Big Four - Agatha Christie [66]
But we did not go to Spa itself. We left the main road and wound into the leafy fastnesses of the hills, till we reached a little hamlet, and an isolated white villa high on the hillside. Here the car stopped in front of the green door of the villa.
The door opened as I alighted. An elderly manservant stood in the doorway bowing.
‘M. le Capitaine Hastings?’ he said in French. ‘M. le Capitaine is expected. If he will follow me.’
He led the way across the hall, and flung open a door at the back, standing aside to let me pass in.
I blinked a little, for the room faced west and the afternoon sun was pouring in. Then my vision cleared and I saw a figure waiting to welcome me with outstretched hands.
It was—oh, impossible, it couldn’t be—but yes!
‘Poirot!’ I cried, and for once did not attempt to evade the embrace with which he overwhelmed me.
‘But yes, but yes, it is indeed I! Not so easy to kill Hercule Poirot!’
‘But Poirot—why?’
‘A ruse de guerre, my friend, a ruse de guerre. All is now ready for our grand coup.’
‘But you might have told me!’
‘No, Hastings, I could not. Never, never, in a thousand years, could you have acted the part at the funeral. As it was, it was perfect. It could not fail to carry conviction to the Big Four.’
‘But what I’ve been through—’
‘Do not think me too unfeeling. I carried out the deception partly for your sake. I was willing to risk my own life, but I had qualms about continually risking yours. So, after the explosion, I have an idea of great brilliancy. The good Ridgeway, he enables me to carry it out. I am dead, you will return to South America. But, mon ami, that is just what you would not do. In the end I have to arrange a solicitor’s letter, and a long rigmarole. But, at all events, here you are—that is the great thing. And now we lie here—perdus—till the moment comes for the last grand coup—the final overthrowing of the Big Four.’
Chapter 17
Number Four Wins a Trick
From our quiet retreat in the Ardennes we watched the progress of affairs in the great world. We were plentifully supplied with newspapers, and every day Poirot received a bulky envelope, evidently containing some kind of report. He never showed these reports to me, but I could usually tell from his manner whether their contents had been satisfactory or otherwise. He never wavered in his belief that our present plan was the only one likely to be crowned by success.
‘As a minor point, Hastings,’ he remarked one day, ‘I was in continual fear of your death lying at my door. And that rendered me nervous—like a cat upon the jumps, as you say. But now I am well satisfied. Even if they discover that the Captain Hastings who landed in South America is an impostor (and I do not think they will discover it, they are not likely to send an agent out there who knows you personally), they will only believe that you are trying to circumvent them in some clever manner of your own, and will pay no serious attention to discovering your whereabouts. Of the one vital fact, my supposed death, they are thoroughly convinced. They will go ahead and mature their plans.’
‘And then?’ I asked eagerly.
‘And then, mon ami, grand resurrection of Hercule Poirot! At the eleventh hour I reappear, throw all into confusion, and achieve the supreme victory in my own unique manner!’
I realized that Poirot’s vanity was of the case-hardened variety which could withstand all attacks. I reminded him that once or twice the honours of the game had lain with our adversaries. But I might have known that it was impossible to diminish Hercule Poirot’s enthusiasm for his own methods.
‘See you, Hastings, it is like the little trick that you play with the cards. You have seen it without doubt? You take the four knaves, you divide them, one on top of the pack, one underneath, and so on—you cut and you shuffle, and there they are all together again. That is my object. So far I have been contending, now against one of the Big Four, now against another. But let me get them all together, like the four knaves in the pack