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Mrs Bolitho was a tall, commanding female with a deep voice. Miss Sainsbury Seale was a woman of forty odd with indecisively bleached hair rolled up in untidy curls. Her clothes were shapeless and rather artistic, and her pince-nez were always dropping off. She was a great talker.
She said now wistfully:
‘But really, you know, it doesn’t ache at all.’
‘Nonsense, you told me you hardly slept a wink last night.’
‘No, I didn’t—no, indeed—but perhaps, now, the nerve has actually died.’
‘All the more reason to go to the dentist,’ said Mrs Bolitho firmly. ‘We all like to put it off, but that’s just cowardice. Better make up one’s mind and get it over!’
Something hovered on Miss Sainsbury Seale’s lips. Was it the rebellious murmur of: ‘Yes, but it’s not your tooth!’
All she actually said, however, was:
‘I expect you’re right. And Mr Morley is such a careful man and really never hurts one at all.’
The meeting of the Board of Directors was over. It had passed off smoothly. The report was good. There should have been no discordant note. Yet to the sensitive Mr Samuel Rotherstein there had been something, some nuance in the chairman’s manner.
There had been, once or twice, a shortness, an acerbity, in his tone—quite uncalled for by the proceedings.
Some secret worry, perhaps? But somehow Rotherstein could not connect a secret worry with Alistair Blunt. He was such an unemotional man. He was so very normal. So essentially British.
There was, of course, always liver … Mr Rotherstein’s liver gave him a bit of trouble from time to time. But he’d never known Alistair complain of his liver. Alistair’s health was as sound as his brain and his grasp of finance. It was not annoying heartiness—just quiet well-being.
And yet—there was something—once or twice the chairman’s hand had wandered to his face. He had sat supporting his chin. Not his normal attitude. And once or twice he had seemed actually—yes, distrait.
They came out of the board room and passed down the stairs.
Rotherstein said:
‘Can’t give you a lift, I suppose?’
Alistair Blunt smiled and shook his head.
‘My car’s waiting.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I’m not going back to the city.’ He paused. ‘As a matter of fact I’ve got an appointment with the dentist.’
The mystery was solved.
Hercule Poirot descended from his taxi, paid the man and rang the bell of 58, Queen Charlotte Street.
After a little delay it was opened by a boy in page-boy’s uniform with a freckled face, red hair, and an earnest manner.
Hercule Poirot said:
‘Mr Morley?’
There was in his heart a ridiculous hope that Mr Morley might have been called away, might be indisposed, might not be seeing patients today … All in vain. The page-boy drew back, Hercule Poirot stepped inside, and the door closed behind him with the quiet remorselessness of unalterable doom.
The boy said: ‘Name, please?’
Poirot gave it to him, a door on the right of the hall was thrown open and he stepped into the waiting-room.
It was a room furnished in quiet good taste and, to Hercule Poirot, indescribably gloomy. On the polished (reproduction) Sheraton table were carefully arranged papers and periodicals. The (reproduction) Hepplewhite sideboard held two Sheffield plated candlesticks and an épergne. The mantelpiece held a bronze clock and two bronze vases. The windows were shrouded by curtains of blue velvet. The chairs were upholstered in a Jacobean design of red birds and flowers.
In one of them sat a military-looking gentleman with a fierce moustache and a yellow complexion. He looked at Poirot with an air of one considering some noxious insect. It was not so much his gun he looked as though he wished he had with him, as his Flit spray. Poirot, eyeing him with distaste, said to himself, ‘In verity, there are some Englishmen who are altogether so unpleasing and ridiculous that they should have been put out of their misery at birth.’
The military gentleman, after a prolonged glare, snatched up The Times, turned his chair so as to avoid seeing Poirot, and settled down to read it.
Poirot picked up Punch.
He went through it meticulously, but failed to find any of the jokes funny.
The page-boy came in and said, ‘Colonel Arrow-Bumby?’—and the military gentleman was led away.
Poirot was speculating on the probabilities of there really being such a name, when the door opened to admit a young man of about thirty.
As the young man stood by the table, restlessly flicking over the covers of magazines, Poirot looked at him sideways. An unpleasant and dangerous looking young man, he thought, and not impossibly a murderer. At any rate he looked far more like a murderer than any of the murderers Hercule Poirot had arrested in the course of his career.
The page-boy opened the door and said to mid-air:
‘Mr Peerer.’
