The Big Four
"The clock, Hastings, look at the clock."
I followed his gaze to the mantelpiece. The clock had stopped at four
o'clock.
"_Mon ami_, some one has tampered with it. It had still three days
to run. It is an eight-day clock, you comprehend?"
"But what should they want to do that for? Some idea of a false scent
by making the crime appear to have taken place at four o'clock?"
"No, no; rearrange your ideas, mon ami. Exercise your little gray
cells. You are Mayerling. You hear something, perhaps--and you know
well enough that your doom is sealed. You have just time to leave a
sign. _Four_ o'clock, Hastings. Number Four, the _destroyer_.
Ah! an idea!"
He rushed into the other room and seized the telephone. He asked for
Hanwell.
"You are the Asylum, yes? I understand there has been an escape to-day?
What is that you say? A little moment, if you please. Will you repeat
that? Ah! _parfaitement_."
He hung up the receiver, and turned to me.
"You heard, Hastings? _There has been no escape._"
"But the man who came--the keeper?" I said.
"I wonder--I very much wonder."
"You mean--?"
"Number Four--the destroyer."
I gazed at Poirot dumbfounded. A minute or two after, on recovering my
voice, I said:--
"We shall know him again, anywhere, that's one thing. He was a man of
very pronounced personality."
"Was he, _mon ami_? I think not. He was burly and bluff and
red-faced, with a thick moustache and a hoarse voice. He will
be none of those things by this time, and for the rest, he has
nondescript eyes, nondescript ears, and a perfect set of false teeth.
Identification is not such an easy matter as you seem to think. Next
time--"
"You think there will be a next time?" I interrupted.
Poirot's face grew very grave.
"It is a duel to the death, _mon ami_. You and I on the one side,
the Big Four on the other. They have won the first trick; but they have
failed in their plan to get me out of the way, and in the future they
have to reckon with Hercule Poirot!"
3. WE HEAR MORE ABOUT LI CHANG YEN
For a day or two after our visit from the fake Asylum attendant I was
in some hopes that he might return, and I refused to leave the flat
even for a moment. As far as I could see, he had no reason to suspect
that we had penetrated his disguise. He might, I thought, return and
try to remove the body, but Poirot scoffed at my reasoning.
"_Mon ami_," he said, "if you wish you may wait in to put salt on
the little bird's tail, but for me I do not waste my time so."
"Well then, Poirot," I argued, "why did he run the risk of coming
at all. If he intended to return later for the body, I can see some
point in his visit. He would at least be removing the evidence against
himself; as it is, he does not seem to have gained anything."
Poirot shrugged his most Gallic shrug. "But you do not see with the
eyes of Number Four, Hastings," he said. "You talk of evidence, but
what evidence have we against him? True, we have a body, but we have
no proof even that the man was murdered--prussic acid, when inhaled,
leaves no trace. Again, we can find no one who saw any one enter the
flat during our absence, and we have found out nothing about the
movements of our late friend, Mayerling....
"No, Hastings, Number Four has left no trace, and he knows it. His
visit we may call a reconnaissance. Perhaps he wanted to make quite
sure that Mayerling was dead, but more likely, I think, he came to see
Hercule Poirot, and to have speech with the adversary whom alone he
must fear."
Poirot's reasoning appeared to me typically egotistical, but I forbore
to argue.
"And what about the inquest?" I asked. "I suppose you will explain
things clearly there, and let the police have a full description of
Number Four."
"And to what end? Can we produce anything to impress a coroner's jury
of your solid Britishers? Is our description of Number Four of any
value? No; we shall allow them to call it 'Accidental Death,' and may
be, although I have not much hope, our clever murderer will pat himself
on the back that he deceived Hercule Poirot in the first round."
Poirot was right as usual. We saw no more of the man from the asylum,
and the inquest, at which I gave evidence, but which Poirot did not
even attend, aroused no public interest.
As, in view of his intended trip to South America, Poirot had wound up
his affairs before my arrival, he had at this time no cases on hand,
but although he spent most of his time in the flat I could get little
out of him. He remained buried in an arm-chair, and discouraged my
attempts at conversation.
And then one morning, about a week after the murder, he asked me if
I would care to accompany him on a visit he wished to make. I was
pleased, for I felt he was making a mistake in trying to work things
out so entirely on his own, and I wished to discuss the case with him.
But I found he was not communicative. Even when I asked where we were
going, he would not answer.
Poirot loves being mysterious. He will never part with a piece
of information until the last possible moment. In this instance,
having taken successively a 'bus and two trains, and arrived in the
neighbourhood of one of London's most depressing southern suburbs, he
consented at last to explain matters.
"We go, Hastings, to see the one man in England who knows most of the
underground life of China."
"Indeed! Who is he?"
"A man you have never heard of--a Mr. John Ingles. To all intents and
purposes, he is a retired Civil Servant of mediocre intellect, with
a house full of Chinese curios with which he bores his friends and
acquaintances. Nevertheless, I am assured by those who should know that
the only man capable of giving me the information I seek is this same
John Ingles."
