Martin Alistair Blunt is the main antagonist of Agatha Christie 1940 mystery novel One, Two, Bunkle My Shoe. He is a polititian, who has two wives.
Biography[]
One day, Hercule Poirot comes to the dentist for a routine appointment. Soon, he receives a message from Japp that the dentist has been murdered. At first, it is suspected that he was killed by a scandalous patient who earns his living by blackmail. However, this blackmailer himself is soon found dead. The cause of death was an overdose of anesthesia, which is used to treat teeth. The main version of the investigation is that the dentist made a mistake with the dosage of anesthesia, which led to the death of the patient, because of which he committed suicide. But Poirot is not satisfied with this version. Soon, another of the dentist's patients (previously considered missing) is found murdered and with a disfigured face. However, according to the medical record of her jaw, it becomes clear that the body allegedly belongs to another woman. Meanwhile, another of the dentist's patients (a politician named Alistair Blunt) is assassinated, allegedly by the boyfriend of the dentist's secretary. Poirot and Japp are actively distracted from the case. Japp is ordered to close the case by higher authorities, and Poirot is simply threatened. Meanwhile, Poirot notices a number of strange details. Mabelle Sainsbury Seale (the patient whose body was supposedly found) came to see Blunt and claimed to have known his wife (which, according to him, was not true). Also, Mabel's shoe size did not match the shoe size of the woman under whose name the body was identified (but it did match the shoe size of the murdered woman). This means that the body really does belong to Mabelle Seale (and for some reason someone needed to convince the investigation otherwise). Soon Poirot finds out that Alistair had a wife named Gerda (the same woman under whose name Mabel's corpse was identified). However, he had to enter into another marriage (of convenience). Thus, Alistair committed bigamy (but no one knew this). Soon Rebecca Arnholt (whom Blunt married for convenience) died, but Blunt did not dare to officially marry Gerda, since everything suited him. However, Mabelle Seale soon appeared and claimed that she knew his wife (meaning Gerda, not Rebecca). Also, Mabelle naively blabbed about this to Amberiotis (the same blackmailer), who did not miss this opportunity and immediately began to demand money from Blunt. Blunt decided to kill him. Having learned which dentist Amberiotis goes to, Blunt killed Mr. Morley and, under his guise, injected Amberiotis with a lethal dose of anesthesia. He later killed Mabel as well, as she might have told the police what she knew. He swapped her dental records with Gerda's so that the body would be identified as Gerda Blunt's, not Mabelle Seale's. He then planted the gun in the bushes, knowing that someone would pick it up and that person could then be charged with the murders. Blunt tries to ask Poirot not to tell the police about his suspicions, but Poirot tells and Blunt is arrested.
Trivia[]
- He is somewhat similar to George Stubbs from The Dead Man's Folly as both kill three people (one of whom blackmailed them, the second one was a woman, as whom they posed someone else, and an innocent man) to evade their secrets from being revealed.