One, Two, Buckle My Shoe
A review of One, Two, Buckle My Shoe by Agatha Christie – 250227
For me a visit to the dentist is one of my least pleasurable experiences, but we all need healthy teeth, even the world’s greatest sleuth and the country’s financial wizards. The problem with sitting in the dentist’s chair is that the patient is at their most vulnerable, at the mercy of their practitioner and a perfect opportunity for murder most foul. To get me in the mood for a forthcoming appointment with a man with a drill, I decided to read Christie’s One, Two, Buckle My Shoe, originally published in 1940 and the twenty-second in her Poirot series, which follows the sub-genre of dental murder mysteries, established by Brian Flynn with The Mystery of the Peacock’s Eye (1928) and Molly Thynne’s Death in the Dentist’s Chair (1932).
Teeth are as individual to humans as their fingerprints and DNA and dental records were often a means of identifying a badly disfigured corpse. As Mr Morley tells Poirot he might not remember a name but he never forgets a face, especially when they are close up and their mouth is agape.
As often in detective fiction knowledge is a dangerous thing and Poirot finds himself visiting Morley’s dental practice twice in one day, initially for a routine appointment which involves two fillings, and then at the behest of Inspector Japp of the Yard, when Morley’s body is found in the surgery. He looks to have shot himself and while Japp is prepared to accept the theory of suicide, Morley being full of remorse for accidentally giving another patient that morning, Mr Amberiotis, an overdose of anaesthetic from which he dies later that day, Poirot scents murder.
As well as Morley and Amberiotis, there is the disappearance of the exotically named actress Mabelle Sainsbury Seale, another of Morley’s patients that fateful morning. Her body is found a month later in a fur box in a flat belonging to the Chapman’s. The story’s title and each of the chapters’ headings are taken from a nursery rhyme and the buckle on La Seale’s shoe which attracts Poirot’s attention as she gets out of her car proves to be a significant clue in unfolding the mystery of what really went on in Morley’s surgery that day.
Given Blunt’s prominent position and his importance in maintaining the financial stability of the country, it is tempting to think that he was the intended victim, either the target of foreign agitators, perhaps represented by Amberiotis, or left-wing agitators in the form of Frank Carter, the boyfriend of Morley’s assistant, Gladys Nevill, who was on the premises around the time of Morley’s death, determined to have it out with the dentist for interfering in his love affair. Christie maintains this impression when Carter, who has found a position as a gardener on Blunt’s estate, is on the scene when a pot shot is taken at his employer.
The arrest of Carter is the turning point in the case, leading to information that he was in the building at the time of Morley’s death and saw something that proved conclusively who the murderer was. The running order of appointments that morning is important as is the presence of a back passage which allows patients (and murderers) to leave the scene unobserved.
Rather than a tale of international conspiracy and financial manipulation, this case boils down to one of good old-fashioned bigamy and blackmail and a rather desperate and highly convoluted plan to do away with a blackmailer for good. However far-fetched or ingenious a plan is, it is not one that the little grey cells of Poirot cannot see through.
Instead of the usual gathering of all the suspects and Poirot unfolding his theories, here he just confronts the culprit with the truth. While he is left with a dilemma, his fixation with the truth, hang the consequences, can only mean one outcome.
I found this a fair to middling Christie effort, entertaining enough and with the obligatory twists and turns and misdirections, but not a story that ranks amongst her best. And now I must face the dentist myself!
