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, ‘theremust be a connection between the victim and X so that if you told me whoX was –’
Poirot shook his head with so much vigour that it was quite painful towatch.
‘Have I not told you that that is the essence of X’s technique? There willbe 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 mo-ment, you comprehend?’
‘To someone in this house?’
夜雨聆风