The Big Four
stirred. His eyes opened. He murmured something incoherently. Then I
saw his glance fasten upon me. He made no sign of recognition, but I
was at once aware that he was trying to speak to me. Be he friend or
foe, I must hear what he had to say.
I leaned over the bed, but the broken sounds conveyed no sort of
meaning to me. I thought I caught the word "hand," but in what
connection it was used I could not tell. Then it came again, and this
time I heard another word, the word "Largo." I stared in amazement, as
the possible juxtaposition of the two suggested itself to me.
"Handel's Largo?" I queried.
The Chinaman's eyelids flickered rapidly, as though in assent, and he
added another Italian word, the word "_carrozza_." Two or three
more words of murmured Italian came to my ears, and then he fell back
abruptly.
The doctor pushed me aside. It was all over. The man was dead.
I went out into the air again thoroughly bewildered.
"Handel's Largo," and a "_carrozza_." If I remembered rightly, a
_carrozza_ was a carriage. What possible meaning could lie behind
those simple words. The man was a Chinaman, not an Italian, why should
he speak in Italian? Surely, if he were indeed Ingles's servant, he
must know English? The whole thing was profoundly mystifying. I puzzled
over it all the way home. Oh, if only Poirot had been there to solve
the problem with his lightning ingenuity!
I let myself in with my latch-key and went slowly up to my room. A
letter was lying on the table, and I tore it open carelessly enough.
But in a minute I stood rooted to the ground whilst I read.
It was a communication from a firm of solicitors.
"DEAR SIR (it ran),--As instructed by our late client, M.
Hercule Poirot, we forward you the enclosed letter. This letter was
placed in our hands a week before his death, with instructions that
in the event of his demise, it should be sent to you at a certain
date after his death.
"Yours faithfully, etc."
I turned the enclosed missive over and over. It was undoubtedly from
Poirot. I knew that familiar writing only too well. With a heavy heart,
yet a certain eagerness, I tore it open.
"MON CHER AMI (it began),--When you receive this I shall be
no more. Do not shed tears about me, but follow my orders.
Immediately upon receipt of this, return to South America. Do
not be pig-headed about this. It is not for sentimental reasons
that I bid you undertake the journey. _It is necessary._ It is
part of the plan of Hercule Poirot! To say more is unnecessary,
to any one who has the acute intelligence of my friend Hastings.
"_A bas_ the Big Four! I salute you, my friend, from beyond the
grave.
"Ever thine,
"HERCULE POIROT."
I read and re-read this astonishing communication. One thing was
evident. This amazing man had so provided for every eventuality that
even his own death did not upset the sequence of his plans! Mine was
to be the active part--his the directing genius. Doubtless I should
find full instructions awaiting me beyond the seas. In the meantime my
enemies, convinced that I was obeying their warning, would cease to
trouble their heads about me. I could return, unsuspected, and work
havoc in their midst.
There was now nothing to hinder my immediate departure. I sent off
cables, booked my passage, and one week later found me embarking in
the _Ansonia_ en route for Buenos Ayres.
Just as the boat left the quay, a steward brought me a note. It had
been given him, so he explained, by a big gentleman in a fur coat who
had left the boat last thing before the gangway planks were lifted.
I opened it. It was terse and to the point.
"You are wise," it ran. It was signed with a big figure 4.
I could afford to smile to myself!
The sea was not too choppy. I enjoyed a passable dinner, made up my
mind as to the majority of my fellow passengers, and had a rubber or
two of Bridge. Then I turned in and slept like a log as I always do on
board ship.
I was awakened by feeling myself persistently shaken. Dazed and
bewildered, I saw that one of the ship's officers was standing over me.
He gave a sigh of relief as I sat up.
"Thank the Lord I've got you awake at last. I've had no end of a job.
Do you always sleep like that?"
"What's the matter?" I asked, still bewildered and not fully awake. "Is
there anything wrong with the ship?"
"I expect you know what's the matter better than I do," he replied
dryly. "Special instructions from the Admiralty. There's a destroyer
waiting to take you off."
"What?" I cried. "In mid-ocean?"
"It seems a most mysterious affair, but that's not my business. They've
sent a young fellow aboard who is to take your place, and we are all
sworn to secrecy. Will you get up and dress?"
Utterly unable to conceal my amazement I did as I was told. A boat
was lowered, and I was conveyed aboard the destroyer. There I was
received courteously, but got no further information. The commander's
instructions were to land me at a certain spot on the Belgian coast.
There his knowledge and responsibility ended.
The whole thing was like a dream. The one idea I held to firmly was
that all this must be part of Poirot's plan. I must simply go forward
blindly, trusting in my dead friend.
I was duly landed at the spot indicated. There a motor was waiting,
and soon I was rapidly whirling along across the flat Flemish plains.
I slept that night at a small hotel in Brussels. The next day we went
on again. The country became wooded and hilly. I realised that we were
penetrating into the Ardennes, and I suddenly remembered Poirot's
saying that he had a brother who lived at Spa.
