The Big Four

  “I didn’t go in a second time. Once was enough for me.”

  “You are sure of that?”

  “Absolutely certain.”

  “Good. Now, when did you come out of prison?”

  “Two months ago.”

  “How did you obtain this job?”

  “Through one of them Prisoners’ Help Societies. Bloke met me when I came out.”

  “What was he like?”

  “Not exactly a parson, but looked like one. Soft black hat and mincing way of walking. Got a broken front tooth. Spectacled chap. Saunders his name was. Said he hoped I was repentant, and that he’d find me a good post. I went to old Whalley on his recommendation.”

  Poirot rose once more.

  “I thank you. I know all now. Have patience.” He paused in the doorway and added: “Saunders gave you a pair of boots, didn’t he?”

  Grant looked very astonished.

  “Why, yes, he did. But how did you know?”

  “It is my business to know things,” said Poirot gravely.

  After a word or two to the Inspector, the three of us went to the White Hart and discussed eggs and bacon and Devonshire cider.

  “Any elucidations yet?” asked Ingles, with a smile.

  “Yes, the case is clear enough now; but, see you, I shall have a good deal of difficulty in proving it. Whalley was killed by order of the Big Four—but not by Grant. A very clever man got Grant the post and deliberately planned to make him the scapegoat—an easy matter with Grant’s prison record. He gave him a pair of boots, one of two duplicate pairs. The other he kept himself. It was all so simple. When Grant is out of the house, and Betsy is chatting in the village (which she probably did every day of her life), he drives up wearing the duplicate boots, enters the kitchen, goes through into the living room, fells the old man with a blow, and then cuts his throat. Then he returns to the kitchen, removes the boots, puts on another pair, and, carrying the first pair, goes out to his trap and drives off again.”

  Ingles looks steadily at Poirot.

  “There’s a catch in it still. Why did nobody see him?”

  “Ah! That is where the cleverness of Number Four, I am convinced, comes in. Everybody saw him—and yet nobody saw him. You see, he drove up in a butcher’s cart!”

  I uttered an exclamation.

  “The leg of mutton?”

  “Exactly, Hastings, the leg of mutton. Everybody swore that no one had been to Granite Bungalow that morning, but, nevertheless, I found in the larder a leg of mutton, still frozen. It was Monday, so the meat must have been delivered that morning; for if on Saturday, in this hot weather, it would not have remained frozen over Sunday. So someone had been to the Bungalow, and a man on whom a trace of blood here and there would attract no attention.”

  “Damned ingenious!” cried Ingles approvingly.

  “Yes, he is clever, Number Four.”

  “As clever as Hercule Poirot?” I murmured.

  My friend threw me a glance of dignified reproach.

  “There are some jests that you should not permit yourself, Hastings,” he said sententiously. “Have I not saved an innocent man from being sent to the gallows? That is enough for one day.”

  Five

  DISAPPEARANCE OF A SCIENTIST

  Personally, I don’t think that, even when a jury had acquitted Robert Grant, alias Biggs, of the murder of Jonathan Whalley, Inspector Meadows was entirely convinced of his innocence. The case which he had built up against Grant—the man’s record, the jade which he had stolen, the boots which fitted the footprints so exactly—was to his matter-of-fact mind too complete to be easily upset; but Poirot, compelled much against his inclination to give evidence, convinced the jury. Two witnesses were produced who had seen a butcher’s cart drive up to the bungalow on that Monday morning, and the local butcher testifed that his cart only called there on Wednesdays and Fridays.

  A woman was actually found who, when questioned, remembered seeing the butcher’s man leaving the bungalow, but she could furnish no useful description of him. The only impression he seemed to have left on her mind was that he was clean shaven, of medium height, and looked exactly like a butcher’s man. At this description Poirot shrugged his shoulders philosophically.

  “It is as I tell you, Hastings,” he said to me, after the trial. “He is an artist, this one. He disguises himself not with the false beard and the blue spectacles. He alters his features, yes; but that is the least part. For the time being he is the man he would be. He lives in his part.”

  Certainly I was compelled to admit that the man who had visited us from Hanwell had fitted in exactly with my idea of what an asylum attendant should look like. I should never for a moment have dreamt of doubting that he was genuine.

  It was all a little discouraging, and our experience on Dartmoor did not seem to have helped us at all. I said as much to Poirot, but he would not admit that we had gained nothing.

  “We progress,” he said; “we progress. At every contact with this man we learn a little of his mind and his methods. Of us and our plans he knows nothing.”

