reviving him with a stimulant.
I was dying to talk, but I had to contain myself until the valet had finished and left the room.
Then I burst out:
'Was that true, Poirot, what you said? That you saw a bottle in Mrs Franklin's hand when she came out of the laboratory?'
A very faint smile crept over Poirot's bluish-tinged lips. He murmured:
'Did not you see it, my friend?'
'No, I did not.'
'But you might not have noticed, hein?'
'No, perhaps not. I certainly can't swear she didn't have it.' I looked at him doubtfully. 'The question is, are you speaking the truth?'
'Do you think I would lie, my friend?'
'I wouldn't put it past you.'
' Hastings, you shock and surprise me. Where is now your simple faith?'
'Well,' I conceded, 'I don't suppose you would really commit perjury.'
Poirot said mildly:
'It would not be perjury. It was not on oath.'
'Then it was a lie?'
Poirot waved his hand automatically.
'What I have said, mon ami, is said. It is unnecessary to discuss it.'
'I simply don't understand you,' I cried.
'What don't you understand?'
'Your evidence – all that about Mrs Franklin's having talked about committing suicide – about her being depressed.'
'Enfin, you heard her say such things yourself.'
'Yes. But it was only one of many moods. You didn't make that clear.'
'Perhaps I did not want to.'
I stared at him.
'You wanted the verdict to be suicide?'
Poirot paused before replying. Then he said:
'I think, Hastings, that you do not appreciate the gravity of the situation. Yes, if you like, I wanted the verdict to be suicide…'
'But you don't think – yourself – that she did commit suicide?'
Slowly Poirot shook his head.
I said:
'You think – that she was murdered?'
'Yes, Hastings, she was murdered.'
'Then why try to hush it up – to have it labelled and put aside as suicide? That stops all enquiry.'
'Precisely.'
'You want that?'
'Yes.'
'But why?'
'Is it conceivable that you do not see? Never mind – let us not go into that. You must take my word for it that it was murder – deliberate, preconceived murder. I told you, Hastings, that a crime would be committed here, and that it was unlikely we should be able to prevent it – for the killer is both ruthless and determined.'
I shivered. I said:
'And what happens next?'
Poirot smiled.
'The case is solved – labelled and put away as suicide. But you and I, Hastings, go on, working underground like moles. And, sooner or later, we get X.'
I said:
'And supposing that – meanwhile – someone else is killed?'
Poirot shook his head.
'I do not think so. Unless, that is, somebody saw something or knows something – but if so, surely, they would have come forward to say so…?'
Chapter 15
I
My memory is a little vague about the events of the days immediately following the inquest on Mrs Franklin. There was, of course, the funeral, which I may say was attended by a large number of the curious of Styles St Mary. It was on that occasion that I was addressed by an old woman with rheumy eyes and an unpleasantly ghoulish manner.
She accosted me just as we were filing out of the cemetery.
'Remember you, sir, don't I?'
'Well – er, possibly -'
She went on, hardly listening to what I said.
'Twenty years ago and over. When the old lady died up at the Court. That was the first murder we had to Styles. Won't be the last, I say. Old Mrs Inglethorp, her husband done her in, so we all said. Sure of it, we was.' She leered at me cunningly. 'Maybe it's the husband this time.'
'What do you mean?' I said sharply. 'Didn't you hear the verdict was suicide?'
'That's what the coroner said. But he might be wrong, don't you think?' She nudged me. 'Doctors, they know how to do away with their wives. And she wasn't much good to him seemingly.'
I turned on her angrily and she slunk away, murmuring she hadn't meant anything, only it seemed odd-like, didn't it, happening a second time? 'And it's queer you should be there both times, sir, isn't it now?'
For one fantastic moment I wondered if she suspected me of having really committed both crimes. It was most disturbing. It certainly made me realize what a queer, haunting thing local suspicion is.
And it was not, after all, so far wrong. For somebody had killed Mrs Franklin.
As I say, I remember very little of those days. Poirot's health, for one thing, was giving me grave concern. Curtiss came to me with his wooden face slightly disturbed and reported that Poirot had had a somewhat alarming heart attack.
'Seems to me, sir, he ought to see a doctor.'
I went posthaste to Poirot, who negatived the suggestion most vigorously. It was, I thought, a little unlike him. He had always been, in my opinion, extremely fussy about his health. Distrusting draughts, wrapping up his neck in silk and wool, showing a horror of getting his feet damp, and taking his temperature and retiring to bed at the least suspicion of a chill – 'for otherwise it may be for me a fluxion de poitrine!' In most little ailments he had, I knew, always consulted a doctor immediately.
Now, when he was really ill, the position seemed reversed.
Yet perhaps that was the real reason. Those other ailments had been trifling. Now, when he was indeed a sick man, he feared, perhaps, admitting the reality of his illness. He made light of it because he was afraid.
He answered my protests with energy and bitterness.
'Ah, but I have consulted doctors – not one, but many! I have been to Blank and to Dash (he named two specialists) and they do what? – they send me to Egypt where immediately I am rendered much worse. I have
