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