vii
japp put down the telephone receiver. his face, as he turned to poirot, was rather grim.
he said:
“mr. amberiotis isn’t feeling very well—would rather not see any one this afternoon.
“he’s going to see me—and he’s not going to give me the slip either! i’ve got a man at the
savoy ready to trail him if he tries to make a getaway.”
poirot said thoughtfully:
“you think amberiotis shot morley?”
“i don’t know. but he was the last person to see morley alive. and he was a new patient.
according to his story, he left morley alive and well at twenty-five minutes past twelve. that may
be true or it may not. if morley was all right then we’ve got to reconstruct what happened next.
there was still five minutes to go before his next appointment. did someone come in and see him
during that five minutes? carter, say? or reilly? what happened? depend upon it, by half past
twelve, or five-and-twenty to one at the latest, morley was dead—otherwise he’d either have
sounded his buzzer or else sent down word to miss kirby that he couldn’t see her. no, either he
was killed, or else somebody told him something which upset the whole tenor of his mind, and he
took his own life.”
he paused.
“i’m going to have a word with every patient he saw this morning. there’s just the possibility
that he may have said something to one of them that will put us on the right track.”
he glanced at his watch.
“mr. alistair blunt said he could give me a few minutes at four fifteen. we’ll go to him first.
his house is on chelsea embankment. then we might take the sainsbury seale woman on our
way to amberiotis. i’d prefer to know all we can before tackling our greek friend. after that, i’d
like a word or two with the american who, according to you ‘looked like murder.’”
hercule poirot shook his head.
“not murder—toothache.”
“all the same, we’ll see this mr. raikes. his conduct was queer to say the least of it. and we’ll
check up on miss nevill’s telegram and on her aunt and on her young man. in fact, we’ll check up
on everything and everybody!”
