The Big Four (7 page)

Sure enough, just after ten-thirty, Mr. Ryland glanced at the clock, and announced that he was “through.” I took the hint and retired discreetly. I went upstairs as though going to bed, but slipped quietly down a side staircase and let myself out into the garden, having taken the precaution to don a dark overcoat to hide my white shirtfront.

I had gone some way down the garden when I chanced to look over my shoulder. Mr. Ryland was just stepping out from his study window into the garden. He was starting to keep the appointment. I redoubled my pace, so as to get a clear start. I arrived at the quarry somewhat out of breath. There seemed no one about, and I crawled into a thick tangle of bushes and awaited developments.

Ten minutes later, just on the stroke of eleven, Ryland stalked up, his hat over his eyes and the inevitable cigar in his mouth. He gave a quick look round, and then plunged into the hollows of the quarry below. Presently I heard a low murmur of voices come up to me. Evidently the other man—or men—whoever they were, had arrived first at the rendezvous. I crawled cautiously out of the bushes, and inch by inch, using the utmost precaution against noise, I wormed myself down the steep path. Only a boulder now separated me from the talking men. Secure in the blackness, I peeped round the edge of it and found myself facing the muzzle of a black, murderous-looking automatic!

“Hands up!” said Mr. Ryland succinctly. “I've been waiting for you.”

He was seated in the shadow of the rock, so that I could not see
his face, but the menace in his voice was unpleasant. Then I felt a ring of cold steel on the back of my neck, and Ryland lowered his own automatic.

“That's right, George,” he drawled. “March him around here.”

Raging inwardly, I was conducted to a spot in the shadows, where the unseen George (whom I suspected of being the impeccable Deaves) gagged and bound me securely.

Ryland spoke again in a tone which I had difficulty in recognizing, so cold and menacing was it.

“This is going to be the end of you two. You've got in the way of the Big Four once too often. Ever heard of landslides? There was one about here two years ago. There's going to be another tonight. I've fixed that good and square. Say, that friend of yours doesn't keep his dates very punctually.”

A wave of horror swept over me. Poirot! In another minute he would walk straight into the trap. And I was powerless to warn him. I could only pray that he had elected to leave the matter in my hands, and had remained in London. Surely, if he had been coming, he would have been here by now.

With every minute that passed, my hopes rose.

Suddenly they were dashed to pieces. I heard footsteps—cautious footsteps, but footsteps nevertheless. I writhed in impotent agony. They came down the path, paused and then Poirot himself appeared, his head a little on one side, peering into the shadows.

I heard the growl of satisfaction Ryland gave as he raised the big automatic and shouted, “Hands up.” Deaves sprang forward as he did so, and took Poirot in the rear. The ambush was complete.

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Hercule Poirot,” said the American grimly.

Poirot's self-possession was marvellous. He did not turn a hair. But I saw his eyes searching in the shadows.

“My friend? He is here?”

“Yes, you are both in the trap—the trap of the Big Four.”

He laughed.

“A trap?” queried Poirot.

“Say, haven't you tumbled to it yet?”

“I comprehend that there is a trap—yes,” said Poirot gently. “But you are in error, monsieur. It is
you
who are in it—not I and my friend.”

“What?” Ryland raised the big automatic, but I saw his gaze falter.

“If you fire, you commit murder watched by ten pairs of eyes, and you will be hanged for it. This place is surrounded—has been for the last hour—by Scotland Yard men. It is checkmate, Mr. 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.”

“I'm perfectly all right,” I said, disengaging myself. “But I'm just a bit fogged. You tumbled to their little scheme, did you?”

“But I was waiting for it! For what else did I permit you to go there? Your false name, your disguise, not for a moment was it intended to deceive!”

“What?” I cried. “You never told me.”

“As I have frequently told you, Hastings, you have a nature so beautiful and so honest that unless you are yourself deceived, it is impossible for you to deceive others. Good, then, you are spotted from the first, and they do what I had counted on their doing—a mathematical certainty to anyone who uses his grey cells properly—use you as a decoy. They set the girl on—By the way,
mon ami,
as an interesting fact psychologically, had she got red hair?”

