Agatha Christie – Poirot’s Early Cases

It was still some minutes of nine when he once more approached the garden door. It was a clear, still evening; hardly a breeze stirred the leaves. There was, perhaps, something a little sinister in the stillness, like the lull before a storm.

Poirot’s footsteps quickened every so slightly. He was suddenly alarmed – and uncertain. He feared he knew not what.

And at that moment the garden door opened and Claude Langton stepped quickly out into the road. He started when he saw Poirot.

‘Oh – er – good evening.’ ‘Good evening, Monsieur Langton. You are early.’ Langton stared at him. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ ‘You have taken the wasps’ nest?’ ‘As a matter of fact, I didn’t.’ ‘Oh!’ said Poirot softly. ‘So you did not take the wasps’ nest.

What did you do then?’ ‘Oh, just sat and yarned a bit with old Harrison. I really must hurry along now, Monsieur Poirot. I’d no idea you were remaining in this part of the world.’ ‘I-had business here, you see.’

‘Ohl Well, you’ll find Harrison on the terrace. Sorry I can’t stop.’

He hurried away. Poirot looked after him. A nervous young fellow, good-looking with a weak mouthl

‘So I shall find Harrison on the terrace,’ murmured Poirot.

‘I wonder.’ He went in through the garden door and up the path.

Harrison was sitting in a chair by the table. He sat motionless and did not even turn his head as Poirot came up to him.

‘Ah! Mon ami,’ said Poirot. ‘You are all right, eh?’

There was a long pause and, then Harrison said in a queer, dazed voice, ‘What did you say?’

‘I said – are you all right?’

‘All right? Yes, I’m all right. Why not?’ ‘You feel no ill effects? That is good.’ ‘Ill effects? From what?’ ‘Washing soda.’

Harrison roused himself suddenly. ‘Washing soda? What do you mean?’

Poirot made an apologetic gesture. ‘I infinitely regret the necessity, but I put some in your pocket.’

‘You put some in my pocket? What on earth for?’

IIarrison stared at him. Poirot spoke quietly and impersonally like a lecturer coming down to the level of a small child.

‘You see, one of the advantages, or disadvantages, of being a detective is that it brings you into contact with the criminal classes. And the criminal classes, they can teach you some very interesting and curious things. There was a pickpocket once – I interested myself in him because for once in a way he has not done what they say he has done – and so I get him off. And because he is grateful he pays me in the only way he can think of – which is to show me the tricks of his trade.

‘And so it happens that I can pick a man’s pocket if I choose without his ever suspecting the fact. I lay one hand on his shoulder, I excite myself, and he feels nothing. But all the same I have managed to transfer what is in his pocket to my pocket and leave washing soda in its place.

‘You see,’ continued Poirot dreamily, ‘if a man wants to get at some poison quickly to put in a glass, unobserved, he positively must keep it in his right-hand coat pocket; there is nowhere else.

I knew it would be there.’ He dropped his hand into his pocket and brought out a few white, lumpy crystals. ‘Exceedingly dangerous,’ he murmured, ‘to carry it like that – loose.’ Calmly and without hurrying himself, he took from another pocket a wide-mouthed bottle. He slipped in the crystals, stepped to the table and filled up the bottle with plain water. Then carefully corking it, he shook it until all the crystals were dissolved.

Harrison watched him as though fascinated.

Satisfied with his solution, Poirot stepped across to the nest.

He uncorked the bottle, turned his head aside, and poured the solution into the wasps’ nest, then stood back a pace or two watching.

Some wasps that were returning alighted, quivered a little and then lay still. Other wasps crawled out of the hole only to die.

Poirot watched for a minute or two and then nodded his head and came back to the veranda.