Big Four - Agatha Christie [45]
My Chinaman went forward, and rapped four times on one of the walls. A whole section of the wall swung out, leaving a narrow doorway. I passed through, and to my utter astonishment found myself in a kind of Arabian Nights’ palace. A low long subterranean chamber hung with rich oriental silks, brilliantly lighted and fragrant with perfumes and spices. There were five or six silk-covered divans, and exquisite carpets of Chinese workmanship covered the ground. At the end of the room was a curtained recess. From behind these curtains came a voice.
‘You have brought our honoured guest?’
‘Excellency, he is here,’ replied my guide.
‘Let our guest enter,’ was the answer.
At the same moment, the curtains were drawn aside by an unseen hand, and I was facing an immense cushioned divan on which sat a tall thin Oriental dressed in wonderfully embroidered robes, and clearly, by the length of his finger nails, a great man.
‘Be seated, I pray you, Captain Hastings,’ he said, with a wave of his hand. ‘You acceded to my request to come immediately, I am glad to see.’
‘Who are you?’ I asked. ‘Li Chang Yen?’
‘Indeed no, I am but the humblest of the master’s servants. I carry out his behests, that is all—as do other of his servants in other countries—in South America, for instance.’
I advanced a step.
‘Where is she? What have you done with her out there?’
‘She is in a place of safety—where none will find her. As yet, she is unharmed. You observe that I say—as yet!’
Cold shivers ran down my spine as I confronted this smiling devil.
‘What do you want?’ I cried. ‘Money?’
‘My dear Captain Hastings. We have no designs on your small savings, I can assure you. Not—pardon me—a very intelligent suggestion on your part. Your colleague would not have made it, I fancy.’
‘I suppose,’ I said heavily, ‘you wanted to get me into your toils. Well, you have succeeded. I have come here with my eyes open. Do what you like with me, and let her go. 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.’
‘I’m afraid you won’t do that,’ I said, with a short laugh.
‘What I suggest is this,’ continued the other, his words running on as though he had not heard me. ‘You will write M. Hercule Poirot a letter, such a letter as will induce him to hasten thither and join you.’
‘I shall do no such thing,’ I said angrily.
‘The consequences of refusal will be disagreeable.’
‘Damn your consequences.’
‘The alternative might be death!’
A nasty shiver ran down my spine, but I endeavoured to put a bold face upon it.
‘It’s no good threatening me, and bullying me. Keep your threats for Chinese cowards.’
‘My threats are very real ones, Captain Hastings. I ask you again, will you write this letter?’
‘I will not, and what’s more, you daren’t kill me. You’d have the police on your tracks in no time.’
My interlocutor clapped his hands swiftly. Two Chinese attendants appeared as it were out of the blue, and pinioned me by both arms. Their master said something rapidly to them in Chinese, and they dragged me across the floor to a spot in one corner of the big chamber. One of them stooped, and suddenly, without the least warning, the flooring gave beneath my feet. But for the restraining hand of the other man I should have gone down the yawning gap beneath me. It was inky black, and I could hear the rushing of water.
‘The river,’ said my questioner from his place on the divan. ‘Think well, Captain