“If you mean Miss Martin,” I said coldly. “Her hair is a delicate shade of auburn, but—”

“They are
épatants
—these people! They have even studied your psychology. Oh! yes, my friend, Miss Martin was in the plot—very much so. She repeats the letter to you, together with her tale of Mr. Ryland's wrath, you write it down, you puzzle your brains—the cipher is nicely arranged, difficult, but not too difficult—you solve it, and you send for me.”

“But what they do not know is that I am waiting for just this very thing to happen. I go posthaste to Japp and arrange things. And so, as you see, all is triumph!”

I was not particularly pleased with Poirot, and I told him so. We went back to London on a milk train in the early hours of the morning, and a most uncomfortable journey it was.

I was just out of my bath and indulging in pleasurable thoughts of breakfast when I heard Japp's voice in the sitting room. I threw on a bathrobe and hurried in.

“A pretty mare's nest you've got us into this time,” Japp was saying. “It's too bad of you, M. Poirot. First time I've ever known you take a toss.”

Poirot's face was a study. Japp went on:

“There were we, taking all this Black Hand stuff seriously—and all the time it was the footman.”

“The footman?” I gasped.

“Yes, James, or whatever his name is. Seems he laid 'em a wager in the servants” hall that he could get taken for the old man by his nibs—that's you, Captain Hastings—and would hand him out a lot of spy stuff about a Big Four gang.”

“Impossible!” I cried.

“Don't you believe it. I marched our gentleman straight to Hatton Chase, and there was the real Ryland in bed and asleep, and the butler and the cook and God knows how many of them to swear to the wager. Just a silly hoax—that's all it was—and the valet is with him.”

“So that was why he kept in the shadow,” murmured Poirot.

After Japp had gone we looked at each other.

“We
know,
Hastings,” said Poirot at last. “Number Two of the Big Four is Abe Ryland. The masquerading on the part of the footman was to ensure a way of retreat in case of emergencies. And the footman—”

“Yes,” I breathed.

“Number Four,”
said Poirot gravely.

I
t was all very well for Poirot to say that we were acquiring information all the time and gaining an insight into our adversaries' minds—I felt myself that I required some more tangible success than this.

Since we had come into contact with the Big Four, they had committed two murders, abducted Halliday, and had been within an ace of killing Poirot and myself; whereas so far we had hardly scored a point in the game.

Poirot treated my complaints lightly.

“So far, Hastings,” he said, “they laugh. That is true, but you have a proverb, have you not: ‘He laughs best who laughs at the end?' And at the end,
mon ami,
you shall see.”

“You must remember, too,” he added, “that we deal with no ordinary criminal, but with the second-greatest brain in the world.”

I forebore to pander to his conceit by asking the obvious question. I knew the answer, at least I knew what Poirot's answer would be, and instead I tried without success to elicit some information as
to what steps he was taking to track down the enemy. As usual he had kept me completely in the dark as to his movements, but I gathered that he was in touch with secret service agents in India, China, and Russia, and, from his occasional bursts of self-glorification, that he was at least progressing in his favourite game of gauging his enemy's mind.

He had abandoned his private practice almost entirely, and I know that at this time he refused some remarkably handsome fees. True, he would sometimes investigate cases which intrigued him, but he usually dropped them the moment he was convinced that they had no connection with the activities of the Big Four.

This attitude of his was remarkably profitable to our friend, Inspector Japp. Undeniably he gained much kudos for solving several problems in which his success was really due to a half-contemptuous hint from Poirot.

In return for such service Japp supplied full details of any case which he thought might interest the little Belgian, and when he was put in charge of what the newspapers called “The Yellow Jasmine Mystery,” he wired Poirot, asking him whether he would care to come down and look into the case.

It was in response to this wire that, about a month after my adventure in Abe Ryland's house, we found ourselves alone in a railway compartment whirling away from the smoke and dust of London, bound for the little town of Market Handford in Worcestershire, the seat of the mystery.

