Big Four - Agatha Christie [7]
‘Behind what?’
‘Everything. The world-wide unrest, the labour troubles that beset every nation, and the revolutions that break out in some. There are people, not scare-mongers, who know what they are talking about, and they say that there is a force behind the scenes which aims at nothing less than the disintegration of civilization. In Russia, you know, there were many signs that Lenin and Trotsky were mere puppets whose every action was dictated by another’s brain. I have no definite proof that would count with you, but I am quite convinced that this brain was Li Chang Yen’s.’
‘Oh, come,’ I protested, ‘isn’t that a bit far-fetched? How would a Chinaman cut any ice in Russia?’
Poirot frowned at me irritably.
‘For you, Hastings,’ he said, ‘everything is far-fetched that comes not from your own imagination; for me, I agree with this gentleman. But continue, I pray, monsieur.’
‘What exactly he hopes to get out of it all I cannot pretend to say for certain,’ went on Mr Ingles; ‘but I assume his disease is one that has attacked great brains from the time of Akbar and Alexander to Napoleon—a lust for power and personal supremacy. Up to modern times armed force was necessary for conquest, but in this century of unrest a man like Li Chang Yen can use other means. I have evidence that he has unlimited money behind him for bribery and propaganda, and there are signs that he controls some scientific force more powerful than the world has dreamed of.’
Poirot was following Mr Ingles’s words with the closest attention.
‘And in China?’ he asked. ‘He moves there too?’
The other nodded in emphatic assent.
‘There,’ he said, ‘although I can produce no proof that would count in a court of law, I speak from my own knowledge. I know personally every man who counts for anything in China today, and this I can tell you: the men who loom most largely in the public eye are men of little or no personality. They are marionettes who dance to the wires pulled by a master hand, and that hand is Li Chang Yen’s. His is the controlling brain of the East today. We don’t understand the East—we never shall; but Li Chang Yen is its moving spirit. Not that he comes out into the limelight—oh, not at all; he never moves from his palace in Peking. But he pulls strings—that’s it, pulls strings—and things happen far away.’
‘And there is no one to oppose him?’ asked Poirot.
Mr Ingles leant forward in his chair.
‘Four men have tried in the last four years,’ he said slowly; ‘men of character, and honesty, and brain power. Any one of them might in time have interfered with his plans.’ He paused.
‘Well?’ I queried.
‘Well, they are dead. One wrote an article, and mentioned Li Chang Yen’s name in connection with the riots in Peking, and within two days he was stabbed in the street. His murderer was never caught. The offences of the other two were similar. In a speech or an article, or in conversation, each linked Li Chang Yen’s name with rioting or revolution, and within a week of his indiscretion each was dead. One was poisoned; one died of cholera, an isolated case—not part of an epidemic; and one was found dead in his bed. The cause of the last death was never determined, but I was told by a doctor who saw the corpse that it was burnt and shrivelled as though a wave of electrical energy of incredible power had passed through it.’
‘And Li Chang Yen?’ inquired Poirot. ‘Naturally nothing is traced to him, but there are signs, eh?’
Mr Ingles shrugged.
‘Oh, signs—yes, certainly. And once I found a man who would talk, a brilliant young Chinese chemist who was a protégé of Li Chang Yen’s. He came to me one day, this chemist, and I could see that he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. He hinted to me of experiments on which he’d been engaged in Li Chang Yen’s palace under the mandarin’s direction—experiments on coolies in which the most revolting disregard for human life and suffering had been shown. His nerve had completely broken, and he was in the most pitiable