Rightly construing this as a summons to himself, Poirot rose. The boy led him to the back of the hall and round the corner to a small lift in which he took him up to the second floor. Here he led him along a passage, opened a door which led into a little anteroom, tapped at a second door; and without waiting for a reply opened it and stood back for Poirot to enter.
Poirot entered to a sound of running water and came round the back of the door to discover Mr Morley washing his hands with professional gusto at a basin on the wall.
There are certain humiliating moments in the lives of the greatest of men. It has been said that no man is a hero to his valet. To that may be added that few men are heroes to themselves at the moment of visiting their dentist.
Hercule Poirot was morbidly conscious of this fact.
He was a man who was accustomed to have a good opinion of himself. He was Hercule Poirot, superior in most ways to other men. But in this moment he was unable to feel superior in any way whatever. His morale was down to zero. He was just that ordinary, craven figure, a man afraid of the dentist’s chair.
Mr Morley had finished his professional ablutions. He was speaking now in his encouraging professional manner.
‘Hardly as warm as it should be, is it, for the time of year?’
Gently he led the way to the appointed spot—to The Chair! Deftly he played with its head rest, running it up and down.
Hercule Poirot took a deep breath, stepped up, sat down and relaxed his head to Mr Morley’s professional fiddlings.
‘There,’ said Mr Morley with hideous cheerfulness. ‘That quite comfortable? Sure?’
In sepulchral tones Poirot said that it was quite comfortable.
Mr Morley swung his little table nearer, picked up his little mirror, seized an instrument and prepared to get on with the job.
Hercule Poirot grasped the arms of the chair, shut his eyes and opened his mouth.
‘Any special trouble?’ Mr Morley inquired.
Slightly indistinctly, owing to the difficulty of forming consonants while keeping the mouth open, Hercule Poirot was understood to say that there was no special trouble. This was, indeed, the twice yearly overhaul that his sense of order and neatness demanded. It was, of course, possible that there might be nothing to do … Mr Morley might, perhaps, overlook that second tooth from the back from which those twinges had come … He might—but it was unlikely—for Mr Morley was a very good dentist.
Mr Morley passed slowly from tooth to tooth, tapping and probing, murmuring little comments as he did so.
‘That filling is wearing down a little—nothing serious, though. Gums are in pretty good condition, I’m glad to see.’ A pause at a suspect, a twist of the probe—no, on again, false alarm. He passed to the lower side. One, two—on to three?—No—‘The dog,’ Hercule Poirot thought in confused idiom, ‘has seen the rabbit!’
‘A little trouble here. Not been giving you any pain? Hm, I’m surprised.’ The probe went on.
Finally Mr Morley drew back, satisfied.
‘Nothing very serious. Just a couple of fillings—and a trace of decay on that upper molar. We can get it all done, I think, this morning.’
He turned on a switch and there was a hum. Mr Morley unhooked the drill and fitted a needle to it with loving care.
‘Guide me,’ he said briefly, and started the dread work.
It was not necessary for Poirot to avail himself of this permission, to raise a hand, to wince, or even to yell. At exactly the right moment, Mr Morley stopped the drill, gave the brief command ‘Rinse,’ applied a little dressing, selected a new needle and continued. The ordeal of the drill was terror rather than pain.
Presently, while Mr Morley was preparing the filling, conversation was resumed.
‘Have to do this myself this morning,’ he explained. ‘Miss Nevill has been called away. You remember Miss Nevill?’
Poirot untruthfully assented.
‘Called away to the country by the illness of a relative. Sort of thing that does happen on a busy day. I’m behind-hand already this morning. The patient before you was late. Very vexing when that happens. It throws the whole morning out. Then I have to fit in an extra patient because she is in pain. I always allow a quarter of an hour in the morning in case that happens. Still, it adds to the rush.’
Mr Morley peered into his little mortar as he ground. Then he resumed his discourse.
‘I’ll tell you something that I’ve always noticed, M. Poirot. The big people—the important people—they’re always on time—never keep you waiting. Royalty, for instance. Most punctilious. And these big City men are the same. Now this morning I’ve got a most important man coming—Alistair Blunt!’
Mr Morley spoke the name in a voice of triumph.
Poirot, prohibited from speech by several rolls of cotton wool and a glass tube that gurgled under his tongue, made an indeterminate noise.
