The Big Four
varied experiences and the happy days we had passed together.
By the beginning of May I had mapped out a plan of campaign. I felt
that I could not do better than keep Poirot's scheme of advertising
for any information respecting Claud Darrell. I had an advertisement
to this effect inserted in a number of morning newspapers, and I was
sitting in a small restaurant in Soho, and judging of the effect of the
advertisement, when a small paragraph in another part of the paper gave
me a nasty shock.
Very briefly, it reported the mysterious disappearance of Mr. John
Ingles from the _S.S. Shanghai_ shortly after the latter had
left Marseilles. Although the weather was perfectly smooth, it was
feared that the unfortunate gentleman must have fallen overboard.
The paragraph ended with a brief reference to Mr. Ingles's long and
distinguished service in China.
The news was unpleasant. I read into Ingles's death a sinister motive.
Not for one moment did I believe the theory of an accident. Ingles had
been murdered, and his death was only too clearly the handiwork of that
accursed Big Four.
As I sat there, stunned by the blow, and turning the whole matter over
in my mind, I was startled by the remarkable behaviour of the man
sitting opposite me. So far I had not paid much attention to him. He
was a thin, dark man of middle age, sallow of complexion, with a small
pointed beard. He had sat down opposite me so quietly that I had hardly
noticed his arrival.
But his actions now were decidedly peculiar, to say the least of them.
Leaning forward, he deliberately helped me to salt, putting it in four
little heaps round the edge of my plate.
"You will excuse me," he said, in a melancholy voice. "To help a
stranger to salt is to help them to sorrow, they say. That may be an
unavoidable necessity. I hope not, though. I hope that you will be
reasonable."
Then, with a certain significance, he repeated his operations with
the salt on his own plate. The symbol 4 was too plain to be missed. I
looked at him searchingly. In no way that I could see did he resemble
young Templeton, or James the footman, or any other of the various
personalities we had come across. Nevertheless, I was convinced
that I had to do with no less than the redoubtable Number Four
himself. In his voice there was certainly a faint resemblance to the
buttoned-up-stranger who had called upon us in Paris.
I looked round, undecided as to my course of action. Reading my
thoughts, he smiled and gently shook his head.
"I should not advise it," he remarked. "Remember what came of your
hasty action in Paris. Let me assure you that my way of retreat is
well assured. Your ideas are inclined to be a little crude, Captain
Hastings, if I may say so."
"You devil," I said, choking with rage, "you incarnate devil!"
"Heated--just a trifle heated. Your late lamented friend would have
told you that a man who keeps calm has always a great advantage."
"You dare to speak of him," I cried. "The man you murdered so foully.
And you come here--"
He interrupted me.
"I came here for an excellent and peaceful purpose. To advise you to
return at once to South America. If you do so, that is the end of the
matter as far as the Big Four are concerned. You and yours will not be
molested in any way. I give you my word as to that."
I laughed scornfully.
"And if I refuse to obey your autocratic command?"
"It is hardly a command. Shall we say that it is--a warning?"
There was a cold menace in his tone.
"The first warning," he said softly. "You will be well advised not to
disregard it."
Then, before I had any hint of his intention, he rose and slipped
quickly away towards the door. I sprang to my feet and was after him
in a second, but by bad luck I cannoned straight into an enormously
fat man who blocked the way between me and the next table. By the time
I had disentangled myself, my quarry was just passing through the
doorway, and the next delay was from a waiter carrying a huge pile of
plates who crashed into me without the least warning. By the time I got
to the door there was no sign of the thin man with the dark beard.
The waiter was fulsome in apologies, the fat man was sitting placidly
at a table ordering his lunch. There was nothing to show that both
occurrences had not been a pure accident. Nevertheless, I had my own
opinion as to that. I knew well enough that the agents of the Big Four
were everywhere.
Needless to say, I paid no heed to the warning given me. I would do
or die in the good cause. I received in all only two answers to the
advertisements. Neither of them gave me any information of value. They
were both from actors who had played with Claud Darrell at one time or
another. Neither of them knew him at all intimately, and no new light
was thrown upon the problem of his identity and present whereabouts.
No further sign came from the Big Four until about ten days later. I
was crossing Hyde Park, lost in thought, when a voice, rich with a
persuasive foreign inflection, hailed me.
"Captain Hastings, is it not?"
A big limousine had just drawn up by the pavement. A woman was leaning
out. Exquisitely dressed in black, with wonderful pearls, I recognised
the lady first known to us as Countess Vera Rossakoff, and afterwards
under a different alias as an agent of the Big Four. Poirot, for some
reason or other, had always had a sneaking fondness for the countess.
Something in her very flamboyance attracted the little man. She was, he
was wont to declare in moments of enthusiasm, a woman in a thousand.
That she was arrayed against us, on the side of our bitterest enemies,
never seemed to weigh in his judgment. "Ah, do not pass on!" said the
countess. "I have something most important to say to you. And do not
try to have me arrested either, for that would be stupid. You were
always a little stupid--yes, yes, it is so. You are stupid now, when
you persist in disregarding the warning we sent you. It is the second
warning I bring you. Leave England at once. You can do no good here--I
tell you that frankly. You will never accomplish anything."
