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“I’ve told you before. I’m sorry about Morley. But after all—he was a decent fellow and a good dentist—but there are other dentists.”
“Yes,” said Poirot, “there are other dentists. And Frank Carter? You would have let him die, too, without regret?”
Blunt said:
“I don’t waste any pity on him. He’s no good. An utter rotter.”
Poirot said:
“But a human being….”
“Oh well, we’re all human beings….”
“Yes, we are all human beings. That is what you have not remembered. You have said that Mabelle Sainsbury Seale was a foolish human being and Amberiotis an evil one, and Frank Carter a wastrel—and Morley—Morley was only a dentist and there are other dentists. That is where you and I, M. Blunt, do not see alike. For to me the lives of those four people are just as important as your life.”
“You’re wrong.”
“No, I am not wrong. You are a man of great natural honesty and rectitude. You took one step aside—and outwardly it has not affected you. Publicly you have continued the same, upright, trustworthy, honest. But within you the love of power grew to over-whelming heights. So you sacrificed four human lives and thought them of no account.”
“Don’t you realize, Poirot, that the safety and happiness of the whole nation depends on me?”
“I am not concerned with nations, Monsieur. I am concerned with the lives of private individuals who have the right not to have their lives taken from them.”
He got up.
“So that’s your answer,” said Alistair Blunt.
Hercule Poirot said in a tired voice:
“Yes—that is my answer….”
He went to the door and opened it. Two men came in.
II
Hercule Poirot went down to where a girl was waiting.
Jane Olivera, her face white and strained, stood against the mantelpiece. Beside her was Howard Raikes.
She said:
“Well?”
Poirot said gently:
“It is all over.”
Raikes said harshly:
“What do you mean?”
Poirot said:
“Mr. Alistair Blunt has been arrested for murder.”
Raikes said:
“I thought he’d buy you off….”
