The Big Four Read online

  With a sigh of relief we went up to the rooms. Poirot crossed the outer one and went through to the inner one. Then he called me, his voice strangely agitated.

  “Hastings, he’s dead.”

  I came running to join him. The man was lying as we had left him, but he was dead, and had been dead some time. I rushed out for a doctor. Ridgeway, I knew, would not have returned yet. I found one almost immediately, and brought him back with me.

  “He’s dead right enough, poor chap. Tramp you’ve been befriending, eh?”

  “Something of the kind,” said Poirot evasively. “What was the cause of death, doctor?”

  “Hard to say. Might have been some kind of fit. There are signs of asphyxiation. No gas laid on, is there?”

  “No, electric light—nothing else.”

  “And both windows wide open, too. Been dead about two hours, I should say. You’ll notify the proper people, won’t you?”

  He took his departure. Poirot did some necessary telephoning. Finally, somewhat to my surprise, he rang up our old friend Inspector Japp, and asked him if he could possibly come round.

  No sooner were these proceedings completed than Mrs. Pearson appeared, her eyes as round as saucers.

  “There’s a man here from ’Anwell—from the ’Sylum. Did you ever? Shall I show him up?”

  We signified assent, and a big burly man in uniform was ushered in.

  “’Morning, gentlemen,” he said cheerfully. “I’ve got reason to believe you’ve got one of my birds here. Escaped last night, he did.”

  “He was here,” said Poirot quietly.

  “Not got away again, has he?” asked the keeper, with some concern.

  “He is dead.”

  The man looked more relieved than otherwise.

  “You don’t say so. Well, I dare say it’s best for all parties.”

  “Was he—dangerous?”

  “’Omicidal, d’you mean? Oh, no. ’Armless enough. Persecution mania very acute. Full of secret societies from China that had got him shut up. They’re all the same.”

  I shuddered.

  “How long has he been shut up?” asked Poirot.

  “A matter of two years now.”

  “I see,” said Poirot quietly. “It never occurred to anybody that he might—be sane?”

  The keeper permitted himself to laugh.

  “If he was sane, what would he be doing in a lunatic asylum? They all say they’re sane, you know.”

  Poirot said no more. He took the man in to see the body. The identification came immediately.

  “That’s him—right enough,” said the keeper callously: “funny sort of bloke, ain’t he? Well, gentlemen, I had best go off now and make arrangements under the circumstances. We won’t trouble you with the corpse much longer. If there’s a hinquest, you will have to appear at it, I dare say. Good morning, sir.”

  With a rather uncouth bow he shambled out of the room.

  A few minutes later Japp arrived. The Scotland Yard inspector was jaunty and dapper as usual.

  “Here I am, Moosior Poirot. What can I do for you? Thought you were off to the coral strands of somewhere or other today?”

  “My good Japp, I want to know if you have ever seen this man before.”

  He led Japp into the bedroom. The inspector stared down at the figure on the bed with a puzzled face.

  “Let me see now—he seems sort of familiar—and I pride myself on my memory, too. Why, God bless my soul, it’s Mayerling!”

  “Secret Service chap—not one of our people. Went to Russia five years ago. Never heard of again. Always thought the Bolshies had done him in.”

  “It all fits in,” said Poirot, when Japp had taken his leave, “except for the fact that he seems to have died a natural death.”

  He stood looking down on the motionless figure with a dissatisfied frown. A puff of wind set the window curtains flying out, and he looked up sharply.

  “I suppose you opened the windows when you laid him down on the bed, Hastings?”

  “No, I didn’t,” I replied. “As far as I remember, they were shut.”

  Poirot lifted his head suddenly.

  “Shut—and now they are open. What can that mean?”

  “Somebody came in that way,” I suggested.

  “Possibly,” agreed Poirot, but he spoke absently and without conviction. After a minute or two he said:

  “That is not exactly the point I had in mind, Hastings. If only one window was open it would not intrigue me so much. It is both windows being open that strikes me as curious.”

  He hurried into the other room.

  “The sitting-room window is open, too. That also we left shut. Ah!”

  He bent over the dead man, examining the corners of the mouth minutely. Then he looked up suddenly.

  “He has been gagged, Hastings. Gagged and then poisoned.”

  “Good heavens!” I exclaimed, shocked. “I suppose we shall find out all about it from the postmortem.”

  “We shall find out nothing. He was killed by inhaling strong prussic acid. It was jammed right under his nose. Then the murderer went away again, first opening all the windows. Hydrocyanic acid is exceedingly volatile, but it has a pronounced smell of bitter almonds. With no trace of the smell to guide them, and no suspicion of foul play, death would be put down to some natural cause by the doctors. So this man was in the Secret Service, Hastings. And five years ago he disappeared in Russia.”

  “The last two years he’s been in the asylum,” I said. “But what of the three years before that?”

  Poirot shook his head, and then caught my arm.

  “The clock, Hastings, look at the clock.”

  I followed his gaze to the mantelpiece. The clock had stopped at four o’clock.

  “Mon ami, someone 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 grey 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 today? 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!”

  Three

  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 anyone 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 be typically egotistical, but I forebore 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 maybe, 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 in hand, but although he spent most of his time in the flat I could get little out of him. He remained buried in an armchair, 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? Hasley 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 anyone 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 worldwide 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 civilization. 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 far-fetched? How would a Chinaman cut any ice in Russia?”

  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 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 today, 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 today. 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 Peking. But he pulls strings—that’s it, pulls strings—and things happen far away.”

  “And there is 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 Peking, 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, realized that he had been carried away, for he laughed apologetically.

  “But, of course,” he said, “I have no proofs, and you, like the others, will merely tell me that I have a bee in my bonnet.”

  “On the contrary,” said Poirot quietly, “we have every reason to believe your story. We ourselves are more than a little interested in Li Chang Yen.”

  “Very odd your knowing about him. Didn’t fancy a soul in England had ever heard of him. I’d rather like to know how you did come to hear of him—if it’s not indiscreet.”

  “Not in the least, monsieur. A man took refuge in my rooms. He was suffering badly from shock, but he managed to tell us enough to interest us in this Li Chang Yen. He described four people—the Big Four—an organisation hitherto undreamed of. Number One is Li Chang Yen, Number Two is an unknown American, Number Three an equally unknown Frenchwoman, Number Four may be called the executive of the organization—the destroyer. My informant died. Tell me, monsieur, is that phrase known to you at all? The Big Four.”