The title obviously had to be changed in Italy, because this nursery rhyme is not known here, yet the chapters maintain in the titles the verses of the nursery rhyme. It was a complicated story, that started when Poirot's dentist died the same day he had been to him for his usual check-up. Neither Poirot or Japp believe in suicide, but when another patient is found dead because of a deadly dose of the anaesthetic that dentists use, Japp believes this to be the motive for Dr Morley's suicide: he had made a mistake causing the death of a man.Poirot is not satisfied, though, and insists in believing there must be another explanation, he is sure Morley has been murdered. A woman is found dead, her face smashed beyond recognition, and with the same clothes Poirot had seen on her at his dentist's, only he had thought he'd seen new shoes, but these were clearly old... the kind of little things that only matter to Poirot and Columbo :lol:
Other important characters are Alistair Blunt a rich banker/politician who appear to be a good man, Howard Raikes, a young man who talks about revolution and appear to be Blunt's enemy. Frank Carter, the useless boyfriend of Dr Morley's assistant. Both the young men apparently have a girlfriend madly in love with them, even if I can't imagine why, or what do they see in them.
Spoilers, big big spoilers ahead, if anyone's interested...
The end is one of the most interesting , not just because of the disclosure of the murderer's name, but mostly because it is maybe the first time Poirot is in conflict with himself. He does not like the young man accused of murder, not even a bit and I can't blame him, I don't like him either. The murderer, on the other hand, is a man that Poirot in a strange sort of way admired, because he stands for all the things that are dear and important to Poirot, for balance, stability, honesty, and Poirot's very sorry to turn him in. He would have much preferred if that boy had done it. After Poirot reveals to Blunt that he knows everything, that he has proof, he admits to be of the same mind with him, but Blunt excuses his actions saying that one was a lurid blackmailer, one was a stupid woman, and Morley.. yes he's sorry about Morley but after all he was only a good person, a good dentist, but there are other good dentists out there... and Frank would be hanged in Blunt's place, but he's just a good-for-nothing nobody, while he is important for the security and fortune of the Nation! Poirot tells him that he's not at all concerned about Nations, he's only interested in single individuals, who has the same right to live as any other human being. Poirot's not happy about this ending, but to him all lives are important. :-)
Poirot says that ‘for me their lives are as important as yours’ and he believes that although being an honest, loyal man needed by the Country, he sacrificed four human lives for power. Blunt is sure that the safety and fortune of the Nation depend upon him, but Poirot cares about individuals, not Nations, and that nobody has the right to take their lives away from them.
We encounter this same theme throughout the whole book; everybody is keen on closing the investigation, leave the rich and powerful Blunt be, blame it all on the good-for-nothing young man, accuse the poor dead dentist of having killed a patient with too much anestethic - intentionally or unintentionally - and believe that because of that he took his own life. Nobody cares about finding the real truth, nobody cares about the dead dentist’s reputation.
Another thing is that, before it was explained clearly, I had misunderstood the reason for killing the dentist. Thing is: There’s a Miss Sainsbury Seal who’s missing, and a body is found in Mrs Chapman’s house, with the face disfigured. At first it is thought of being Miss SS, but because of the face they have to resort to the dentist to make an identification. Her dentist was Morley, who’s dead, so they ask his substitute who can only use the information he has on record. He says it’s Mrs C, but he’s wrong, the files had been misplaced on purpose. The body is really Miss SS. I thought this was the reason for killing Morley, to have the body identified wrongly, but I was wrong. Poirot reveals the truth. Miss SS had recognized him as the husband of a woman she knew, Gerda, not knowing that he had remarried to rich Rebecca that with her money had made Blunt’s fortune and career. Totally unintentionally Miss S-S was about to ruin him, so he had Gerda kill her, while he killed Morley just to take his place and has easy access to Amberiotis who had known about the matter and wanted to blackmail him, so Blunt killed him. In a way, to Blunt, Morley was collateral damage. To stay together, Blunt had Gerda pass as his cousin Helene, in truth dead for years. Poirot already has her arrested and now it’s Blunt’s turn.
A funny detail is that at the end of the book Barnes, a man who worked for the Foreign Minister’s Office or something like that, sort of a spy, now retired, confesses to Poirot that he is Mr Chapman, so he knew all along that Mrs Chapman was a made-up name because he never married, and I thought, why didn’t he say so from the start? If he’s revealing it now then it’s no secret to keep, so why didn’t he tell Poirot the truth when he would have saved him a lot of time? These spies..
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