The Big Four
"The Big Four," murmured Poirot. "Always the Big Four! An astonishing
coincidence, mademoiselle, your uncle is still in danger. I must save
him. Now recount to me exactly the events of that fatal evening. Show
me the chess-board, the table, how the two men sat--everything."
She went to the side of the room and brought out a small table. The
top of it was exquisite, inlaid with squares of silver and black to
represent a chess-board.
"This was sent to my uncle a few weeks ago as a present, with the
request that he would use it in the next match he played. It was in the
middle of the room--so."
Poirot examined the table with what seemed to me quite unnecessary
attention. He was not conducting the inquiry at all as I would have
done. Many of his questions seemed to me pointless, and upon really
vital matters he seemed to have no questions to ask. I concluded that
the unexpected mention of the Big Four had thrown him completely off
his balance.
After a minute examination of the table and the exact position it had
occupied, he asked to see the chessmen. Sonia Daviloff brought them to
him in a box. He examined one or two of them in a perfunctory manner.
"An exquisite set," he murmured absent-mindedly.
Still not a question as to what refreshments there had been, or what
people had been present.
I cleared my throat significantly.
"Don't you think, Poirot, that--"
He interrupted me peremptorily.
"Do not think, my friend. Leave all to me. Mademoiselle, is it quite
impossible that I should see your uncle?"
A faint smile showed itself on her face.
"He will see you, yes. You understand, it is my part to interview all
strangers first."
She disappeared. I heard a murmur of voices in the next room, and a
minute later she came back and motioned us to pass into the adjoining
room.
The man who lay there on a couch was an imposing figure. Tall, gaunt,
with huge bushy eyebrows and white beard, and a face haggard as the
result of starvation and hardships. Dr. Savaronoff was a distinct
personality. I noted the peculiar formation of his head, its unusual
height. A great chess player must have a great brain, I knew. I could
easily understand Dr. Savaronoff being the second greatest player in
the world.
Poirot bowed.
"M. le Docteur, may I speak to you alone?"
Savaronoff turned to his niece.
"Leave us, Sonia."
She disappeared obediently.
"Now, sir, what is it?"
"Dr. Savaronoff, you have recently come into an enormous fortune. If
you should--die unexpectedly, who inherits it?"
"I have made a will leaving everything to my niece, Sonia Daviloff. You
do not suggest--"
"I suggest nothing, but you have not seen your niece since she was a
child. It would have been easy for any one to impersonate her."
Savaronoff seemed thunderstruck by the suggestion. Poirot went on
easily.
"Enough as to that. I give you the word of warning, that is all. What
I want you to do now is to describe to me the game of chess the other
evening."
"How do you mean--describe it?"
"Well, I do not play the chess myself, but I understand that there are
various regular ways of beginning--the gambit, do they not call it?"
Dr. Savaronoff smiled a little.
"Ah! I comprehend you now. Wilson opened Ruy Lopez--one of the soundest
openings there is, and one frequently adopted in tournaments and
matches."
"And how long had you been playing when the tragedy happened?"
"It must have been about the third or fourth move when Wilson suddenly
fell forward over the table, stone dead."
Poirot rose to depart. He flung out his last question as though it was
of absolutely no importance, but I knew better.
"Had he had anything to eat or drink?"
"A whisky and soda, I think."
"Thank you, Dr. Savaronoff. I will disturb you no longer."
Ivan was in the hall to show us out. Poirot lingered on the threshold.
"The flat below this, do you know who lives there?"
"Sir Charles Kingwell, a member of Parliament, sir. It has been let
furnished lately, though."
"Thank you."
We went out into the bright winter sunlight.
"Well, really, Poirot," I burst out. "I don't think you've
distinguished yourself this time. Surely your questions were very
inadequate."
"You think so, Hastings?" Poirot looked at me appealingly. "I was
_bouleversé_, yes. What would you have asked?"
I considered the question carefully, and then outlined my scheme to
Poirot. He listened with what seemed to be close interest. My monologue
lasted until we had nearly reached home.
"Very excellent, very searching, Hastings," said Poirot, as he
inserted his key in the door and preceded me up the stairs. "But quite
unnecessary."
"Unnecessary!" I cried, amazed. "If the man was poisoned--"
"Aha," cried Poirot, pouncing upon a note which lay on the table. "From
Japp. Just as I thought." He flung it over to me. It was brief and to
the point. No traces of poison had been found, and there was nothing to
show how the man came by his death.
"You see," said Poirot, "our questions would have been quite
unnecessary."
"You guessed this beforehand?"
"'Forecast the probable result of the deal,'" quoted Poirot from a
recent Bridge problem on which I had spent much time. "_Mon ami_,
when you do that successfully, you do not call it guessing."
"Don't let's split hairs," I said impatiently. "You foresaw this?"
"I did."
"Why?"
Poirot put his hand into his pocket and pulled out--a white bishop.
"Why," I cried, "you forgot to give it back to Dr. Savaronoff."
"You are in error, my friend. That bishop still reposes in my left-hand
pocket. I took its fellow from the box of chessmen Mademoiselle
Daviloff kindly permitted me to examine. The plural of one bishop is
two bishops."
He sounded the final "s" with a great hiss. I was completely mystified.
"But why did you take it?"
"_Parbleu_, I wanted to see if they were exactly alike."
