“The nurse had the little room next door,” Ellen explained.
Poirot nodded thoughtfully.
As we descended the stairs, he asked if he might walk round the garden.
“Oh, yes, sir, certainly. It looks lovely just now.” “The gardener is still employed?” “Angus? Oh, yes, Angus is still here. Miss Lawson wants everything kept nice because she thinks it will sell better that way.” “I think she is wise. To let a place run to seed is not the good policy.” The garden was very peaceful and beautiful.
The wide borders were full of lupins and delphiniums and great scarlet poppies.
The peonies were in bud. Wandering along, we came presently to a potting-shed where a big, rugged old man was busy. He saluted us respectfully and Poirot engaged him in conversation.
A mention that we had seen Mr. Charles that day thawed the old man and he became quite garrulous.
“Always a one, he was! I’ve known him come out here with half a gooseberry pie and the cook hunting high and low for iti And he’d go back with such an innocent face that durned if they wouldn’t say it must have been the cat, though I’ve never known a cat eat a gooseberry pie! Oh, he’s a one, Mr.
Charles is!” “He was down here in April, wasn’t he?” “Yes, down here two week-ends. Just before the missus died, it was.” “Did you see much of him?” “A good bit, I did. There wasn’t much for a young gentleman to do down here, and that’s a fact. Used to stroll up to The George and have one. And then he’d potter round here, asking me questions about one thing and another.” “About flowers?” “Yes–flowers–and weeds too.” The old man chuckled.
“Weeds?” Poirot’s voice held a sudden, tentative note. He turned his head and looked searchingly along the shelves. His eye stopped at a tin.
“Perhaps he wanted to know how you got rid of them?” “He did that!” “I suppose this is the stuff you use.” Poirot turned the tin gently round and read the label.
“That’s it,” said Angus. “Very handy stuff it is.” “Dangerous stuff?” “Not if you use it right. It’s arsenic, of course. Had a bit of a joke about that, Mr.
Charles and I did. Said as how when he had a wife and didn’t like her, he’d come to me and get a little of that stuff to put her away with! Maybe, I sez, she’ll be the one that wants to do away with you! Ah, that made him laugh proper, that did! It was a good one, that!” We laughed as in duty bound. Poirot prised up the lid of the tin.
“Nearly empty,” he murmured.
The old man had a look.
“Ay, there’s more gone than I thought.
No idea I’d used that much. I’ll be having to order some more.” “Yes,” said Poirot, smiling. “I’m afraid there’s hardly enough for you to spare me some for my wife!” We all had another good laugh over this witticism.
“You’re not married, I take it, mister?” “No.” “Ah! it’s always them as isn’t that can afford to joke about it. Those that isn’t married don’t know what trouble is!” “I gather that your wife–?” Poirot paused delicately.
“She’s alive all right–very much so.” Angus seemed a little depressed about it.
Complimenting him on his garden, we bade him farewell.
XXI The Chemist. The Nurse.
the tin of weed-killer had started a new train of thought in my mind. It was the first definite suspicious circumstance that I had encountered. Charles’s interest in it, the old gardener’s obvious surprise at finding the tin almost empty–it all seemed to point in the right direction.
Poirot was, as usual when I am excited, very noncommittal.
“Even if some of the weed-killer has been taken, there is as yet no evidence that Charles was the person to take it, Hastings.” “But he talked so much to the gardener about it!” “Not a very wise procedure if he was going to help himself to some.” Then he went on: “What is the first and simplest poison to come into your mind if you were asked to name one quickly?” “Arsenic, I suppose.” “Yes. You understand then, that very marked pause before the word strychnine when Charles was talking to us today.” “You mean–?” “That he was about to say ‘arsenic in the soup,5 and stopped himself.” “Ah!” I said, “and why did he stop himself?” “Exactly. Why? I may say, Hastings, that it was to find the answer to that particular ‘why?5 which made me go out into the garden in search of any likely source of weed-killer.” “And you found it!” “And I found it.” I shook my head.