A few moments more saw us ascending the steps of The Laurels, as Mr.
Ingles's residence was called. Personally, I did not notice a laurel
bush of any kind, so deduced that it had been named according to the
usual obscure nomenclature of the suburbs.
We were admitted by an impassive-faced Chinese servant and ushered
into the presence of his master. Mr. Ingles was a squarely-built man,
somewhat yellow of countenance, with deep-set eyes that were oddly
reflective in character. He rose to greet us, setting aside an open
letter which he had held in his hand. He referred to it after his
greeting.
"Sit down, won't you? Halsey tells me that you want some information
and that I may be useful to you in the matter."
"That is so, monsieur. I ask of you if you have any knowledge of a man
named Li Chang Yen?"
"That's rum--very rum indeed. How did you come to hear about the man?"
"You know him, then?"
"I've met him once. And I know something of him--not quite as much as I
should like to. But it surprises me that any one else in England should
even have heard of him. He's a great man in his way--mandarin class and
all that, you know--but that's not the crux of the matter. There's good
reason to suppose that he's the man behind it all."
"Behind what?"
"Everything. The world-wide unrest, the labour troubles that beset
every nation, and the revolutions that break out in some. There are
people, not scaremongers, who know what they are talking about, and
they say that there is a force behind the scenes which aims at nothing
less than the disintegration of civilisation. In Russia, you know,
there were many signs that Lenin and Trotsky were mere puppets whose
every action was dictated by another's brain. I have no definite proof
that would count with you, but I am quite convinced that this brain
was Li Chang Yen's."
"Oh, come," I protested, "isn't that a bit farfetched? How would a
Chinaman cut any ice in Russia?"
Poirot frowned at me irritably.
"For you, Hastings," he said, "everything is farfetched that comes not
from your own imagination; for me, I agree with this gentleman. But
continue, I pray, monsieur."
"What exactly he hopes to get out of it all I cannot pretend to say
for certain," went on Mr. Ingles; "but I assume his disease is one
that has attacked great brains from the time of Akbar and Alexander to
Napoleon--a lust for power and personal supremacy. Up to modern times
armed force was necessary for conquest, but in this century of unrest
a man like Li Chang Yen can use other means. I have evidence that he
has unlimited money behind him for bribery and propaganda, and there
are signs that he controls some scientific force more powerful than the
world has dreamed of."
Poirot was following Mr. Ingles's words with the closest attention.
"And in China?" he asked. "He moves there too?"
The other nodded in emphatic assent.
"There," he said, "although I can produce no proof that would count in
a court of law, I speak from my own knowledge. I know personally every
man who counts for anything in China to-day, and this I can tell you:
the men who loom most largely in the public eye are men of little or
no personality. They are marionettes who dance to the wires pulled by
a master hand, and that hand is Li Chang Yen's. His is the controlling
brain of the East to-day. We don't understand the East--we never shall;
but Li Chang Yen is its moving spirit. Not that he comes out into the
limelight--oh, not at all; he never moves from his palace in Pekin. But
he pulls strings--that's it, pulls strings--and things happen far away."
"And is there no one to oppose him?" asked Poirot.
Mr. Ingles leant forward in his chair.
"Four men have tried in the last four years," he said slowly; "men of
character, and honesty, and brain power. Any one of them might in time
have interfered with his plans." He paused.
"Well?" I queried.
"Well, they are dead. One wrote an article, and mentioned Li Chang
Yen's name in connection with the riots in Pekin, and within two days
he was stabbed in the street. His murderer was never caught. The
offences of the other two were similar. In a speech or an article,
or in conversation, each linked Li Chang Yen's name with rioting or
revolution, and within a week of his indiscretion each was dead. One
was poisoned; one died of cholera, an isolated case--not part of an
epidemic; and one was found dead in his bed. The cause of the last
death was never determined, but I was told by a doctor who saw the
corpse that it was burnt and shrivelled as though a wave of electrical
energy of incredible power had passed through it."
"And Li Chang Yen?" inquired Poirot. "Naturally nothing is traced to
him, but there are signs, eh?"
Mr. Ingles shrugged.
"Oh, signs--yes, certainly. And once I found a man who would talk, a
brilliant young Chinese chemist who was a protégé of Li Chang Yen's.
He came to me one day, this chemist, and I could see that he was on
the verge of a nervous breakdown. He hinted to me of experiments on
which he'd been engaged in Li Chang Yen's palace under the mandarin's
direction--experiments on coolies in which the most revolting disregard
for human life and suffering had been shown. His nerve had completely
broken, and he was in the most pitiable state of terror. I put him to
bed in a top room of my own house, intending to question him the next
day--and that, of course, was stupid of me."
"How did they get him?" demanded Poirot.
"That I shall never know. I woke that night to find my house in flames,
and was lucky to escape with my life. Investigation showed that a fire
of amazing intensity had broken out on the top floor, and the remains
of my young chemist friend were charred to a cinder."
I could see from the earnestness with which he had been speaking that
Mr. Ingles was a man mounted on his hobby horse, and evidently he, too,
realised that he had been carried away, for he laughed apologetically.