“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,’ 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?’ 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.
“It begins to look rather bad for young Charles. You had a good talk with Ellen over the old lady’s illness. Did her symptoms resemble those of arsenic poisoning?”
Poirot rubbed his nose.
“It is difficult to say. There was abdominal pain—sickness.”
“Of course—that’s it!”
“H’m, I am not so sure.”
“What poison did it resemble?”
“Eh bien, my friend, it resembled not so much poison as disease of the liver and death from that cause!”
“Oh, Poirot,” I cried. “It can’t be natural death! It’s got to be murder!”
“Oh, là, là, we seem to have changed places, you and I.”
He turned abruptly into a chemist’s shop. After a long discussion of Poirot’s particular internal troubles, he purchased a small box of indigestion lozenges. Then, when his purchase was wrapped up and he was about to leave the shop, his attention was taken by an attractively-wrapped package of Dr. Loughbarrow’s Liver Capsules.
“Yes, sir, a very good preparation.” The chemist was a middleaged man of a chatty disposition. “You’ll find them very efficacious.”
“Miss Arundell used to take them, I remember. Miss Emily Arundell.”
“Indeed she did, sir. Miss Arundell of Littlegreen House. A fine old lady, one of the old school. I used to serve her.”
“Did she take many patent medicines?”
“Not really, sir. Not so many as some elderly ladies I could name. Miss Lawson, now, her companion, the one that’s come into all the money—”
Poirot nodded.