He enjoined silence on me with a gesture, and we crept quietly along the nursery wing. Ronald occupied a small room of his own. We entered it and took up our position in the darkest corner. The child’s breathing sounded heavy and undisturbed.
‘Surely he is sleeping very heavily?’ I whispered.
Poirot nodded.
‘Drugged,’ he murmured.
‘Why?’ ‘So that he should not cry out at – ‘ ‘At what?’ I asked, as Poirot paused.
‘At the prick of the hypodermic needle, mon ami! Hush, let us speak no more – not that I expect anything to happen for some time.’
But in this Poirot was wrong. Hardly ten minutes had elapsed before the door opened softly, and someone entered the room. I heard a sound of quick hurried breathing. Footsteps moved to the bed, and then there was a sudden click. The light of a little electric lantern fell on the sleeping child – the holder of it was still invisible in the shadow. The figure laid down the lantern. With the right hand it brought forth a syringe; with the left it touched the boy’s neck – Poirot and I sprang at the same minute. The lantern rolled to the floor, and we struggled with the intruder in the dark. His strength was extraordinary. At last we overcame him.
‘The light, Hastings, I must see his face – though I fear I know only too well whose face it will be.’ So did I, I thought as I groped for the lantern. For a moment I had suspected the secretary, egged on by my secret dislike of the man, but I felt assured by now that the man who stood to gain by the death of his two childish cousins was the monster we were tracking.
My foot struck against the lantern. I picked it up and switched on the light. It shone full on the face of- Hugo Lemesurier, the boy’s fatherl The lantern almost dropped from my hand.
‘Impossible,’ I murmured hoarsely. ‘Impossiblel’
Lemesurier was unconscious. Poirot nd I between us carried hi to his room and laid him on the Ied. Poirot bent and gentl extricated something from his right Band. He showed it to me. was a hypodermic syringe. I shuddefed.
‘What is in it? Poison?’ ‘Formic acid, I fancy.’ ‘Formic acid?’ ‘Yes. Probably obtained by distilling ants. He was a chemis you remember. Death would have been attributed to the bee sting ‘My God,’ I muttered. ‘His own soul And you expected thisi Poirot nodded gravely.
‘Yes. He is insane, of course. I iraagine that the family histor has become a mania with him. His itatense longing to succeed the estate led him to commit the loOg series of crimes. Possibl the idea occurred to him first wheo travelling north that nlgl with Vincent. He couldn’t bear the prediction to be falsifie Ronald’s son was already dead, and Ronald himself was a dyin man – they are a weakly lot. He arrataged the accident to the gut and – which I did not suspect until fow – contrived the death ¢ his brother John by this same meod of injecting formic aci. into the jugular vein. His ambitiota was realized then, and h became the master of the family acreS. But his triumph was short lived – he found that he was sufferifg from an incurable diseas And he had the madman’s fixed idea -‘ the eldest son of a Lemesur ier could not inherit. I suspect that the bathing accident was du to him – he encouraged the child to go out too far. That failing he sawed through the ivy, and afterwards poisoned the child’ food.’ ‘Diabolical!’ I murmured with shiver. ‘And so cleverl planned!’ ‘Yes, raon ami, there is nothing m°re amazing than the extrg ordinary sanity of the insane! UnleSS it is the extraordinar eccentricity of the sanel I imagine that it is only lately daat he ha completely gone over the borderline, there was method in hi madness to begin with.’
‘And to think that I suspected Roger – that splendid fellow.’ ‘It was the natural assumption, mon ami. We knew that he also travelled north with Vincent that night. We knew, too, that he was the next heir after Hugo and Hugo’s children. But our assumption was not borne out by the facts. The ivy was sawn through when only little Ronald was at home – but it would be to Roger’s interest that both children should perish. In the same way, it was only Ronald’s food that was poisoned. And today when they came home and I found that there was only his father’s word for it that Ronald had been stung, I remembered the other death from a wasp sting – and I knewl’