Dumb Witness (Hercule Poirot 16)

“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.

“Aye, 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 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.

Twenty-one

THE CHEMIST; THE NURSE; THE DOCTOR

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’ 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.