She paused, and became rather red.
“Something happened which aroused your suspicions?” suggested Poirot.
“Yes.”
But she still seemed to find it difficult to go on.
“I found the servants were passing remarks too.”
“About Mr. Templeton’s illness?”
“Oh, no! About—about this other thing—”
“Mrs. Templeton?”
“Yes.”
“Mrs. Templeton and the doctor, perhaps?”
Poirot had an uncanny flair in these things. The nurse threw him a grateful glance and went on.
“They were passing remarks. And then one day I happened to see them together myself—in the garden—”
It was left at that. Our client was in such an agony of outraged propriety that no one could feel it necessary to ask exactly what she had seen in the garden. She had evidently seen quite enough to make up her own mind on the situation.
“The attacks got worse and worse. Dr. Treves said it was all perfectly natural and to be expected, and that Mr. Templeton could not possibly live long, but I’ve never seen anything like it before myself—not in all my long experience of nursing. It seemed to me much more like some form of—”
She paused, hesitating.
“Arsenical poisoning?” said Poirot helpfully.
She nodded.
“And then, too, he, the patient, I mean, said something queer. ‘They’ll do for me, the four of them. They’ll do for me yet.’ ”
“Eh?” said Poirot quickly.
“Those were his very words, M. Poirot. He was in great pain at the time, of course, and hardly knew what he was saying.”
“ ‘They’ll do for me, the four of them,’ ” repeated Poirot thoughtfully. “What did he mean by ‘the four of them,’ do you think?”
“That I can’t say, M. Poirot. I thought perhaps he meant his wife and son, and the doctor, and perhaps Miss Clark, Mrs. Templeton’s companion. That would make four, wouldn’t it? He might think they were all in league against him.”
“Quite so, quite so,” said Poirot, in a preoccupied voice. “What about food? Could you take no precautions about that?”
“I’m always doing what I can. But, of course, sometimes Mrs. Templeton insists on bringing him his food herself, and then there are the times when I am off duty.”
“Exactly. And you are not sure enough of your ground to go to the police?”
The nurse’s face showed her horror at the mere idea.
“What I have done, M. Poirot, is this. Mr. Templeton had a very bad attack after partaking of a bowl of soup. I took a little from the bottom of the bowl afterwards, and have brought it up with me. I have been spared for the day to visit a sick mother, as Mr. Templeton was well enough to be left.”
She drew out a little bottle of dark fluid and handed it to Poirot.
“Excellent, mademoiselle. We will have this analysed immediately. If you will return here in, say, an hour’s time I think that we shall be able to dispose of your suspicions one way or another.”
First extracting from our visitor her name and qualifications, he ushered her out. Then he wrote a note and sent it off together with the bottle of soup. Whilst we waited to hear the result, Poirot amused himself by verifying the nurse’s credentials, somewhat to my surprise.
“No, no, my friend,” he declared. “I do well to be careful. Do not forget the Big Four are on our track.”
However, he soon elicited the information that a nurse of the name of Mabel Palmer was a member of the Lark Institute and had been sent to the case in question.
“So far, so good,” he said, with a twinkle. “And now here comes Nurse Palmer back again, and here also is our analyst’s report.
“Is there arsenic in it?” she asked breathlessly.
Poirot shook his head, refolding the paper.
“No.”
We were both immeasurably surprised.
“There is no arsenic in it,” continued Poirot. “But there is antimony, and that being the case, we will start immediately for Hertfordshire. Pray Heaven that we are not too late.”
It was decided that the simplest plan was for Poirot to represent himself truly as a detective, but that the ostensible reason of his visit should be to question Mrs. Templeton about a servant formerly in her employment whose name he obtained from Nurse Palmer, and whom he could represent as being concerned in a jewel robbery.
It was late when we arrived at Elmstead, as the house was called. We had allowed Nurse Palmer to precede us by about twenty minutes, so that there should be no question of our all arriving together.
Mrs. Templeton, a tall dark woman, with sinuous movements and uneasy eyes, received us. I noticed that as Poirot announced his profession, she drew in her breath with a sudden hiss, as though badly startled, but she answered his question about the maidservant readily enough. And then, to test her, Poirot embarked upon a long history of a poisoning case in which a guilty wife had figured. His eyes never left her face as he talked, and try as she would, she could hardly conceal her rising agitation. Suddenly, with an incoherent word of excuse, she hurried from the room.
We were not long left alone. A squarely built man with a small red moustache and pince-nez came in.
“Dr. Treves,” he introduced himself. “Mrs. Templeton asked me to make her excuses to you. She’s in a very bad state, you know. Nervous strain. Worry over her husband and all that.
