‘An admirable exposition,’ I said. ‘Unfortunately it didn’t happen in this case.’

‘But,mon cher, itdid. One little sentence of inestimable importance.’

‘What?’ I demanded. ‘Who said it? When?’

‘In due course,mon cher.’

‘You were saying, M. Poirot?’ The inspector politely drew Poirot back to the subject.

‘If you draw a circle round Number 19, anybody within itmight have killed Mr Curry. Mrs Hemming, the Blands, the McNaughtons, Miss Waterhouse. But more important still, there are those already positioned on the spot. Miss Pebmarsh who could have killed him before she went out at 1.35 or thereabouts and Miss Webb who could have arranged to meet him there, and killed him before rushing from the house and giving the alarm.’

‘Ah,’ said the inspector. ‘You’re coming down to brass tacks now.’

‘And of course,’ said Poirot, wheeling round, ‘you, my dear Colin. You were also on the spot. Looking for a high number where the low numbers were.’

‘Well, really,’ I said indignantly. ‘What will you say next?’ 

‘Me, I say anything!’ declared Poirot grandly.

‘And yetI am the person who comes and dumps the whole thing in your lap!’

‘Murderers are often conceited,’ Poirot pointed out. ‘And there too, it might have amused you-to have a joke like that at my expense.’

‘If you go on, you’ll convinceme,’ I said.

I was beginning to feel uncomfortable.

Poirot turned back to Inspector Hardcastle.

‘Here, I say to myself, must be essentially a simple crime. The presence of irrelevant clocks, the advancing of time by an hour, the arrangements made so deliberately for the discovery of the body, all these must be set aside for the moment. They are, as is said in your immortal “Alice” like “shoes and ships and sealing wax and cabbages and kings”. The vital point is that an ordinary elderly man is dead and that somebody wanted him dead. If we knew who the dead man was, it would give us a pointer to his killer. If he was a well-known blackmailer then we must look for a man who could be blackmailed. If he was a detective, then we look for a man who has a criminal secret; if he is a man of wealth, then we look among his heirs. But if we donot know who the man is-then we have the more difficult task of hunting amongst those in the surrounding circle for a man who has a reason to kill.

‘Setting aside Miss Pebmarsh and Sheila Webb, who is there who might not be what they seem to be? The answer was disappointing. With the exception of Mr Ramsay who I understood wasnot what he seemed to be?’ Here Poirot looked inquiringly at me and I nodded, ‘everybody’sbona fides were genuine. Bland was a well-known local builder, McNaughton had had a Chair at Cambridge, Mrs Hemming was the widow of a local auctioneer, the Waterhouses were respectable residents of long standing. So we come back to Mr Curry. Where did he comefrom? What brought him to 19, Wilbraham Crescent? And here one very valuable remark was spoken by one of the neighbours, Mrs Hemming. When told that the dead man did not live at Number 19, she said, “Oh! I see. He just came there to be killed. How odd.” She had the gift, often possessed by those who are too occupied with their own thoughts to pay attention to what others are saying, to come to the heart of the problem. She summed up the whole crime.Mr Curry came to 19, Wilbraham Crescent to be killed. It was as simple as that!’

‘That remark of hers struck me at the time,’ I said.

Poirot took no notice of me.

‘ “Dilly, dilly, dilly-come and be killed.” Mr Curry came-and he was killed. But that was not all. It was importantthat he should not be identified. He had no wallet, no papers, the tailor’s marks were removed from his clothes. But that would not be enough. The printed card of Curry, Insurance Agent, was only a temporary measure. If the man’s identity was to be concealedpermanently, he must be given a false identity. Sooner or later, I was sure, somebody would turn up, recognize him positively and that would be that. A brother, a sister, a wife. It was a wife. Mrs Rival-and the name alone might have aroused suspicion. There is a village in Somerset-I have stayed near there with friends-the village of Curry Rival-Subconsciously, without knowing why those two names suggested themselves, they were chosen. Mr Curry-Mrs Rival.

‘So far-the plan is obvious, but what puzzled me was why our murderer took for granted that there would be noreal identification. If the man had no family, there are at least landladies, servants, business associates. That led me to the next assumption-this man wasnot known to be missing. A further assumption was that he was not English, and was only visiting this country. That would tie in with the fact that the dental work done on his teeth did not correspond with any dental records here.

‘I began to have a shadowy picture both of the victim and of the murderer. No more than that. The crime was well planned and intelligently carried out-but now there came that one piece of sheer bad luck that no murderer can foresee.’

‘And what was that?’ asked Hardcastle. 

Unexpectedly, Poirot threw his head back, and recited dramatically:

‘For want of a nail the shoe was lost,

For want of a shoe the horse was lost,

For want of a horse the battle was lost,

For want of a battle the Kingdom was lost,

And all for the want of a horse shoe nail.’

He leaned forward.

‘A good many peoplecould have killed Mr Curry. Butonly one person could have killed, or could have had reason to kill, the girl Edna.’

We both stared at him.

‘Let us consider the Cavendish Secretarial Bureau. Eight girls work there. On the 9th of September, four of those girls were out on assignments some little distance away-that is, they were provided with lunch by the clients to whom they had gone. They were the four who normally took the first lunch period from 12.30 to 1.30. The remaining four, Sheila Webb, Edna Brent and two girls, Janet and Maureen, took the second period, 1.30 to 2.30. But on that day Edna Brent had an accident quite soon after leaving the office. She tore the heel off her shoe in the grating. She could not walk like that. She bought some buns and came back to the office.’ 

Poirot shook an emphatic finger at us.

‘We have been told that Edna Brent was worried about something. She tried to see Sheila Webb out of the office, but failed. It has been assumed that that something was connected with Sheila Webb, but there is no evidence of that. She might only have wanted to consult Sheila Webb about something that had puzzled her-but if so one thing was clear. She wanted to talk to Sheila Webbaway from the bureau.

‘Her words to the constable at the inquest are the only clue we have as to what was worrying her: She said something like: “I don’t see how what she said can have been true.” Three women had given evidence that morning. Edna could have been referring to Miss Pebmarsh. Or, as it has been generally assumed, she could have been referring to Sheila Webb. But there is a third possibility-she could have been referring to Miss Martindale.’

‘Miss Martindale? But her evidence only lasted a few minutes.’

‘Exactly. It consisted only of the telephone call she had received purporting to be from Miss Pebmarsh.’

‘Do you mean that Edna knew that itwasn’t from Miss Pebmarsh?’

‘I think it was simpler than that. I am suggesting that there wasno telephone call at all.’

He went on: 

‘The heel of Edna’s shoe came off. The grating was quite close to the office. She came back to the bureau. But Miss Martindale, in her private office, did not know that Edna had come back. As far as she knew there was nobody but herself in the bureau. All she need do was tosay a telephone call had come through at 1.49. Edna does not see the significance of what she knows at first. Sheila is called in to Miss Martindale and told to go out on an appointment. How and when that appointment was made is not mentioned to Edna. News of the murder comes through and little by little the story gets more definite. Miss Pebmarshrang up and asked for Sheila Webb to be sent. But Miss Pebmarsh says it was not she who rang up. The call is said to have come through at ten minutes to two.But Edna knows that couldn’t be true. No telephone call came through then. Miss Martindale must have made a mistake-But Miss Martindale definitely doesn’t make mistakes. The more Edna thinks about it, the more puzzling it is. She must ask Sheila about it. Sheila will know.