Big Four - Agatha Christie [44]
What irked me most was to leave no word for Poirot. Once set him on my track, and all might yet be well! Dare I risk it? Apparently I was under no supervision, but yet I hesitated. It would have been so easy for the Chinaman to come up and assure himself that I was keeping to the letter of the command. Why didn’t he? His very abstention made me more suspicious. I had seen so much of the omnipotence of the Big Four that I credited them with almost superhuman powers. For all I know, even the little bedraggled servant girl might be one of their agents.
No, I dared not risk it. But one thing I could do, leave the telegram. He would know then that Cinderella had disappeared, and who was responsible for her disappearance.
All this passed through my head in less time than it takes to tell, and I had clapped my hat on my head and was descending the stairs to where my guide waited, in a little over a minute.
The bearer of the message was a tall impassive Chinaman, neatly but rather shabbily dressed. He bowed and spoke to me. His English was perfect, but he spoke with a slight sing-song intonation.
‘You Captain Hastings?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘You give me note, please.’
I had foreseen the request, and handed him over the scrap of paper without a word. But that was not all.
‘You have a telegram today, yes? Come along just now? From South America, yes?’
I realized anew the excellence of their espionage system—or it might have been a shrewd guess. Bronsen was bound to cable me. They would wait until the cable was delivered and would strike hard upon it.
No good could come of denying what was palpably true.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I did get a telegram.’
‘You fetch him, yes? Fetch him now.’
I ground my teeth, but what could I do? I ran upstairs again. As I did so, I thought of confiding in Mrs Pearson, at any rate as far as Cinderella’s disappearance went. She was on the landing, but close behind her was the little maidservant, and I hesitated. If she was a spy—the words of the note danced before my eyes: ‘…she will suffer…’ I passed into the sitting-room without speaking.
I took up the telegram and was about to pass out again when an idea struck me. Could I not leave some sign which would mean nothing to my enemies but which Poirot himself would find significant. I hurried across to the bookcase and tumbled out four books on to the floor. No fear of Poirot’s not seeing them. They would outrage his eyes immediately—and coming on top of his little lecture, surely he would find them unusual. Next I put a shovelful of coal on the fire and managed to spill four knobs into the grate. I had done all I could—pray Heaven Poirot would read the sign aright.
I hurried down again. The Chinaman took the telegram from me, read it, then placed it in his pocket and with a nod beckoned me to follow him.
It was a long weary march that he led me. Once we took a bus and once we went for some considerable way in a tram, and always our route led us steadily eastward. We went through strange districts, whose existence I had never dreamed of. We were down by the docks now, I knew, and I realized that I was being taken into the heart of Chinatown.
In spite of myself I shivered. Still my guide plodded on, turning and twisting through mean streets and byways, until at last he stopped at a dilapidated house and rapped four times upon the door.
It was opened immediately by another Chinaman who stood aside to let us pass in. The clanging to of the door behind me was the knell of my last hopes. I was indeed in the hands of the enemy.
I was now handed over to the second Chinaman. He led me down some rickety stairs and into a cellar which was filled with bales and casks and which exhaled a pungent odour, as of eastern spices. I felt wrapped all round with the atmosphere of the East, tortuous, cunning, sinister—
Suddenly my guide