Poirot looked out over the roses. His voice was very quiet as he asked a question. ‘Do you like Langton?’
The other started. The question somehow seemed to find him quite unprepared. ‘I – I – well, I mean – of course, I like him.
Why shouldn’t I?’
‘I only wondered,’ said Poirot placidly, ‘whether you did.’
And as the other did not answer, he went on. ‘I also wondered if he liked you?’
‘What are you getting at, Monsieur Poirot? There’s something in your mind I can’t fathom.’
‘I am going to be very frank. You are engaged to be married, Monsieur Harrison. I know Miss Molly Dearie. She is a very charming, a very beautiful girl. Before she was engaged to you, she was engaged to Claude Langton. She threw him over for you.’
Harrison nodded.
‘I do not ask what her reasons were; she may have been justified.
But I tell you this, it is not too much to suppose that Langton has not forgotten or forgiven.’
‘You’re wrong, Monsieur Poirot. I swear you’re wrong. Lang-ton’s been a sportsman; he’s taken things like a man. He’s been amazingly decent to me – gone out of his way to be friendly.’
‘And that does not strike you as unusual? You use the word
“amazingly”, but you do not seem to be amazed.’
‘What do you mean, M. Poirot?’
‘I mean,’ said Poirot, and his voice had a new note in it, ‘that a man may conceal his hate till the proper time comes.’
‘Hate?’ Harrison shook his head and laughed.
‘The English are very stupid,’ said Poirot. ‘They think that they can deceive anyone but that no one can deceive them. The sportsman – the good fellow – never will they believe evil of him.
And because they are brave, but stupid, sometimes they die when they need not die.’ /
‘You are warning me,’ said Harrison in a low voice. ‘I see it now – what has puzzled me all along. You are warning me against Claude Langton. You came here today to warn me…’
Poirot nodded. Harrison sprang up suddenly. ‘But you are mad, Monsieur Poirot. This is England. Things don’t happen like that here. Disappointed suitors don’t go about stabbing people in the back and poisoning them. And you’re wrong about Langton. That chap wouldn’t hurt a fly.’
‘The lives of flies are not my concern,’ said Poirot placidly.
‘And although you say Monsieur Langton would not take the life of one, yet you forget that he is even now preparing to take the lives of several thousand wasps.’
Harrison did not at once reply. The little detective in his turn sprang to his feet. He advanced to his friend and laid a hand on his shoulder. So agitated was he that he almost shook the big man, and, as he did so, he hissed into his ear: ‘Rouse yourself, my friend, rouse yourself. And look – look where I am pointing. There on the bank, close by that tree root. See you, the wasps returning home, placid at the end of the day? In a little hour, there will be destruction, and they know it not. There is no one to tell them.
They have not, it seems, a Hercule Poirot. I tell you, Monsieur Harrison, I am down here on business. Murder is my business.
And it is my business before it has happened as well as afterwards.
At what time does Monsieur Langton come to take this wasps’ nest?’
‘Langton would never…’
‘At what time?’
‘At nine o’clock. But I tell you, you’re all wrong. Langton would never…°
‘These Englishl’ cried Poirot in a passion. He caught up his hat and stick and moved down the path, pausing to speak over his shoulder. ‘I do not stay to argue with you. I should only enrage myself. But you understand, I return at nine o’clock?’
Harrison opened his mouth to speak, but Poirot did not give him the chance. ‘I know what you would say: “Langton would never,” et cetera. Ah, Langton would never{ But all the same I return at nine o’clock. But, yes, it will amuse me – put it like that – it will amuse me to see the taking of a wasps’ nest. Another of your English sports’ He waited for no reply but passed rapidly down the path and out through the door that creaked. Once outside on the road, his pace slackened. His vivacity died down, his face became grave and troubled. Once he drew his watch from his pocket and con-suited it. The hands pointed to ten minutes past eight. ‘Over three quarters of an hour,’ he murmured. ‘I wonder if I should have waited.’ His footsteps slackened; he almost seemed on the point of returning. Some vague foreboding seemed to assail him. He shook it off resolutely, however, and continued to walk in the direction of the village. But his face was still troubled, and once or twice he shook his head like a man only partly satisfied.