Big Four - Agatha Christie [48]
Poirot paused, looking across at the house, whilst the boy spoke to him eagerly and pointed. It was the time for me to act. I went out into the hall. At a sign from the tall Chinaman, one of the servants unlatched the door.
‘Remember the price of failure,’ said my enemy in a low voice.
I was outside on the steps. I beckoned to Poirot. He hastened across.
‘Aha! So all is well with you, my friend. I was beginning to be anxious. You managed to get inside? Is the house empty, then?’
‘Yes,’ I said, in a low voice I strove to make natural. ‘There must be a secret way out of it somewhere. Come in and let us look for it.’
I stepped back across the threshold. In all innocence Poirot prepared to follow me.
And then something seemed to snap in my head. I saw only too clearly the part I was playing—the part of Judas.
‘Back, Poirot!’ I cried. ‘Back for your life. It’s a trap. Never mind me. Get away at once.’
Even as I spoke—or rather shouted my warning, hands gripped me like a vice. One of the Chinese servants sprang past me to grab Poirot.
I saw the latter spring back, his arm raised, then suddenly a dense volume of smoke was rising round me, choking me—killing me—
I felt myself falling—suffocating—this was death—
I came to myself slowly and painfully—all my senses dazed. The first thing I saw was Poirot’s face. He was sitting opposite me watching me with an anxious face. He gave a cry of joy when he saw me looking at him.
‘Ah, you revive—you return to yourself. All is well! My friend—my poor friend!’
‘Where am I?’ I said painfully.
‘Where? But chez vous!’
I looked round me. True enough, I was in the old familiar surroundings. And in the grate were the identical four knobs of coal I had carefully spilt there.
Poirot had followed my glance.
‘But yes, that was a famous idea of yours—that and the books. See you, if they should say to me any time, “That friend of yours, that Hastings, he has not the great brain, is it not so?” I shall reply to them: “You are in error.” It was an idea magnificent and superb that occurred to you there.’
‘You understood their meaning then?’
‘Am I an imbecile? Of course I understood. It gave me just the warning I needed, and the time to mature my plans. Somehow or other the Big Four had carried you off. With what object? Clearly not for your beaux yeux—equally clearly not because they feared you and wanted to get you out of the way. No, their object was plain. You would be used as a decoy to get the great Hercule Poirot into their clutches. I have long been prepared for something of the kind. I make my little preparations, and presently, sure enough, the messenger arrives—such an innocent little street urchin. Me, I swallow everything, and hasten away with him, and, very fortunately, they permit you to come out on the doorstep. That was my one fear, that I should have to dispose of them before I had reached the place where you were concealed, and that I should have to search for you—perhaps in vain—afterwards.’
‘Dispose of them, did you say?’ I asked feebly. ‘Singlehanded.’
‘Oh, there is nothing very clever about that. If one is prepared in advance, all is simple—the motto of the Boy Scout, is it not? And a very fine one. Me, I was prepared. Not so long ago, I rendered a service to a very famous chemist, who did a lot of work in connection with poison gas during the war. He devised for me a little bomb—simple and easy to carry about—one has but to throw it and poof, the smoke—and then the unconsciousness. Immediately I blow a little whistle and straightway some of Japp’s clever fellows who were watching the house here long before the boy arrived, and who managed to follow us all the way to Limehouse, came flying up and took charge of the situation.’
‘But how was it you weren’t unconscious too?’
‘Another piece of luck. Our friend Number Four (who certainly composed that ingenious letter) permitted himself a little jest at my moustaches, which rendered it extremely easy for me to adjust my respirator under