夜雨聆风IThe days passed. It was an unsatisfactory time, with its uneasy feeling ofwaiting for something.
Nothing, if I may put it in such a way, actually happened. Yet there wereincidents, scraps of odd conversations, side- lights upon the various in-mates of Styles, elucidating remarks. They all mounted up and, if properlypieced together, could have done a lot towards enlightening me.
It was Poirot who, with a few forceful words, showed me something towhich I had been criminally blind.
I was complaining, for the umpteenth time, of his wilful refusal to admitme to his confidence. It was not fair, I told him. Always he and I had hadequal knowledge – even if I had been dense and he had been astute indrawing the right conclusions from that knowledge.
He waved an impatient hand. ‘Quite so, my friend. It is not fair! It is notsporting! It is not playing the game! Admit all that and pass from it. This isnot a game – it is not le sport. For you, you occupy yourself in guessingwildly 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 tothat question. But what I do not know and what I must know is this: “Whois going to die – very soon?” It is a question, mon vieux, not of you playing aguessing game, but of preventing a human being from dying.’
I was startled. ‘Of course,’ I said slowly. ‘I – well, I did know that youpractically said so once, but I haven’t quite realized it.’