Poirot leant back in his corner.

“And what exactly is your opinion of the affair, Hastings?”

I did not at once reply to his question; I felt the need of going warily.

“It all seems so complicated,” I said cautiously.

“Does it not?” said Poirot delightedly.

“I suppose our rushing off like this is a pretty clear signal that you consider Mr. Paynter's death to be murder—not suicide or the result of an accident?”

“No, no; you misunderstand me, Hastings. Granting that Mr. Paynter died as a result of a particularly terrible accident, there are still a number of mysterious circumstances to be explained.”

“That was what I meant when I said it was all so complicated.”

“Let us go over all the main facts quietly and methodically. Recount them to me, Hastings, in an orderly and lucid fashion.”

I started forthwith, endeavouring to be as orderly and lucid as I could.

“We start,” I said, “with Mr. Paynter. A man of fifty-five, rich, cultured, and somewhat of a globe-trotter. For the last twelve years he has been little in England, but, suddenly tiring of incessant travelling, he bought a small place in Worcestershire, near Market Handford, and prepared to settle down. His first action was to write to his only relative, a nephew, Gerald Paynter, the son of his youngest brother, and to suggest to him that he should come and make his home at Croftlands (as the place is called) with his uncle. Gerald Paynter, who is an impecunious young artist, was glad enough to fall in with the arrangement, and had been living with his uncle for about seven months when the tragedy occurred.”

“Your narrative style is masterly,” murmured Poirot. “I say to myself, it is a book that talks, not my friend Hastings.”

Paying no attention to Poirot, I went on, warming to the story.

“Mr. Paynter kept up a fair staff at Croftlands—six servants as well as his own Chinese body servant—Ah Ling.”

“His Chinese servant, Ah Ling,” murmured Poirot.

“On Tuesday last, Mr. Paynter complained of feeling unwell after dinner, and one of the servants was despatched to fetch the doctor. Mr. Paynter received the doctor in his study, having refused to go to bed. What passed between them was not then known, but before Doctor Quentin left, he asked to see the housekeeper, and mentioned that he had given Mr. Paynter a hypodermic injection as his heart was in a very weak state, recommended that he should not be disturbed, and then proceeded to ask some rather curious questions about the servants, how long they had been there, from whom they had come, etc.

“The housekeeper answered these questions as best she could, but was rather puzzled as to their purport. A terrible discovery was made on the following morning. One of the housemaids, on descending, was met by a sickening odour of burned flesh which seemed to come from her master's study. She tried the door, but it was locked on the inside. With the assistance of Gerald Paynter and the Chinaman, that was soon broken in, but a terrible sight greeted them. Mr. Paynter had fallen forward into the gas fire, and his face and head were charred beyond recognition.

“Of course, at the moment, no suspicion was aroused as to its being anything but a ghastly accident. If blame attached to anyone, it was to Doctor Quentin for giving his patient a narcotic and leaving him in such a dangerous position. And then a rather curious discovery was made.

“There was a newspaper on the floor, lying where it had slipped from the old man's knees. On turning it over, words were found to be scrawled across it, feebly traced in ink. A writing table stood close to the chair in which Mr. Paynter had been sitting, and the
forefinger of the victim's right hand was ink-stained up to the second joint. It was clear that, too weak to hold a pen, Mr. Paynter had dipped his finger in the inkpot and managed to scrawl these two words across the surface of the newspaper he held—but the words themselves seemed utterly fantastic:
Yellow Jasmine
—just that and nothing more.

“Croftlands has a large quantity of yellow jasmine growing up its walls, and it was thought that this dying message had some reference to them, showing that the poor old man's mind was wandering. Of course the newspapers, agog for anything out of the common, took up the story hotly, calling it the Mystery of the Yellow Jasmine—though in all probability the words are completely unimportant.”

“They are unimportant, you say?” said Poirot. “Well, doubtless, since you say so, it must be so.”

I regarded him dubiously, but I could detect no mockery in his eye.

“And then,” I continued, “there came the excitements of the inquest.”

“This is where you lick your lips, I perceive.”

