realized then that Norton's hobby might have an important part to play in the events that were to come.
Curtain
Chapter 8
The days passed. It was an unsatisfactory time - with its uneasy feeling of waiting for something.
Nothing, if I may put it in such a way, actually happened. Yet there were incidents, scraps of odd conversations, sidelights upon the various inmates of Styles, elucidating remarks. They all mounted up and, if properly pieced together, could have done a lot towards enlightening me.
It was Poirot who, with a few forceful words showed me something to which I had been criminally blind.
I was complaining, for the umpteenth time, of his wilful refusal to admit me to his confidence. It was not fair, I told him. Always he and I had had equal knowledge - even if I had been dense and he had been astute in drawing the right conclusions from that knowledge.
He waved an impatient hand.
“Quite so, my friend. It is not fair! It is not sporting! It is not playing the game! Admit all that and pass from it. This is not a game - it is not le sport. For you, you occupy yourself in guessing wildly at the identity of X. It is not for that that I asked you to come here. Unnecessary for you to occupy yourself with that. I know the answer to that question. But what I do not know and what I must know is this: 'Who is going to die - very soon?' It is a question, mon vieux, not of you playing a guessing game, but of preventing a human being from dying.”
I was startled.
“Of course,” I said slowly. “I - well, I did know that you practically said so once, but I haven't quite realized it.”
“Then realize it now - immediately.”
“Yes, yes, I will - I mean, I do.”
“Bien! Then tell me, Hastings, who is it who is going to die?”
I stared at him blankly.
“I have really no idea!”
“Then you should have an idea! What else are you here for?”
“Surely,” I said, going back over my meditations on the subject, “there must be a connection between the victim and X so that if you told me who X was -”
Poirot shook his head with so much vigour that it was quite painful to watch.
“Have I not told you that that is the essence of X's technique? There will be nothing connecting X with the death. That is certain.”
“The connection will be hidden, you mean?”
“It will be so well hidden that neither you nor I will find it.”
“But surely by studying X's past -”
“I tell you, no. Certainly not in the time. Murder may happen any moment, you comprehend?”
“To someone in this house?”
“To someone in this house.”
“And you really do not know who, or how?”
“Ah, if I did, I should not be urging you to find out for me!”
“You simply base your assumption on the presence of X?”
I sounded a little doubtful. Poirot, whose self-control had lessened as his limbs were perforce immobile, fairly howled at me.
"Ah, ma foi, how many times am I to go over all this? If a lot of war correspondents arrive suddenly in a certain spot of Europe, it means what? It means war! If doctors come from all over the world to a certain city - it shows what? That there is to be a medical conference. Where you see a vulture hovering, there will be a carcass. If you see beaters walking up a moor, there. will be a shoot. If you see a man stop suddenly, tear off his coat and plunge into the sea, it means that there, there will be a rescue from drowning.
“If you see ladies of middle age and respectable appearance peering through a hedge, you may deduce that there is an impropriety of some kind! And finally, if you smell a succulent smell and observe several people all walking along a corridor in the same direction, you may safely assume that a meal is about to be served!”
I considered these analogies for a minute or two, then I said, taking the first one:
“All the same, one war correspondent does not make a war!”
“Certainly not. And one swallow does not make a summer. But one murderer, Hastings,
Curtain
Chapter 8
The days passed. It was an unsatisfactory time - with its uneasy feeling of waiting for something.
Nothing, if I may put it in such a way, actually happened. Yet there were incidents, scraps of odd conversations, sidelights upon the various inmates of Styles, elucidating remarks. They all mounted up and, if properly pieced together, could have done a lot towards enlightening me.
It was Poirot who, with a few forceful words showed me something to which I had been criminally blind.
I was complaining, for the umpteenth time, of his wilful refusal to admit me to his confidence. It was not fair, I told him. Always he and I had had equal knowledge - even if I had been dense and he had been astute in drawing the right conclusions from that knowledge.
He waved an impatient hand.
“Quite so, my friend. It is not fair! It is not sporting! It is not playing the game! Admit all that and pass from it. This is not a game - it is not le sport. For you, you occupy yourself in guessing wildly at the identity of X. It is not for that that I asked you to come here. Unnecessary for you to occupy yourself with that. I know the answer to that question. But what I do not know and what I must know is this: 'Who is going to die - very soon?' It is a question, mon vieux, not of you playing a guessing game, but of preventing a human being from dying.”
I was startled.
“Of course,” I said slowly. “I - well, I did know that you practically said so once, but I haven't quite realized it.”
“Then realize it now - immediately.”
“Yes, yes, I will - I mean, I do.”
“Bien! Then tell me, Hastings, who is it who is going to die?”
I stared at him blankly.
“I have really no idea!”
“Then you should have an idea! What else are you here for?”
“Surely,” I said, going back over my meditations on the subject, “there must be a connection between the victim and X so that if you told me who X was -”
Poirot shook his head with so much vigour that it was quite painful to watch.
“Have I not told you that that is the essence of X's technique? There will be nothing connecting X with the death. That is certain.”
“The connection will be hidden, you mean?”
“It will be so well hidden that neither you nor I will find it.”
“But surely by studying X's past -”
“I tell you, no. Certainly not in the time. Murder may happen any moment, you comprehend?”
“To someone in this house?”
“To someone in this house.”
“And you really do not know who, or how?”
“Ah, if I did, I should not be urging you to find out for me!”
“You simply base your assumption on the presence of X?”
I sounded a little doubtful. Poirot, whose self-control had lessened as his limbs were perforce immobile, fairly howled at me.
"Ah, ma foi, how many times am I to go over all this? If a lot of war correspondents arrive suddenly in a certain spot of Europe, it means what? It means war! If doctors come from all over the world to a certain city - it shows what? That there is to be a medical conference. Where you see a vulture hovering, there will be a carcass. If you see beaters walking up a moor, there. will be a shoot. If you see a man stop suddenly, tear off his coat and plunge into the sea, it means that there, there will be a rescue from drowning.
“If you see ladies of middle age and respectable appearance peering through a hedge, you may deduce that there is an impropriety of some kind! And finally, if you smell a succulent smell and observe several people all walking along a corridor in the same direction, you may safely assume that a meal is about to be served!”
I considered these analogies for a minute or two, then I said, taking the first one:
“All the same, one war correspondent does not make a war!”
“Certainly not. And one swallow does not make a summer. But one murderer, Hastings,
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