  “And there, Poirot,” I protested, “he and I seem to be in the same boat. You don’t seem to me to have any plans, you seem to sit and wait for him to do something.”

  Poirot smiled.

  “Mon ami, you do not change. Always the same Hastings, who would be up and at their throats. Perhaps,” he added, as a knock sounded on the door, “you have here your chance; it may be our friend who enters.” And he laughed at my disappointment when Inspector Japp and another man entered the room.

  “Good evening, moosior,” said the Inspector. “Allow me to introduce Captain Kent of the United States Secret Service.”

  Captain Kent was a tall, lean American, with a singularly impassive face which looked as though it had been carved out of wood.

  “Pleased to meet you, gentlemen,” he murmured, as he shook hands jerkily.

  Poirot threw an extra log on the fire, and brought forward more easy chairs. I brought out glasses and the whisky and soda. The captain took a deep draught, and expressed appreciation.

  “Legislation in your country is still sound,” he observed.

  “And now to business,” said Japp. “Moosior Poirot here made a certain request to me. He was interested in some concern that went by the name of the Big Four, and he asked me to let him know at any time if I came across a mention of it in my official line of business. I didn’t take much stock in the matter, but I remembered what he said, and when the captain here came over with rather a curious story, I said at once, ‘We’ll go round to Moosior Poirot’s.’”

  Poirot looked across at Captain Kent, and the American took up the tale.

  “You may remember reading, M. Poirot, that a number of torpedo boats and destroyers were sunk by being dashed upon the rocks off the American coast. It was just after the Japanese earthquake, and the explanation given was that the disaster was the result of a tidal wave. Now, a short time ago, a roundup was made of certain crooks and gunmen, and with them were captured some papers which put an entirely new face upon the matter. They appeared to refer to some organization called the ‘Big Four,’ and gave an incomplete description of some powerful wireless installation—a concentration of wireless energy far beyond anything so far attempted, and capable of focusing a beam of great intensity upon some given spot. The claims made for this invention seemed manifestly absurd, but I turned them in to headquarters for what they were worth, and one of our highbrow professors got busy on them. Now it appears that one of your British scientists read a paper upon the subject before the British Association. His colleagues didn’t think great shakes of it, by all accounts, thought it far-fetched and fanciful, but your scientist stuck to his guns, and declared that he himself was on the eve of success in his experiments.”

  “Eh bien?” demanded Poirot, with interest.

  “It was suggested that I should come over here and get an interview with this gentleman. Quite a young fellow, he is,
Halliday by name. He is the leading authority on the subject, and I was to get from him whether the thing suggested was anyway possible.”

  “And was it?” I asked eagerly.

  “That’s just what I don’t know. I haven’t seen Mr. Halliday—and I’m not likely to, by all accounts.”

  “The truth of the matter is,” said Japp shortly, “Halliday’s disappeared.”

  “When?”

  “Two months ago.”

  “Was his disappearance reported?”

  “Of course it was. His wife came to us in a great state. We did what we could, but I knew all along it would be no good.”

  “Why not?”

  “Never is—when a man disappears that way.” Japp winked.

  “What way?”

  “Paris.”

  “So Halliday disappeared in Paris?”

  “Yes. Went over there on scientific work—so he said. Of course, he’d have to say something like that. But you know what it means when a man disappears over there. Either it’s Apache work, and that’s the end of it—or else it’s voluntary disappearance—and that’s a great deal the commoner of the two, I can tell you. Gay Paree and all that, you know. Sick of home life. Halliday and his wife had had a tiff before he started, which all helps to make it a pretty clear case.”

  “I wonder,” said Poirot thoughtfully.

  The American was looking at him curiously.

  “Say, mister,” he drawled, “what’s this Big Four idea?”

  “The Big Four,” said Poirot, “is an international organization which has at its head a Chinaman. He is known as Number One. Number Two is an American. Number Three is a Frenchwoman. Number Four, ‘the Destroyer,’ is an Englishman.”

  “A Frenchwoman, eh?” The American whistled. “And Halliday disappeared in France. Maybe there’s something in this. What’s her name?”

  “I don’t know. I know nothing about her.”

  “But it’s a mighty big proposition, eh?” suggested the other.

  Poirot nodded, as he arranged the glasses in a neat row on the tray. His love of order was as great as ever.

  “What was the idea in sinking those boats? Are the Big Four a German stunt?”

  “The Big Four are for themselves—and for themselves only, M. le Capitaine. Their aim is world domination.”