“There was a certain amount of feeling evidenced against Dr. Quentin. To begin with, he was not the regular doctor, only a locum, putting in a month's work, whilst Dr. Bolitho was away on a well-earned holiday. Then it was felt that his carelessness was the direct cause of the accident. But his evidence was little short of sensational. Mr. Paynter had been ailing in health since his arrival at Croftlands. Dr. Bolitho had attended him for some time, but when Dr. Quentin first saw his patient, he was mystified by some of the symptoms. He had only attended him once before the night
when he was sent for after dinner. As soon as he was alone with Mr. Paynter, the latter had unfolded a surprising tale. To begin with, he was not feeling ill at all, he explained, but the taste of some curry that he had been eating at dinner had struck him as peculiar. Making an excuse to get rid of Ah Ling for a few minutes, he had turned the contents of his plate into a bowl, and he now handed it over to the doctor with injunctions to find out if there were really anything wrong with it.

“In spite of his statement that he was not feeling ill, the doctor noted that the shock of his suspicions had evidently affected him, and that his heart was feeling it. Accordingly he administered an injection—not of a narcotic, but of strychnine.

“That, I think, completes the case—except for
the
crux of the whole thing—the fact that the uneaten curry, duly analysed, was found to contain enough powdered opium to have killed two men!”

I paused.

“And your conclusions, Hastings?” asked Poirot quietly.

“It's difficult to say. It
might
be an accident—the fact that someone attempted to poison him the same night might be merely a coincidence.”

“But you don't think so? You prefer to believe it—murder!”

“Don't you?”

“
Mon ami,
you and I do not reason in the same way. I am not trying to make up my mind between two opposite solutions—murder or accident—that will come when we have solved the other problem—the mystery of the ‘Yellow Jasmine.' By the way, you have left out something there.”

“You mean the two lines at right angles to each other faintly
indicated under the words? I did not think they could be of any possible importance.”

“What you think is always so important to yourself, Hastings. But let us pass from the Mystery of the Yellow Jasmine to the Mystery of the Curry.”

“I know. Who poisoned it? Why? There are a hundred questions one can ask. Ah Ling, of course, prepared it. But why should he wish to kill his master? Is he a member of a
tong,
or something like that? One reads of such things. The
tong
of the Yellow Jasmine, perhaps. Then there is Gerald Paynter.”

I came to an abrupt pause.

“Yes,” said Poirot, nodding his head. “There is Gerald Paynter, as you say. He is his uncle's heir. He was dining out that night, though.”

“He might have got at some of the ingredients of the curry,” I suggested. “And he would take care to be out, so as not to have to partake of the dish.”

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?”

Poirot threw me a smile, swelled out his chest, and began in a pompous manner.

“Assuming murder, the question at once arises, why choose that particular method? I can think of only one reason—to confuse identity, the face being charred beyond recognition.”

“What?” I cried. “You think—”

“A moment's patience, Hastings. I was going on to say that I examine that theory. Is there any ground for believing that the body is not that of Mr. Paynter? Is there anyone else whose body it possibly could be? I examine these two questions and finally I answer them both in the negative.”

“Oh!” I said, rather disappointed. “And then?”

Poirot's eyes twinkled a little.

“And then I say to myself, ‘since there is here something that I do not understand, it would be well that I should investigate the matter. I must not permit myself to be wholly engrossed by the Big Four.' Ah! We are just arriving. My little clothes brush, where does it hide itself? Here it is—brush me down, I pray you, my friend, and then I will perform the same service for you.”

“Yes,” said Poirot thoughtfully, as he put away the brush, “one must not permit oneself to be obsessed by one idea. I have been in danger of that. Figure to yourself, my friend, that even here, in this case, I am in danger of it. Those two lines you mentioned, a downstroke and a line at right angles to it, what are they but the beginning of a 4?”

“Good gracious, Poirot,” I cried, laughing.

“Is it not absurd? I see the hand of the Big Four everywhere, it is well to employ one's wits in a totally different
milieu
. Ah! There is Japp come to meet us.”