He stood them on the table side by side.
"Well, they are, of course," I said, "exactly alike."
Poirot looked at them with his head on one side.
"They seem so, I admit. But one should take no fact for granted until
it is proved. Bring me, I pray you, my little scales."
With infinite care he weighed the two chessmen, then turned to me with
a face alight with triumph.
"I was right. See you, I was right. Impossible to deceive Hercule
Poirot!"
He rushed to the telephone--waited impatiently.
"Is that Japp? Ah! Japp, it is you. Hercule Poirot speaks. Watch the
man-servant, Ivan. On no account let him slip through your fingers.
Yes, yes, it is as I say."
He dashed down the receiver and turned to me.
"You see it not, Hastings? I will explain. Wilson was not poisoned,
he was electrocuted. A thin metal rod passes up the middle of one
of those chessmen. The table was prepared beforehand and set upon a
certain spot on the floor. When the bishop was placed upon one of the
silver squares, the current passed through Wilson's body, killing him
instantly. The only mark was the electric burn upon his hand--his left
hand, because he was left-handed. The 'special table' was an extremely
cunning piece of mechanism. The table I examined was a duplicate,
perfectly innocent. It was substituted for the other immediately
after the murder. The thing was worked from the flat below, which, if
you remember, was let furnished. But one accomplice at least was in
Savaronoff's flat. The girl is an agent of the Big Four, working to
inherit Savaronoff's money."
"And Ivan?"
"I strongly suspect that Ivan is none other than the famous Number
Four."
"_What?_"
"Yes. The man is a marvellous character actor. He can assume any part
he pleases."
I thought back over past adventures, the lunatic asylum keeper, the
butcher's young man, the suave doctor, all the same man, and all
totally unlike each other.
"It's amazing," I said at last. "Everything fits in. Savaronoff had an
inkling of the plot, and that's why he was so averse to playing the
match."
Poirot looked at me without speaking. Then he turned abruptly away, and
began pacing up and down.
"Have you a book on chess by any chance, _mon ami_?" he asked
suddenly.
"I believe I have somewhere."
It took me some time to ferret it out, but I found it at last, and
brought it to Poirot, who sank down in a chair and started reading it
with the greatest attention.
In about a quarter of an hour the telephone rang. I answered it. It was
Japp. Ivan had left the flat, carrying a large bundle. He had sprung
into a waiting taxi, and the chase had begun. He was evidently trying
to lose his pursuers. In the end he seemed to fancy that he had done
so, and had then driven to a big empty house at Hampstead. The house
was surrounded.
I recounted all this to Poirot. He merely stared at me as though he
scarcely took in what I was saying. He held out the chess book.
"Listen to this, my friend. This is the Ruy Lopez Opening. 1 P-K4,
P-K4; 2 Kt-KB3, Kt-QB3; 3B-Kt5;? Then there comes a question as to
Black's best third move. He has the choice of various defences. It was
White's third move that killed Gilmour Wilson, 3B-Kt5. Only the third
move--does that say nothing to you?"
I hadn't the least idea what he meant, and told him so.
"I suppose, Hastings, that while you were sitting in this chair, you
heard the front door being opened and shut, what would you think?"
"I should think some one had gone out, I suppose."
"Yes--but there are always two ways of looking at things. Some one gone
out--some one come _in_--two totally different things, Hastings.
But if you assumed the wrong one, presently some little discrepancy
would creep in and show you that you were on the wrong track."
"What does all this mean, Poirot?"
Poirot sprang to his feet with sudden energy.
"It means that I have been a triple imbecile. Quick, quick, to the flat
in Westminster. We may yet be in time."
We tore off in a taxi. Poirot returned no answer to my excited
questions. We raced up the stairs. Repeated rings and knocks brought no
reply, but listening closely I could distinguish a hollow groan coming
from within.
The hall porter proved to have a master key, and after a few
difficulties he consented to use it.
Poirot went straight to the inner room. A whiff of chloroform met us.
On the floor was Sonia Daviloff, gagged and bound, with a great wad of
saturated cotton wool over her nose and mouth. Poirot tore it off and
began to take measures to restore her. Presently a doctor arrived, and
Poirot handed her over to his charge and drew aside with me. There was
no sign of Dr. Savaronoff.
"What does it all mean?" I asked, bewildered.
"It means that before two equal deductions I chose the wrong one. You
heard me say that it would be easy for any one to impersonate Sonia
Daviloff because her uncle had not seen her for so many years?"
"Yes?"
"Well, precisely the opposite held good also. It was equally easy for
any one to impersonate the uncle."
"What?"
"Savaronoff _did_ die at the outbreak of the Revolution. The man
who pretended to have escaped with such terrible hardships, the man so
changed 'that his own friends could hardly recognise him,' the man who
successfully laid claim to an enormous fortune--"
"Yes. Who was he?"
"_Number Four._ No wonder he was frightened when Sonia let him
know she had overheard one of his private conversations about the 'Big
Four.' Again he has slipped through my fingers. He guessed I should
get on the right track in the end, so he sent off the honest Ivan
on a tortuous wild goose chase, chloroformed the girl, and got out,
having by now doubtless realised most of the securities left by Madame
Gospoja."
"But--but who tried to kill him then?"
"Nobody tried to kill _him_. Wilson was the intended victim all
along."
"But why?"