Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie

“ Poirot wrinkled his forehead.
"Certainement, Hastings,” he said, “there were other ways, but none so convincing. Besides, you are assuming that to kill a man is a thing to avoid, are you not? Number Four’s mind, it does not act that way. I put myself in his place, a thing impossible for you. I picture his thoughts. He enjoys himself as the professor at that match. I doubt not he has visited the chess tourneys to study his part. He sits and frowns in thought; he gives the impression that he is thinking great plans, and all the time he laughs in himself. ”

“ Was I to go tamely back to South America without an effort to bring his murderers to justice?
I said all this and more to Ridgeway, who listened attentively enough.
“All the same,” he said when I had finished, “my advice does not vary. I am earnestly convinced that Poirot himself, if he were here, would urge you to return. In his name, I beg of you, Hastings, abandon these wild ideas and go back to your ranch.” ”

“ It is not only Number Four who can act a part. Belladona in the eyes, the sacrifice of the moustaches, and a real scar the inflicting of which caused me much pain two months ago—but I could not risk a fake beneath the eagle eyes of Number Four. And the final touch, your own knowledge and belief that there was such a person as Achille Poirot! It was invaluable, the assistance you rendered me, half the success of the coup is due to you! The whole crux of the affair was to make them believe that Hercule Poirot was still at large directing operations. ”

“ See you, Hastings, we have to contend against four adversaries that is against four different personalities. With Number One we have never come into personal contact—we know him, as it were, only by the impress of his mind—and in passing, Hastings, I will tell you that I begin to understand that mind very well—a mind most subtle and Oriental—every scheme and plot that we have encountered have emanated from the brain of Li Chang Yen. Number Two and Number Three are so powerful, so high up, that they are for the present immune from our attacks. ”

“ Number Four leapt forward, his voice harsh and menacing.
“Succeeded, has it?” he snarled. “Do you realise that before many minutes have passed you will be dead—dead?”
“Yes,” said Achille Poirot gravely. “I realise that. It is you who do not realise that a man may be willing to purchase success by his life. There were men who laid down their life for their country in the war. I am prepared to lay down mine in the same way for the world.” ”

“ The Inspector paused triumphantly.
“What do you think of that, gentlemen?”
“I think,” said Poirot, “that it appears a clear case—of a surprising clearness, in fact. This Biggs, or Grant, he must be a man very very foolish and uneducated, eh?”
“Oh, he is that—a rough, common sort of follow. No idea of what a footprint may mean.”
“Clearly he reads not the detective fiction! Well, Inspector, I congratulate you. We may look at the scene of the crime. Yes?”
“I’ll take you there myself this minute. I’d like you to see those footprints.” ”

“ The countess suddenly dropped her jesting manner. She spoke with passionate bitterness.
“Fool! My heart’s desire! Can you give me revenge upon my enemies? Can you give me back youth and beauty and a gay heart? Can you bring the dead to life again?”
Achille Poirot was watching her very curiously.
“Which of the three, Madame? Make your choice.”
She laughed sardonically.
“You will sell me the Elixir of Life, perhaps? Come, I will make a bargain with you. Once, I had a child. Find my child for me—and you shall go free.”
“Madame, I agree. It is a bargain. Your child shall be restored to you. ”

“ This explains all—the ease with which they surrendered Halliday—everything. Madame Olivier was the ruling spirit—Vera Rossakoff only her lieutenant. Madame needed Halliday’s ideas—she herself had the necessary genius to supply the gaps that perplexed him. Yes, Hastings, we know now who Number Three is—the woman who is probably the greatest scientist in the world! Think of it. The brain of the East, the science of the West—and two others whose identities we do not yet know. ”

“ You may smile, Hastings—but to penetrate a man’s personality, to know exactly what he will do under any given circumstances—that is the beginning of success. It is a duel between us, and whilst he is constantly giving away his mentality to me, I endeavour to let him know little or nothing of mine. He is in the light, I in the shade. I tell you, Hastings, that every day they fear me the more for my chosen inactivity.”
“They’ve let us alone, anyway,” I observed. “There have been no more attempts on your life, and no ambushes of any kind.”
“No,” said Poirot thoughtfully. ”

“ She knows nothing, and she can be no possible use to you. You've used her to get hold of me—you've got me all right, and that settles it.”
The smiling Oriental caressed his smooth cheek, watching me obliquely out of his narrow eyes.
“You go too fast,” he said purringly. “That does not quite—settle it. In fact, to ‘get hold of you’ as you express it, is not really our objective. But through you, we hope to get hold of your friend, M. Hercule Poirot.” ”

“ Poirot. You're a gentleman. You know how to order a lunch for a lady—which is more than some of these young whippersnappers do nowadays. Downright mean, I call it. As I was saying, you being a Frenchman won't be shocked. Ah, you Frenchmen! Naughty, naughty!" She wagged her finger at him in an excess of archness. “Well, there it was, me and Claudie, two young things—what else could you expect? And I’ve still a kindly feeling for him. Though, mind you, he didn’t treat me well—no, he didn’t—he didn’t treat me well at all. Not as a lady should be treated. ”

“ The American burst out laughing, but broke off at the sight of Poirot’s serious face.
“You laugh, monsieur,” said Poirot, shaking a finger at him. “You reflect not—you use not the little gray cells of the brain. Who are these men who send a portion of your navy to destruction simply as a trial of their power? For that was all it was, Monsieur, a test of this new force of magnetical attraction which they hold.”
“Go on with you, moosior,” said Japp good-humouredly. “I’ve read of super criminals many a time, but I’ve never come across them. Well, you’ve heard Captain Kent’s story. ”

