One, Two, Buckle My Shoe (novel)
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| Author | Agatha Christie |
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| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Series | Hercule Poirot |
| Genre(s) | Crime novel |
| Publisher | HarperCollins |
| Released | 1940 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
| ISBN | NA |
| Preceded by | Sad Cypress |
| Followed by | Evil Under the Sun |
One, Two, Buckle My Shoe (1940) is a novel by Agatha Christie. It is one of several of Christie's crime fiction novels to feature both the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, and Chief Inspector Japp. It was also published as An Overdose Of Death and The Patriotic Murders.
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[edit] Plot introduction
When Hercule Poirot’s own dentist, Henry Morley, is found dead from a gun shot wound, the official verdict is that he has killed himself, especially when it appears that he has given one of his patients a fatal overdose of anaesthetic. Poirot suspects, however, that there is more to the case than there first appears, and soon events confirm his worst suspicions …
[edit] Plot summary
Leaving the dentist’s practice after an appointment, Poirot happens to notice the arrival of Mabelle Sainsbury Seale and returns to her the shiny buckle that has fallen from her shoe. Later, he hears from Japp that Morley has died of a gun shot. Between Poirot’s appointment and Morley’s death there were only three patients: Alistair Blunt, Mabelle, and a Greek: Amberiotis. The presence of a man thought essential to the country’s survival (the banker, Blunt) ensures Japp’s involvement in the case, but when Amberiotis turns up dead from an overdose of anaesthetic, it is thought that the dentist has killed himself after realising the accident for which he had been responsible.
Movements at the dental surgery are inconclusive. Morley’s partner, Reilly, is a rogue but seems to have no motive. Morley’s secretary had been called away by a fake telegram. Her boyfriend, Frank Carter, had a weak motive given that Morley had attempted to dissuade her from seeing him. Also present at the surgery was Howard Raikes, a prickly left-winger violently opposed to Blunt but enamoured of his niece. There is too little evidence for Poirot to construct an alternative hypothesis, but he senses that the story is not complete.
When Mabelle goes missing, his fears are realised. A search for her is conducted, and some time later her body is apparently found in a sealed chest in the apartment of Mrs. Albert Chapman, who has herself disappeared. The corpse’s face has been smashed in, and Poirot notices its dull buckled shoes. He is skeptical of the theory that Mrs. Chapman has killed Mabelle and fled. Sure enough, once the dental records are produced by Morley’s successor at the surgery, it is discovered that the corpse is Mrs. Chapman’s. The manhunt for Mabelle continues.
Poirot is now drawn into the life of the Blunt family. An attempt is made on Alistair’s life at which Raikes is a bystander. Poirot is invited down to Alistair’s house, where he is persuaded to undertake a search for Mabelle. While he is there, a second attempt is made on Alistair’s life, but it is seemingly thwarted by Raikes and the pistol is found in the hand of none other than Frank Carter, who has taken a job as gardener at the house under a false identity. When a maid at the surgery admits to having seen Carter on the stairs going up to Morley’s office, it seems that Carter is likely to be tried and convicted of both the murder and the attempted murder. The fact that the gun with which he was captured was the twin of the murder weapon only makes things worse for him.
In the climax of the novel – one of the darkest in the Poirot series – Poirot realises that by allowing Carter to persist in his lies he can ensure that the real killer goes free, and wrestles with his conscience. Eventually he presses Carter to admit the truth: that when he entered Morley’s office the dentist was already dead. It is the final element in the puzzle.
Poirot visits Alistair Blunt and explains the murders. The real Mabelle Sainsbury Seale had known him and his first wife, Gerda, whom he had never divorced, in India. Running into him in the street, she had recognised and spoken to him in front of his niece, but had not realised whom he had become. By chance she had mentioned this chance encounter to the blackmailer, Amberiotis, who made the connection between the name Blunt and the wealthy banker. He began to blackmail Alistair, leaving two obstacles to be removed.
Gerda, posing under several aliases including that of Mrs. Albert Chapman, invited Mabelle to visit her, killed her, and took her identity, but had to buy new shoes because Mabelle’s did not fit her. This is why the corpse’s buckles were dull, while the buckle of the woman who Poirot met going into the surgery were shiny: the fake Mabelle had newer shoes than the real one, who was by that time decomposing in the chest. The woman in the trunk could hardly have worn through a new pair of shoes in a single day. Ironically, the face of the corpse had been disfigured not because it wasn’t Mabelle, but because it was.
Alistair went to his appointment, shot Morley and stashed his body in the side office with his wife’s help. Having appeared to leave the surgery, he returned and changed the dental records of Mrs. Albert Chapman and Mabelle in order to ensure that the corpse would be identified as Mrs. Chapman: a woman who did not in reality exist. At the end of Mabelle’s appointment, Gerda left, while Alistair dressed as a dentist in order to administer the overdose to his next patient, Amberiotis. It was a neat crime, but Poirot’s involvement had forced Alistair to compound the lies with talk of assassins and spies as the detective had relentlessly tracked the truth.
At the novel’s bleak conclusion, Poirot is forced to admit that Alistair does indeed stand in public life “for all the things that to my mind are important. For sanity and balance and stability and honest dealing”. Nevertheless, he adds: “I am not concerned with the fate of nations, Monsieur. I am concerned with the lives of private individuals who have the right not to have their lives taken from them.”
[edit] Characters in “One, Two, Buckle My Shoe”
- Hercule Poirot, the Belgian detective
- George, his valet
- Chief Inspector Japp, the investigating officer
- Henry Morley, a dentist
- Georgina Morley, his sister
- Reilly, a dentist
- Gladys Nevill, Morley’s secretary
- Alfred, the receptionist
- Martin Alistair Blunt, a dental patient and banker
- Julia Olivera, Alistair’s niece
- Jane Olivera, Alistair’s sister
- Amberiotis, a dental patient who died of an overdose
- Mr. Barnes, a dental patient and former member of the Home Office
- Mabelle Sainsbury Seale, a dental patient
- Howard Raikes, a dental patient
- Frank Carter, Gladys’s boyfriend
[edit] Major themes
This is the first of the Poirot novels to reflect the pervasive gloom of the Second World War, and is also one of Christie’s most overtly political novels. Frank Carter is a British fascist and a representative of one set of political forces threatening Britain. Howard Raikes (although his direct politics are never stated) represents the competing force of communism. Alistair Blunt’s credentials as a champion of conservative reaction are never doubted. Nevertheless, given the choice between setting free a murderer and expediently allowing an unpleasant but innocent man go to the gallows, Poirot (with marked reluctance) saves Carter. The fact that throughout the novel Poirot has striven for the truth on behalf, principally, of an insignificant victim, a dentist, shows Christie’s sensitivity to the lives of ordinary people in time of war.
[edit] Trivia
The book's title is derived from a well-known children's nursery rhyme, and the chapters each correspond to a line from the nursery rhyme. Other Agatha Christie books also share this naming convention, such as Hickory Dickory Dock. In the adaptation to television, two girls are seen reciting the rhyme several times while playing outside the dentist's office.
In Part 7, iii, of the novel, Poirot recollects the jewel thief, Countess Vera Rossakoff. Rossakoff, the nearest that Poirot comes to a love interest, appeared as character in Chapter six of The Big Four (1927).
In Part 8, ii, of the novel, mention is made by name of the Case of the Augean Stables. This had been first published in The Strand in March 1940 but would not be collected until 1947, in The Labours of Hercules.
[edit] Film, TV and theatrical adaptations
Adapted in 1992 with David Suchet as Poirot in the series Agatha Christie's Poirot.
