“After all,” murmured Poirot, “it is possible that I shall not die
this time.”
Coming from a convalescent influenza patient, I hailed the remark
as showing a beneficial optimism. I myself had been the first
sufferer from the disease. Poirot in his turn had gone down. He
was now sitting up in bed, propped up with pillows, his head
muffled in a woollen shawl, and was slowly sipping a particularly
noxious tisane which I had prepared according to his directions.
His eye rested with pleasure upon a neatly graduated row of medicine
bottles which adorned the mantelpiece.
“Yes, yes,” my little friend continued. “Once more shall I be
myself again, the great Hercule Poirot, the terror of evil-doers!
Figure to yourself, _mon ami_, that I have a little paragraph to
myself in _Society Gossip_. But yes! Here it is! ‘Go it—criminals—all
out! Hercule Poirot—and believe me, girls, he’s some Hercules!—our
own pet society detective can’t get a grip on you. ’Cause why?
’Cause he’s got _la grippe_ himself’!”