"I comprehend that there is a trap--yes," said Poirot gently. "But you are in error, monsieur. It is _you_ who are in it--not I and my friend."
"What?" Ryland raised the big automatic, but I saw his gaze falter.
"If you fire, you commit murder watched by ten pairs of eyes, and you will be hanged for it. This place is surrounded--has been for the last hour--by Scotland Yard men. It is checkmate, Mr. Abe Ryland."
He uttered a curious whistle, and as though by magic, the place was alive with men. They seized Ryland and the valet and disarmed them. After speaking a few words to the officer in charge, Poirot took me by the arm, and led me away.
Once clear of the quarry he embraced me with vigour.
"You are alive--you are unhurt. It is magnificent. Often have I blamed myself for letting you go."
"I'm perfectly all right," I said, disengaging myself. "But I'm just a bit fogged. You tumbled to their little scheme, did you?"
"But I was waiting for it! For what else did I permit you to go there? Your false name, your disguise, not for a moment was it intended to deceive!"
"What?" I cried. "You never told me."
"As I have frequently told you, Hastings, you have a nature so beautiful and so honest that unless you are yourself deceived, it is impossible for you to deceive others. Good, then, you are spotted from the first, and they do what I had counted on their doing--a mathematical certainty to any one who uses his gray cells properly--use you as a decoy. They set the girl on--By the way, _mon ami_, as an interesting fact psychologically, has she got red hair?"
"If you mean Miss Martin," I said coldly. "Her hair is a delicate shade of auburn, but--"
"They are _épatant_--these people! They have even studied your psychology. Oh! yes, my friend, Miss Martin was in the plot--very much so. She repeats the letter to you, together with her tale of Mr. Ryland's wrath, you write it down, you puzzle your brains--the cipher is nicely arranged, difficult, but not too difficult--you solve it, and you send for me."
"But what they do not know is that I am waiting for just this very thing to happen. I go post haste to Japp and arrange things. And so, as you see, all is triumph!"
I was not particularly pleased with Poirot, and I told him so. We went back to London on a milk train in the early hours of the morning, and a most uncomfortable journey it was.
I was just out of my bath and indulging in pleasurable thoughts of breakfast when I heard Japp's voice in the sitting-room. I threw on a bathrobe and hurried in.
"A pretty mare's nest you've got us into this time," Japp was saying. "It's too bad of you, M. Poirot. First time I've ever known you take a toss."
Poirot's face was a study. Japp went on.
"There were we, taking all this Black Hand stuff seriously--and all the time it was the footman."
"The footman?" I gasped.
"Yes, James, or whatever his name is. Seems he laid 'em a wager in the servants' hall that he could get taken for the old man by his nibs--that's you, Captain Hastings--and would hand him out a lot of spy stuff about a Big Four gang."
"Impossible!" I cried.
"Don't you believe it. I marched our gentleman straight to Hatton Chase, and there was the real Ryland in bed and asleep, and the butler and the cook and God knows how many of them to swear to the wager. Just a silly hoax--that's all it was--and the valet is with him."
"So that was why he kept in the shadow," murmured Poirot.
After Japp had gone we looked at each other.
"We _know_, Hastings," said Poirot at last. "Number Two of the Big Four is Abe Ryland. The masquerading on the part of the footman was to ensure a way of retreat in case of emergencies. And the footman--"
"Yes," I breathed.
"_Number Four_," said Poirot gravely.
9. THE YELLOW JASMINE MYSTERY
It was all very well for Poirot to say that we were acquiring information all the time and gaining an insight into our adversaries' minds--I felt myself that I required some more tangible success than this.
Since we had come into contact with the Big Four, they had committed two murders, abducted Halliday, and had been within an ace of killing Poirot and myself; whereas so far we had hardly scored a point in the game.
Poirot treated my complaints lightly.
"So far, Hastings," he said, "they laugh. That is true, but you have a proverb, have you not: 'He laughs best who laughs at the end'? And at the end, _mon ami_, you shall see.
