Page:The Big Four (Christie).pdf/142

 said Poirot grimly. “They have been closely shadowed ever since the body was discovered.”

“Well, at any rate we know that Gerald Paynter had nothing to do with it.”

“You always know so much more than I do, Hastings, that it becomes quite fatiguing.”

“You old fox,” I laughed. “You never will commit yourself.”

“To be honest, Hastings, the case is now quite clear to me—all but the words, Yellow Jasmine—and I am coming to agree with you that they have no bearing on the crime. In a case of this kind, you have got to make up your mind who is lying. I have done that. And yet”

He suddenly darted from my side and entered an adjacent bookshop. He emerged a few minutes later, hugging a parcel. Then Japp rejoined us, and we all sought quarters at the inn.

I slept late the next morning. When I descended to the sitting-room reserved for us, I found Poirot already there, pacing up and down, his face contorted with agony.

“Do not converse with me,” he cried, waving an agitated hand. “Not until I know that all is well—that the arrest is made. Ah! but my psychology has been weak, Hastings, if a man writes a dying message, it is because it is