Poirot's Early Cases - Agatha Christie [53]
‘Let me see, my little man,’ said Poirot. ‘Where was it?’
‘Here, on the side of my neck,’ said Ronald importantly. ‘But it doesn’t hurt. Father said: “Keep still—there’s a bee on you.” And I kept still, and he took it off, but it stung me first, though it didn’t really hurt, only like a pin, and I didn’t cry, because I’m so big and going to school next year.’
Poirot examined the child’s neck, then drew away again. He took me by the arm and murmured:
‘Tonight, mon ami, tonight we have a little affair on! Say nothing—to anyone.’
He refused to be more communicative, and I went through the evening devoured by curiosity. He retired early and I followed his example. As we went upstairs, he caught me by the arm and delivered his instructions:
‘Do not undress. Wait a sufficient time, extinguish your light and join me here.’
I obeyed, and found him waiting for me when the time came. 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.’
VI
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 father!
The lantern almost dropped from my hand.
‘Impossible,’ I murmured hoarsely. ‘Impossible!’
VII
Lemesurier was unconscious. Poirot and I between us carried him to his room and laid him on the bed. Poirot bent and gently extricated something from his right hand. He showed it to me. It was a hypodermic syringe. I shuddered.
‘What is in it? Poison?’
‘Formic acid, I fancy.’
‘Formic acid?’
‘Yes. Probably obtained by distilling ants. He was a chemist, you remember. Death would have been attributed to the bee sting.’
‘My God,’ I muttered. ‘His own son! And you expected this?’
Poirot nodded gravely.
‘Yes. He is insane, of course. I imagine that the family history has become a mania with him. His intense longing to succeed to the estate led him to commit the long series of crimes. Possibly the idea occurred to him first when travelling north that night with Vincent. He couldn’t bear the prediction to be falsified. Ronald’s son was already dead, and Ronald himself was a dying man—they are a weakly lot. He arranged the accident to the gun, and—which I did not suspect until now—contrived the death of his brother John by this same method of injecting formic acid into the jugular vein. His ambition was realized then, and he became the master of the family acres. But his triumph was short-lived—he found that he was suffering from an incurable disease. And he had the madman’s fixed idea—the eldest son of a Lemesurier could