“ I asked Poirot.
“Yes, mon ami. The camera does not lie. One can magnify a photograph, seize salient points that otherwise would remain unnoticed. And then there are a thousand details—such as the structure of the ears, which no one could ever describe to you in words. Oh, yes, it is a great chance, this, which has come our way! That is why I propose to take precautions.”
He went across to the telephone as he finished speaking, and gave a number which I knew to be that of a private detective agency which he sometimes employed. ”

“ Not often in a life-time does a man stand on the edge of eternity, but when I spoke those words in that East End cellar I was perfectly certain that they were my last words on earth. I braced myself for the shock of those black, rushing waters beneath, and experienced in advance the horror of that breath-choking fall.
But to my surprise a low laugh fell on my ears. I opened my eyes. Obeying a sign from the man on the divan, my two jailers brought me back to my old seat facing him.
“You are a brave man, Captain Hastings,” he said. “We of the East appreciate bravery. ”

“ Poirot frowned at me irritably.
“For you, Hastings,” he said, “everything is far-fetched 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 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. ”

“ Ingles left at the same time as we did.
“I am not disappointed with the interview,” said Poirot, as we walked along. “I did not expect to convince Desjardeaux, but I have at least ensured that, if I die, my knowledge does not die with me. And I have made one or two converts. Pas si mal!”
“I’m with you, as you know,” said Ingles. “By the way, I’m going out to China as soon as I can get off.”
“Is that wise?”
“No,” said Ingles dryly. “But it’s necessary. One must do what one can.”
“Ah, you are a brave man!” cried Poirot with emotion. “If we were not in the street, I would embrace you.” ”

“ 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 then 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. ”

“ She does not wish to be seen walking with him. Is it coincidence that she catches up with him just where a narrow alleyway opens, dividing two gardens. She leads him down it. ‘It is shorter this way, monsieur.’ On the right is the garden of Madame Olivier’s villa, on the left the garden of another villa—and from that garden, mark you, the tree fell—so nearly on us. Garden doors from both open on the alley. The ambush is there. Men pour out, overpower him, and carry him into the strange villa.”
“Good gracious, Poirot,” I cried, are you pretending to see all this?” ”

“ 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 think my reasoning rather impressed Poirot. He looked at me with a more respectful attention than he had given me so far.
“He returns late,” I mused, pursuing a hypothetical case. “Sees the light in his uncle’s study, enters, and, finding his plan has failed, thrusts the old man down into the fire.”
“Mr. Paynter, who was a fairly hearty man of fifty-five, would not permit himself to be burnt to death without a struggle, Hastings. Such a reconstruction is not feasible.”
“Well, Poirot,” I cried, “we’re nearly there, I fancy. Let us hear what you think?” ”

“ This brought us straight to the question which I had been waiting for the French premier to ask.
“You say that the third member of this organisation is a Frenchwoman. Have you any idea of her name?”
“It is a well-known name, monsieur. An honoured name. Number Three is no less than the famous Madame Olivier.”
At the mention of the world-famous scientist, successor to the Curies, M. Desjardeaux positively bounded from his chair, his face purple with emotion.
“Madame Olivier! Impossible! Absurd! It is an insult what you say there!”
Poirot shook his head gently, but made no answer. ”

“ Hercule Poirot has fallen into the trap. He approaches now—and alone except for the boy who guides him. Now, Captain Hastings, you have still one more part to play. Unless you show yourself he will not enter the house. ”

“ Poirot was smiling at him.
“Which was it, my good Japp?” he asked; “accident or murder?”
The Inspector seemed a little embarrassed by the question.
“Well, if it weren’t for that curry business, I’d be for accident every time. There’s no sense in holding a live man’s head in the fire—why, he’d scream the house down.”
“Ah!” said Poirot in a low voice. “Fool that I have been. Triple imbecile! You are a cleverer man than I am, Japp.”
Japp was rather taken aback by the compliment—Poirot being usually given to exclusive self praise. ”

“ You love footprints, do you not? See—here they go, a man’s, Mr. Halliday’s. . . . He turns to the right as we did, he walks briskly—ah! other footsteps following behind—very quickly—small footsteps, a woman’s. See, she catches him up—a slim young woman, in a widow’s veil. ‘Pardon, monsieur, Madame Olivier desires that I recall you.’ He stops, he turns. ”

“ Then Poirot led her gently back to the subject of Claud Darrell.
“It is very interesting, all this that you are able to tell us, mademoiselle, about Mr. Darrell. Women are such wonderful observers—they see everything, they notice the little detail that escapes the mere man. I have seen a woman identify one man out of a dozen others—and why, do you think? She had observed that he had a trick of stroking his nose when he was agitated. Now would a man ever have thought of noticing a thing like that?”
“Did you ever!” cried Miss Monro, “I suppose we do notice things. ”

“ His fame had spread, and no longer would he allow one case to absorb all his time. He aimed more and more, as time went on, at being considered a “consulting detective”—as much a specialist as a Harley Street physician. He had always scoffed at the popular idea of the human bloodhound who assumed wonderful disguises to track criminals, and who paused at every footprint to measure it.
“No, my friend Hastings,” he would say; “we leave that to Giraud and his friends. Hercule Poirot’s methods are his own. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Abe Ryland.”
He uttered a curious whistle, and as though by magic, the place was alive with men. They seized Ryland and the valet and disarmed them. After speaking a few words to the officer in charge, Poirot took me by the arm, and led me away.
Once clear of the quarry he embraced me with vigour.
“You are alive—you are unhurt. It is magnificent. Often have I blamed myself for letting you go.” ”