But we did not go to Spa itself. We left the main road and wound into
the leafy fastnesses of the hills, till we reached a little hamlet, and
an isolated white villa high on the hill-side. Here the car stopped in
front of the green door of the villa.
The door opened as I alighted. An elderly man-servant stood in the
doorway bowing.
"M. le Capitaine Hastings?" he said in French. "Monsieur le Capitaine
is expected. If he will follow me."
He led the way across the hall, and flung open a door at the back,
standing aside to let me pass in.
I blinked a little, for the room faced west and the afternoon sun
was pouring in. Then my vision cleared and I saw a figure waiting to
welcome me with outstretched hands.
It was--oh, impossible, it couldn't be--but yes!
"Poirot!" I cried, and for once did not attempt to evade the embrace
with which he overwhelmed me.
"But yes, but yes, it is indeed I! Not so easy to kill Hercule Poirot!"
"But Poirot--_why_?"
"A _ruse de guerre_, my friend, a _ruse de guerre_. All is
now ready for our grand coup."
"But you might have told _me_!"
"No, Hastings, I could not. Never, never, in a thousand years, could
you have acted the part at the funeral. As it was, it was perfect. It
could not fail to carry conviction to the Big Four."
"But what I've been through--"
"Do not think me too unfeeling. I carried out the deception partly for
your sake. I was willing to risk my own life, but I had qualms about
continually risking yours. So, after the explosion, I have an idea of
great brilliancy. The good Ridgeway, he enables me to carry it out. I
am dead, you will return to South America. But, _mon ami_, that is
just what you would not do. In the end I have to arrange a solicitor's
letter, and a long rigmarole. But, at all events, here you are--that
is the great thing. And now we lie here--_perdu_--till the moment
comes for the last grand coup--the final overthrowing of the Big Four."
17. NUMBER FOUR WINS A TRICK
From our quiet retreat in the Ardennes we watched the progress
of affairs in the great world. We were plentifully supplied with
newspapers, and every day Poirot received a bulky envelope, evidently
containing some kind of report. He never showed these reports to me,
but I could usually tell from his manner whether its contents had been
satisfactory or otherwise. He never wavered in his belief that our
present plan was the only one likely to be crowned by success.
"As a minor point, Hastings," he remarked one day, "I was in continual
fear of your death lying at my door. And that rendered me nervous--like
a cat upon the jumps, as you say. But now I am well satisfied. Even if
they discover that the Captain Hastings who landed in South America is
an imposter (and I do not think they will discover it, they are not
likely to send an agent out there who knows you personally), they will
only believe that you are trying to circumvent them in some clever
manner of your own, and will pay no serious attention to discovering
your whereabouts. Of the one vital fact, my supposed death, they are
thoroughly convinced. They will go ahead and mature their plans."
"And then?" I asked eagerly.
"And then, _mon ami_, grand resurrection of Hercule Poirot! At the
eleventh hour I reappear, throw all into confusion, and achieve the
supreme victory in my own unique manner!"
I realised that Poirot's vanity was of the case-hardened variety which
could withstand all attacks. I reminded him that once or twice the
honours of the game had lain with our adversaries. But I might have
known that it was impossible to diminish Hercule Poirot's enthusiasm
for his own methods.
"See you, Hastings, it is like the little trick that you play with the
cards. You have seen it without doubt? You take the four knaves, you
divide them, one on top of the pack, one underneath, and so on--you
cut and you shuffle, and there they are all together again. That is my
object. So far I have been contending, now against one of the Big Four,
now against another. But let me get them all together, like the four
knaves in the pack of cards, and then, with one coup, I destroy them
all!"
"And how do you propose to get them all together?" I asked.
"By awaiting the supreme moment. By lying _perdu_ until they are
ready to strike."
"That may mean a long wait," I grumbled.
"Always impatient, the good Hastings! But no, it will not be so long.
The one man they were afraid of--myself--is out of the way. I give them
two or three months at most."
His speaking of some one being got out of the way reminded me of Ingles
and his tragic death, and I remembered that I had never told Poirot
about the dying Chinaman in St. Giles' Hospital.
He listened with keen attention to my story.
"Ingles's servant, eh? And the few words he uttered were in Italian?
Curious."
"That's why I suspected it might have been a plant on the part of the
Big Four."
"Your reasoning is at fault, Hastings. Employ the little gray cells. If
your enemies wished to deceive you they would assuredly have seen to it
that the Chinaman spoke in intelligible pigeon English. No, the message
was genuine. Tell me again all that you heard?"
"First of all he made a reference to Handel's Largo, and then he said
something that sounded like '_carrozzo_'--that's a carriage, isn't
it?"
"Nothing else?"
"Well, just at the end he murmured something like 'Cara' somebody or
other--some woman's name. Zia, I think. But I don't suppose that that
had any bearing on the rest of it."
"You would not suppose so, Hastings. Cara Zia is very important, very
important indeed."
"I don't see--"
"My dear friend, you _never_ see--and anyway the English know no
geography."
"Geography?" I cried. "What has geography got to do with it?"
"I dare say M. Thomas Cook would be more to the point."
As usual, Poirot refused to say anything more--a most irritating trick