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“That was my meaning, yes.”
Blunt said gently:
“But you are not happy about it, eh?”
“No, I am not at all happy.”
Alistair Blunt said:
“I’ve killed three people. So presumably I ought to be hanged. But you’ve heard my defence.”
“Which is—exactly?”
“That I believe, with all my heart and soul, that I am necessary to the continued peace and well-being of this country.”
Hercule Poirot allowed:
“That may be—yes.”
“You agree, don’t you?”
“I agree, yes. You stand for all the things that to my mind are important. For sanity and balance and stability and honest dealing.”
Alistair Blunt said quietly:
“Thanks.”
He added:
“Well, what about it?”
“You suggest that I—retire from the case?”
“Yes.”
“And your wife?”
“I’ve got a good deal of pull. Mistaken identity, that’s the line to take.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Then,” said Ali
stair Blunt simply, “I’m for it.”
He went on:
“It’s in your hands, Poirot. It’s up to you. But I tell you this—and it’s not just self-preservation—I’m needed in the world. And do you know why? Because I’m an honest man. And because I’ve got common sense—and no particular axe of my own to grind.”
Poirot nodded. Strangely enough, he believed all that.
He said:
“Yes, that is one side. You are the right man in the right place. You have sanity, judgement, balance. But there is the other side. Three human beings who are dead.”
“Yes, but think of them! Mabelle Sainsbury Seale—you said yourself—a woman with the brains of a hen! Amberiotis—a crook and a blackmailer!”
“And Morley?”
