pink. He looked into the built-in wardrobe and handled the clothes—smart clothes but again not of first-class quality. His eyes fell to the shoes—they were largely of the sandal variety popular at the moment, some had exaggerated cork soles. He balanced one in his hand, registered the fact that Mrs. Chapman had taken a 5 in shoes and put it down again. In another cupboard he found a pile of furs, shoved in a heap.
Japp said:
“Came out of the fur chest.”
Poirot nodded.
He was handling a grey squirrel coat. He remarked appreciatively: “First-class skins.”
He went into the bathroom.
There was a lavish display of cosmetics. Poirot looked at them with interest. Powder, rouge, vanishing cream, skin food, two bottles of hair application.
Japp said:
“Not one of our natural platinum blondes, I gather.”
Poirot murmured:
“At forty, mon ami, the hair of most women has begun to go grey but Mrs. Chapman was not one to yield to nature.”
“She’s probably gone henna red by now for a change.”
“I wonder.”
Japp said:
“There’s something worrying you, Poirot. What is it?”
Poirot said:
“But yes, I am worried. I am very seriously worried. There is here, you see, for me an insoluble problem.”
Resolutely, he went once more into the box room….
He took hold of the shoe on the dead woman’s foot. It resisted and came off with difficulty.
He examined the buckle. It had been clumsily sewn on by hand.
Hercule Poirot sighed. He said:
“It is that I am dreaming!”
Japp said curiously:
“What are you trying to do—make the thing more difficult?”
“Exactly that.”
Japp said:
“One patent leather shoe, complete with buckle. What’s wrong with that?”
Hercule Poirot said:
“Nothing—absolutely nothing. But all the same—I do not understand.”
III
Mrs. Merton of No. 82, King Leopold Mansions had been designated by the porter as Mrs. Chapman’s closest friend in the Mansions.
It was, therefore, to No. 82 that Japp and Poirot betook themselves next.
Mrs. Merton was a loquacious lady, with snapping black eyes, and an elaborate coiffure.
It needed no pressure to make her talk. She was only too ready to rise to a dramatic situation.
“Sylvia Chapman—well, of course, I don’t know her really well—not intimately, so to speak. We had a few bridge evenings occasionally and we went to the pictures together, and of course shopping sometimes. But oh, do tell me—she isn’t dead, is she?”
Japp reassured her.
“Well, I’m sure I’m thankful to hear it! But the postman just now was all agog about a body having been found in one of the flats—but then one really can’t believe half one hears, can one? I never do.”
Japp asked a further question.
“No, I haven’t heard anything of Mrs. Chapman—not since we had spoken about going to see the new Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire the following week, and she said nothing about going away then.”
Mrs. Merton had never heard a Miss Sainsbury Seale mentioned. Mrs. Chapman had never spoken of anyone of that name.
“And yet, you know, the name is familiar to me, distinctly familiar. I seem to have seen it somewhere quite lately.”
Japp said drily:
“It’s been in all the papers for some weeks—”
“Of course—some missing person, wasn’t it? And you thought Mrs. Chapman might have known her? No, I’m sure I’ve never heard Sylvia mention that name.”
“Can you tell me anything about Mr. Chapman, Mrs. Merton?”
A rather curious expression came over Mrs. Merton’s face. She said:
“He
was a commercial traveller, I believe, so Mrs. Chapman told me. He travelled abroad for his firm—armaments, I believe. He went all over Europe.”
“Did you ever meet him?”
“No, never. He was at home so seldom, and when he was at home he and Mrs. Chapman didn’t want to bother with outsiders. Very naturally.”
“Do you know if Mrs. Chapman had any near relations or friends?”
“I don’t know about friends. I don’t think she had any near relations. She never spoke of any.”
“Was she ever in India?”
“Not that I know of.”
Mrs. Merton paused, and then broke out:
“But please tell me—why are you asking all these questions? I quite understand that you come from Scotland Yard and all that, but there must be some special reason?”
“Well, Mrs. Merton, you are bound to know some time. As a matter of fact, a dead body has been found in Mrs. Chapman’s flat.”
“Oh—?” Mrs. Merton looked for a moment like the dog whose eyes were as big as saucers.
“A dead body! It wasn’t Mr. Chapman, was it? Or perhaps some foreigner?”
Japp said:
“It wasn’t a man at all—it was a woman.”
“A woman.” Mrs. Merton seemed even more surprised.
Poirot said gently:
“Why should you think it was a man?”
“Oh, I don’t know. It seemed more likely somehow.”
“But why? Was it because Mrs. Chapman was in the habit of receiving gentleman visitors?”
“Oh no—oh no indeed.” Mrs. Merton was indignant. “I never meant anything of that kind. Sylvia Chapman wasn’t in the least that kind of woman—not at all! It was just that, with Mr. Chapman—I mean—”
She came to a stop.
Poirot said:
“I think, Madame, that you know a little more than you have told us.”
Mrs. Merton said uncertainly:
“I don’t know, I’m sure—what I ought to do! I mean, I don’t exactly want to betray a confidence and of course I never have repeated what Sylvia told me—except just to one or two intimates whom I knew were really safe—”
Mrs. Merton leaned forward and lowered her voice:
“It just—slipped out, as it were, one day. When we were seeing a film—about the Secret Service and Mrs. Chapman said you could see that whoever had written it didn’t know much about their subject, and then it came out—only she swore me to secrecy. Mr. Chapman was in the Secret Service, I mean. That was the real reason he had to go abroad so much. The armament firm was only a blind. And it was terribly worrying for Mrs. Chapman because she couldn’t write to him or get letters from him while he was away. And, of course, it was terribly dangerous!”
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