33. One, Two Buckle My Shoe

Air date: 19/01/1992
Published: 1940

One, Two Buckle My Shoe, the last episode in the short fourth series, has never been one of my favourite Poirots - either in written form or in adaptation. I'm not exactly sure why: it might be the plot-line, or the characters - or a combination of both.

It concerns, principally, the death of a dentist. Two other deaths (which are obviously connected) follow.

The original opens by introducing several characters (including Poirot) who are preparing to go and see their dentist, Mr Morley. Morley is later found dead in his surgery, a pistol in his hand. Japp, interestingly (rather than Poirot), questions the obvious conclusion: suicide. However, when one of the dentist's patients, a Mr Amberiotis, dies later that day of an adrenaline and novocaine overdose Japp switches to the conclusion that Morley - realising he had inadvertently given a patient a lethal overdose, had commited suicide out of remorse. The inquest buys this.

Another patient, the mousy actress-turned missionary Miss Mabelle Sainsbury-Seale, then goes missing. A woman's body is found in a trunk in a flat, with the face beaten to the point of being unrecognisable. Dental records later appear to suggest that it is not the missing Miss Sainsbury-Seale, but a Mrs Chapman, whose flat she had been visiting.

Various other characters (mostly patients), drift in and out of the story, including the prominent banker and staunch defender of all things decent and traditional, Mr Alistair Blunt.

Poirot eventually deduces that Blunt is the culprit. While in India he had met and married Gerda, an actress friend of Miss Sainsbury-Seale. However, some years later he has bigamously married into a wealthy family (apparently with his first wife's approval). This rich woman had subsequently died of an illness.

When Miss Sainsbury-Seale turned up in the UK and wanted to catch up with Blunt's (first) wife, it obviously threatened his career. She had blabbed in her hotel about knowing Blunt and his wife to Mr Amberiotis, who, it seems, instantly realised she was talking about a different wife and had proceeded to try and blackmail Blunt. Blunt had killed Morley in order to kill Amberiotis (dressed as a dentist). And had also killed Sainsbury-Seale - who was, in fact, the body in the trunk (Blunt had swapped dental records). Confused? The plot is a bit like that. Oh, and apart from her initial appearance, Miss Sainsbury-Seale wasn't Miss Sainsbury-Seale: she was Gerda dressed up to impersonate her (presumably after Sainsbury-Seale had been bumped off and deposited in the trunk).

The adaptation opens with a lengthy prelude set years earlier (1925) in India, with Sainsbury-Seale and Gerda acting. Gerda and Blunt announce their engagement. Several characters are omitted (not surprisingly, given how convoluted the plot is), including Morley's partner Reilly, Mr Barnes, a retired home office man, and Howard Raikes, who is something of a revolutionary. Interestingly one character, Frank Carter, the rather dubious fiance of Morley's secretary, takes on some of Raikes' traits for the TV adaptation.

In the original Poirot's lengthy closing explanation is given to Blunt alone (police officers appear afterwards to arrest him). In the adaptation Poirot gathers most of the leading characters before summing up and unmasking the culprit.