"In that case," I said stiffly, "it seems rather extraordinary that you
are all so anxious to get me out of the country."
The countess shrugged her shoulders--magnificent shoulders, and a
magnificent gesture.
"For my part, I think that, too, stupid. I would leave you here to play
about happily. But the chiefs, you see, are fearful that some word of
yours may give great help to those more intelligent than yourself.
Hence--you are to be banished."
The countess appeared to have a flattering idea of my abilities. I
concealed my annoyance. Doubtless this attitude of hers was assumed
expressly to annoy me and to give me the idea that I was unimportant.
"It would, of course, be quite easy to--remove you," she continued,
"but I am quite sentimental sometimes. I pleaded for you. You have a
nice little wife somewhere, have you not? And it would please the poor
little man who is dead to know that you were not to be killed. I always
liked him, you know. He was clever--but clever! Had it not been a case
of four against one I honestly believe he might have been too much for
us. I confess it frankly--he was my master! I sent a wreath to the
funeral as a token of my admiration--an enormous one of crimson roses.
Crimson roses express my temperament."
I listened in silence and a growing distaste.
"You have the look of a mule when it puts its ears back and kicks.
Well, I have delivered my warning. Remember this, the third warning
will come by the hand of the Destroyer--"
She made a sign, and the car whirled away rapidly. I noted the number
mechanically, but without the hope that it would lead to anything. The
Big Four were not apt to be careless in details.
I went home a little sobered. One fact had emerged from the countess's
flood of volubility. I was in real danger of my life. Though I had no
intention of abandoning the struggle, I saw that it behoved me to walk
warily and adopt every possible precaution.
Whilst I was reviewing all these facts and seeking for the best line of
action, the telephone bell rang. I crossed the room and picked up the
receiver.
"Yes. Hallo. Who's speaking?"
A crisp voice answered me.
"This is St. Giles' Hospital. We have a Chinaman here, knifed in the
street and brought in. He can't last long. We rang you up because we
found in his pocket a piece of paper with your name and address on it."
I was very much astonished. Nevertheless, after a moment's reflection I
said that I would come down at once. St. Giles' Hospital was, I knew,
down by the docks, and it occurred to me that the Chinaman might have
just come off some ship.
It was on my way down there that a sudden suspicion shot into my mind.
Was the whole thing a trap? Wherever a Chinaman was, there might be the
hand of Li Chang Yen. I remembered the adventure of the Baited Trap.
Was the whole thing a ruse on the part of my enemies?
A little reflection convinced me that at any rate a visit to the
hospital would do no harm. It was probable that the thing was not so
much a plot as what is vulgarly known as a "plant." The dying Chinaman
would make some revelation to me upon which I should act, and which
would have the result of leading me into the hands of the Big Four. The
thing to do was to preserve an open mind, and whilst feigning credulity
be secretly on my guard.
On arriving at St. Giles' Hospital, and making my business known, I
was taken at once to the accident ward, to the bedside of the man in
question. He lay absolutely still, his eyelids closed, and only a very
faint movement of the chest showed that he still breathed. A doctor
stood by the bed, his fingers on the Chinaman's pulse.
"He's almost gone," he whispered to me. "You know him, eh?"
I shook my head.
"I've never seen him before."
"Then what was he doing with your name and address in his pocket? You
are Captain Hastings, aren't you?"
"Yes, but I can't explain it any more than you can."
"Curious thing. From his papers he seems to have been the servant of a
man called Ingles--a retired Civil Servant. Ah, you know him, do you?"
he added quickly, as I started at the name.
Ingles's servant! Then I _had_ seen him before. Not that I had
ever succeeded in being able to distinguish one Chinaman from another.
He must have been with Ingles on his way to China, and after the
catastrophe he had returned to England with a message, possibly, for
me. It was vital, imperative that I should hear that message.
"Is he conscious?" I asked. "Can he speak? Mr. Ingles was an old friend
of mine, and I think it possible that this poor fellow has brought me a
message from him. Mr. Ingles is believed to have gone overboard about
ten days ago."
"He's just conscious, but I doubt if he has the force to speak. He lost
a terrible lot of blood, you know. I can administer a stimulant, of
course, but we've already done all that is possible in that direction."
Nevertheless, he administered a hypodermic injection, and I stayed by
the bed, hoping against hope for a word--a sign--that might be of the
utmost value to me in my work. But the minutes sped on and no sign
came.
And suddenly a baleful idea shot across my mind? Was I not already
falling into the trap? Suppose that this Chinaman had merely assumed
the part of Ingles's servant, that he was in reality an agent of the
Big Four? Had I not once read that certain Chinese priests were capable
of simulating death? Or, to go further still, Li Chang Yen might
command a little band of fanatics who would welcome death itself if it
came at the command of their master. I must be on my guard.
Even as these thoughts flashed across my mind, the man in the bed