"You must remember, too," he added, "that we deal with no ordinary criminal, but with the second greatest brain in the world."
I forbore to pander to his conceit by asking the obvious question. I knew the answer, at least I knew what Poirot's answer would be, and instead I tried without success to elicit some information as to what steps he was taking to track down the enemy. As usual he had kept me completely in the dark as to his movements, but I gathered that he was in touch with secret service agents in India, China, and Russia, and, from his occasional bursts of self-glorification, that he was at least progressing in his favourite game of gauging his enemy's mind.
He had abandoned his private practice almost entirely, and I know that at this time he refused some remarkably handsome fees. True, he would sometimes investigate cases which intrigued him, but he usually dropped them the moment he was convinced that they had no connection with the activities of the Big Four.
This attitude of his was remarkably profitable to our friend, Inspector Japp. Undeniably he gained much kudos for solving several problems in which his success was really due to a half-contemptuous hint from Poirot.
In return for such service Japp supplied full details of any case which he thought might interest the little Belgian, and when he was put in charge of what the newspaper called "The Yellow Jasmine Mystery," he wired Poirot, asking him whether he would care to come down and look into the case.
It was in response to this wire that, about a month after my adventure in Abe Ryland's house, we found ourselves alone in a railway compartment whirling away from the smoke and dust of London, bound for the little town of Market Handford in Worcestershire, the seat of the mystery.
Poirot leant back in his corner.
"And what exactly is your opinion of the affair, Hastings?"
I did not at once reply to his question; I felt the need of going warily.
"It all seems so complicated," I said cautiously.
"Does it not?" said Poirot delightedly.
"I suppose our rushing off like this is a pretty clear sign that you consider Mr. Paynter's death to be murder--not suicide or the result of an accident?"
"No, no; you misunderstand me, Hastings. Granting that Mr. Paynter died as the result of a particularly terrible accident, there are still a number of mysterious circumstances to be explained."
"That was what I meant when I said it was all so complicated."
"Let us go over all the main facts quietly and methodically. Recount them to me, Hastings, in an orderly and lucid fashion."
I started forthwith, endeavouring to be as orderly and lucid as I could.
"We start," I said, "with Mr. Paynter. A man of fifty-five, rich, cultured, and somewhat of a globetrotter. For the last twelve years he has been little in England, but suddenly tiring of incessant travelling, he bought a small place in Worcestershire, near Market Handford, and prepared to settle down. His first action was to write to his only relative, a nephew, Gerald Paynter, the son of his younger brother, and to suggest to him that he should come and make his home at Croftlands (as the place is called) with his uncle. Gerald Paynter, who is an impecunious young artist, was glad enough to fall in with the arrangement, and had been living with his uncle for about seven months when the tragedy occurred."
"Your narrative style is masterly," murmured Poirot. "I say to myself, it is a book that talks, not my friend Hastings."
Paying no attention to Poirot, I went on, warming to the story.
"Mr. Paynter kept up a fair staff at Croftlands--six servants as well as his own Chinese body servant--Ah Ling."
"His Chinese servant, Ah Ling," murmured Poirot.
"On Tuesday last, Mr. Paynter complained of feeling unwell after dinner, and one of the servants was despatched to fetch the doctor. Mr. Paynter received the doctor in his study, having refused to go to bed. What passed between them was not then known, but before Doctor Quentin left, he asked to see the housekeeper, and mentioned that he had given Mr. Paynter a hypodermic injection as his heart was in a very weak state, recommended that he should not be disturbed, and then proceeded to ask some rather curious questions about the servants--how long they had been there, from whom they had come, etc.
"The housekeeper answered these questions as best she could, but was rather puzzled as to their purport. A terrible discovery was made on the following morning. One of the housemaids, on descending, was met by a sickening odour of burned flesh which seemed to come from her master's study. She tried the door, but it was locked on the inside. With the assistance of Gerald Paynter and the Chinaman that was soon broken in, but a terrible sight greeted them. Mr. Paynter had fallen forward into the gas fire, and his face and head were charred beyond recognition.