Alistair Blunt! Those were the names that thrilled nowadays. Not Dukes, not Earls, not Prime Ministers. No, plain Mr Alistair Blunt. A man whose face was almost unknown to the general public—a man who only figured in an occasional quiet paragraph. Not a spectacular person.
Just a quiet nondescript Englishman who was the head of the greatest banking firm in England. A man of vast wealth. A man who said Yes and No to Governments. A man who lived a quiet, unobtrusive life and never appeared on a public platform or made speeches. Yet a man in whose hands lay supreme power.
Mr Morley’s voice still held a reverent tone as he stood over Poirot ramming the filling home.
‘Always comes to his appointments absolutely on time. Often sends his car away and walks back to his office. Nice, quiet, unassuming fellow. Fond of golf and keen on his garden. You’d never dream he could buy up half Europe! Just like you and me.’
A momentary resentment rose in Poirot at this offhand coupling of names. Mr Morley was a good dentist, yes, but there were other good dentists in London. There was only one Hercule Poirot.
‘Rinse, please,’ said Mr Morley.
‘It’s the answer, you know, to their Hitlers and Mussolinis and all the rest of them,’ went on Mr Morley, as he proceeded to tooth number two. ‘We don’t make a fuss over here. Look how democratic our King and Queen are. Of course, a Frenchman like you, accustomed to the Republican idea—’
‘I ah nah a Frahah—I ah—ah a Benyon.’
‘Tchut—tchut—’ said Mr Morley sadly. ‘We must have the cavity completely dry.’ He puffed hot air relentlessly on it.
Then he went on:
‘I didn’t realize you were a Belgian. Very interesting. Very fine man, King Leopold, so I’ve always heard. I’m a great believer in the tradition of Royalty myself. The training is good, you know. Look at the remarkable way they remember names and faces. All the result of training—though of course some people have a natural aptitude for that sort of thing. I, myself, for instance. I don’t remember names, but it’s remarkable the way I never forget a face. One of my patients the other day, for instance—I’ve seen that patient before. The name meant nothing to me—but I said to myself at once, “Now where have I met you before?” I’ve not remembered yet—but it will come back to me—I’m sure of it. Just another rinse, please.’
The rinse accomplished, Mr Morley peered critically into his patient’s mouth.
‘Well, I think that seems all right. Just close—very gently … Quite comfortable? You don’t feel the filling at all? Open again, please. No, that seems quite all right.’
The table swung back, the chair swung round.
Hercule Poirot descended, a free man.
‘Well, goodbye, M. Poirot. Not detected any criminals in my house, I hope?’
Poirot said with a smile:
‘Before I came up, every one looked to me like a criminal! Now, perhaps, it will be different!’
‘Ah, yes, a great deal of difference between before and after! All the same, we dentists aren’t such devils now as we used to be! Shall I ring for the lift for you?’
‘No, no, I will walk down.’
‘As you like—the lift is just by the stairs.’
Poirot went out. He heard the taps start to run as he closed the door behind him.
He walked down the two flights of stairs. As he came to the last bend, he saw the Anglo-Indian Colonel being shown out. Not at all a bad-looking man, Poirot reflected mellowly. Probably a fine shot who had killed many a tiger. A useful man—a regular outpost of Empire.
He went into the waiting-room to fetch his hat and stick which he had left there. The restless young man was still there, somewhat to Poirot’s surprise. Another patient, a man, was reading the Field.
Poirot studied the young man in his newborn spirit of kindliness. He still looked very fierce—and as though he wanted to do a murder—but not really a murderer, thought Poirot kindly. Doubtless, presently, this young man would come tripping down the stairs, his ordeal over, happy and smiling and wishing no ill to anyone.
The page-boy entered and said firmly and distinctly:
‘Mr Blunt.’
The man at the table laid down the Field and got up. A man of middle height, of middle age, neither fat nor thin. Well dressed, quiet.
He went out after the boy.
One of the richest and most powerful men in England—but he still had to go to the dentist just like anybody else, and no doubt felt just the same as anybody else about it!
These reflections passing through his mind, Hercule Poirot picked up his hat and stick and went to the door. He glanced back as he did so, and the startled thought went through his mind that that young man must have very bad toothache indeed.
In the hall Poirot paused before the mirror there to adjust his moustaches, slightly disarranged as the result of Mr Morley’s ministrations.
