“Climb down?”
“Yes, we must get out of this house at once. You saw him at dinner?”
“The doctor?”
“No, young Templeton. His trick with his bread. Do you remember what Flossie Monro told us before she died? That Claud Darrell had a habit of dabbing his bread on the table to pick up crumbs. Hastings, this is a vast plot, and that vacant-looking young man is our archenemy—Number Four! Hurry.”
I did not wait to argue. Incredible as the whole thing seemed it was wiser not to delay. We scrambled down the ivy as quietly as we could and made a beeline for the small town and the railway station. We were just able to catch the last train, the 8:34 which would land us in town about eleven o’clock.
“A plot,” said Poirot thoughtfully. “How many of them were in it, I wonder? I suspect that the whole Templeton family are just so many agents of the Big Four. Did they simply want to decoy us down there? Or was it more subtle than that? Did they intend to play the comedy down there and keep me interested until they had had time to do—what? I wonder now.”
He remained very thoughtful.
Arrived at our lodgings, he restrained me at the door of the sitting room.
“Attention, Hastings. I have my suspicions. Let me enter first.”
He did so, and, to my slight amusement, took the precaution to press on the electric switch with an old galosh. Then he went round the room like a strange cat, cautiously, delicately, on the alert for danger. I watched him for some time, remaining obediently where I had been put by the wall.
“It seems all right, Poirot,” I said impatiently.
“It seems so, mon ami, it seems so. But let us make sure.”
“Rot,” I said. “I shall light the fire, anyway, and have a pipe. I’ve caught you out for once. You had the matches last and you didn’t put them back in the holder as usual—the very thing you’re always cursing me for doing.”
I stretched out my hand. I heard Poirot’s warning cry—saw him leaping towards me—my hand touched the matchbox.
Then—a flash of blue flame—an ear-rending crash—and darkness—
I came to myself to find the familiar face of our old friend Dr. Ridgeway bending over me. An expression of relief passed over his features.
“Keep still,” he said soothingly. “You’re all right. There’s been an accident, you know.”
“Poirot?” I murmured.
“You’re in my digs. Everything’s quite all right.”
A cold fear clutched at my heart. His evasion woke a horrible fear.
“Poirot?” I reiterated. “What of Poirot?”
He saw that I had to know and that further evasions were useless.
“By a miracle you escaped—Poirot—did not!”
A cry burst from my lips.
“Not dead? Not dead?”
Ridgeway bowed his head, his features working with emotion.
With desperate energy I pulled myself to a sitting position.
“Poirot may be dead,” I said weakly. “But his spirit lives on. I will carry on his work! Death to the Big Four!”
Then I fell back, fainting.
Sixteen
THE DYING CHINAMAN
Even now I can hardly bear to write of those days in March.
Poirot—the unique, the inimitable Hercule Poirot—dead! There was a particularly diabolical touch in the disarranged matchbox, which was certain to catch his eye, and which he would hasten to rearrange—and thereby touch off the explosion. That, as a matter of fact, it was I who actually precipitated the catastrophe never ceased to fill me with unavailing remorse. It was, Dr. Ridgeway said, a perfect miracle that I had not been killed, but had escaped with a slight concussion.
Although it had seemed to me as though I regained consciousness almost immediately, it was in reality over twenty-four hours before I came back to life. It was not until the evening of the day following that I was able to stagger feebly into an adjoining room, and view with deep emotion the plain elm coffin which held the remains of one of the most marvellous men this world has ever known.
From the very first moment of regaining consciousness I had had only one purpose in mind—to avenge Poirot’s death, and to hunt down the Big Four remorselessly.
I had thought that Ridgeway would have been of one mind with me about this, but to my surprise the good doctor seemed unaccountably lukewarm.
“Get back to South America,” was his advice, tendered on every occasion. Why attempt the impossible? Put as delicately as possible, his opinion amounted to this: If Poirot, the unique Poirot, had failed, was it likely that I should succeed?
But I was obstinate. Putting aside any question as to whether I had the necessary qualifications for the task (and I may say in passing that I did not entirely agree with his views on this point) I had worked so long with Poirot that I knew his methods by heart, and felt fully capable of taking up the work where he had laid it down; it was, with me, a question of feeling. My friend had been foully murdered. 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.”
To that only one answer was possible, and, shaking his head sadly, he said no more.
It was a month before I was fully restored to health. Towards the end of April, I sought, and obtained, an interview with the Home Secretary.
Mr. Crowther’s manner was reminiscent of that of Dr. Ridgeway. It was soothing and negative. Whilst appreciating the offer of my services, he gently and considerately declined them. The papers referred to by Poirot had passed into his keeping, and he assured me that all possible steps were being taken to deal with the approaching menace.
With that cold comfort I was forced to be satisfied. Mr. Crowther ended the interview by urging me to return to South America. I found the whole thing profoundly unsatisfactory.
I should, I suppose, in its proper place, have described Poirot’s funeral. It was a solemn and moving ceremony, and the extraordinary number of floral tributes passed belief. They came from high and low alike, and bore striking testimony to the place my friend had made for himself in the country of his adoption. For myself, I was frankly overcome by emotion as I stood by the graveside and thought of all our 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 to 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 d
eliberately 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.”