SEVEN, EIGHT, LAY THEM STRAIGHT

ITime went on. It was over a month since Mr. Morley’s death, and there was still no news of MissSainsbury Seale.

Japp became increasingly wrathful on the subject.

“Dash it all, Poirot, the woman’s got to be somewhere.”

“Indubitably, mon cher.”

“Either she’d dead or alive. If she’s dead, where’s her body? Say, for instance, she committedsuicide—”

“Another suicide?”

“Don’t let’s get back to that. You still say Morley was murdered—I say it was suicide.”

“You haven’t traced the pistol?”

“No, it’s a foreign make.”

“That is suggestive, is it not?”

“Not in the way you mean. Morley had been abroad. He went on cruises, he and his sister.

Everybody in the British Isles¹ goes on cruises. He may have picked it up abroad. They like to feellife’s dangerous.”

He paused and said:

“Don’t sidetrack me. I was saying that if—only if, mind you—that blasted woman committedsuicide, if she’d drowned herself for instance, the body would have come ashore² by now. If shewas murdered, the same thing.”

“Not if a weight was attached to her body and it was put into the Thames.”

“From a cellar in Limehouse, I suppose! You’re talking like a thriller³ by a lady novelist.”

“I know—I know. I blush when I say these things!”

“And she was done to death by an international gang of crooks⁴, I suppose?”

Poirot sighed. He said:

“I have been told lately that there really are such things.”

“Who told you so?”

“Mr. Reginald Barnes of Castlegarden Road, Ealing.”

“Well, he might know,” said Japp dubiously⁵. “He dealt with aliens when he was at the HomeOffice.”

“And you do not agree?”

“It isn’t my branch—oh yes, there are such things—but they’re rather futile⁶ as a rule.”

There was a momentary⁷ silence as Poirot twirled his moustache.

Japp said:

“We’ve got one or two additional bits of information. She came home from India on the sameboat as Amberiotis. But she was second class and he was first, so I don’t suppose there’s anythingin that, although one of the waiters at the Savoy thinks she lunched there with him about a week orso before he died.”

“So there may have been a connection between them?”

“There may be—but I can’t feel it’s likely. I can’t see a Missionary⁸ lady being mixed up in anyfunny business.”

“Was Amberiotis mixed up in any ‘funny business,’ as you term it?”

“Yes, he was. He was in close touch with some of our Central European friends. Espionageracket.”

“You are sure of that?”

“Yes. Oh, he wasn’t doing any of the dirty work himself. We wouldn’t have been able to touchhim. Organizing and receiving reports—that was his lay.”

Japp paused and then went on:

“But that doesn’t help us with the Sainsbury Seale. She wouldn’t have been in on that racket.”

“She had lived in India, remember. There was a lot of unrest there last year.”

“Amberiotis and the excellent Miss Sainsbury Seale—I can’t feel that they were teammates.”

“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 usingher that way? It wouldn’t work. Blunt would get rid of her with a subscription⁹. He wouldn’t askher 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 withhis 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’sanother solution they’re very fond of in books! But take my word for it, these things are all my eyeand 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 lonelychicken farm, that’s what we want!”

A garden! Poirot’s mind flashed suddenly to that neat prim¹⁰ garden in Ealing with its formalbeds. 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 publishedin 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-aged¹¹ 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 havespent 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 perfectly¹² 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 adummy, so to speak—someone who just comes to a place and poses as a Miss Spinks—when allthe time there isn’t a Miss Spinks. But this woman’s genuine—she’s got a past, a background! Weknow all about her from her childhood upwards¹³! 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 beendeliberately got out of the way.”

Poirot said:

“All this involves an organization, some big concern quite out of proportion to the death of aquiet dentist in Queen Charlotte Street.”

“Don’t you believe everything Reginald Barnes tells you! He’s a funny old bird—got spies andcommunists 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, jotting¹⁴ down various unrelated facts and a series ofnames. A bird had flown past the window with a twig¹⁵ in its mouth.

He, too, had been collecting twigs¹⁶. Five, six, picking up sticks …He had the sticks—quite a number of them now. They were all there, neatly¹⁷ pigeonholed¹⁸ in hisorderly mind—but he had not as yet attempted to set them in order. That was the next step—laythem straight.

What was holding him up? He knew the answer. He was waiting for something.

Something inevitable¹⁹, foreordained, the next link in the chain. When it came—then—then hecould go on….

 

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