  The American burst out laughing, but broke off at the sight of Poirot’s serious face.

  “You laugh, monsieur,” said Poirot, shaking a finger at him. “You reflect not—you use not the little grey cells of the brain. Who are these men who send a portion of your navy to destruction simply as a trial of their power? For that was all it was, Monsieur, a test of this new force of magnetical attraction which they hold.”

  “Go on with you, moosior,” said Japp good-humouredly. I’ve read of supercriminals many a time, but I’ve never come across them. Well, you’ve heard Captain Kent’s story. Anything further I can do for you?”

  “Yes, my good friend. You can give me the address of Mrs. Halliday—and also a few words of introduction to her if you will be so kind.”

  Thus it was that the following day saw us bound for Chetwynd Lodge, near the village of Chobham in Surrey.

  Mrs. Halliday received us at once, a tall, fair woman, nervous and eager in manner. With her was her little girl, a beautiful child of five.

  Poirot explained the purpose of our visit.

  “Oh! M. Poirot, I am so glad, so thankful. I have heard of you, of course. You will not be like these Scotland Yard people, who will not listen or try to understand. And the French police are just as bad—worse, I think. They are all convinced that my husband has gone off with some other woman. But he wasn’t like that! All he thought of in life was his work. Half our quarrels came from that. He cared for it more than he did for me.”

  “Englishmen, they are like that,” said Poirot soothingly. “And if it is not work, it is the games, the sport. All those things they take au grand sérieux. Now, madame, recount to me exactly, in detail, and as methodically as you can, the exact circumstances of your husband’s disappearance.”

  “My husband went to Paris on Thursday, the 20th of July. He was to meet and visit various people there connected with his work, amongst them Madame Olivier.”

  Poirot nodded at the mention of the famous French woman chemist, who had eclipsed even Madame Curie in the brilliance of her achievements. She had been decorated by the French Government, and was one of the most prominent personalities of the day.

  “He arrived there in the evening and went at once to the Hotel Castiglione in the rue de Castiglione. On the following morning he had an appointment with Professor Bourgoneau, which he kept. His manner was normal and pleasant. The two men had a most interesting conversation, and it was arranged that he should witness some experiments in the professor’s laboratory on the following day. He lunched alone at the Café Royal, went for a walk in the Bois, and then visited Madame Olivier at her house at Passy. There, also, his manner was perfectly normal. He left about six. Where he dined is not known, probably alone at some restaurant. He returned to the hotel about eleven o’clock and went straight up to his room, after inquiring if any letters had come for him. On the following morning, he walked out of the hotel, and has not been seen again.”

  “At what time did he leave the hotel? At the hour when he would normally leave it to keep his appointment at Professor Bourgoneau’s laboratory?”

  “We do not know. He was not remarked leaving the hotel. But no petit déjeuner was served to him, which seems to indicate that he went out early.”

  “Or he might, in fact, have gone out again after he came in the night before?”

  “I do not think so. His bed had been slept in, and the night porter would have remembered anyone going out at that hour.”

  “A very just observation, madame. We may take it, then, that he left early on the following morning—and that is reassuring from one point of view. He is not likely to have fallen a victim to any Apache assault at that hour. His baggage, now, was it all left behind?”

  Mrs. Halliday seemed rather reluctant to answer, but at last she said:

  “No—he must have taken one small suitcase with him.”

  “H’m,” said Poirot thoughtfully, “I wonder where he was that evening. If we knew that, we should know a great deal. Whom did he meet?—there lies the mystery. Madame, myself, I do not of necessity accept the view of the police; with them is it always ‘Cherchez la femme.’ Yet it is clear that something occurred that night to alter your husband’s plans. You say he asked for letters on returning to the hotel. Did he receive any?”

  “One only, and that must have been the one I wrote him on the day he left England.”

  Poirot remained sunk in thought for a full minute, then he rose briskly to his feet.

  “Well, madame, the solution of the mystery lies in Paris, and to find it I myself journey to Paris on the instant.”

  “It is all a long time ago, monsieur.”

  “Yes, yes. Nevertheless, it is there that we must seek.”

  He turned to leave the room, but paused with his hand on the door.

  “Tell me, madame, do you ever remember your husband mentioning the phrase, ‘The Big Four?’”

  “The Big Four,” she repeated thoughtfully. “No, I can’t say Ido.”

  Six

  THE WOMAN ON THE STAIRS

  That was all that could be elicited from Mrs. Halliday. We hurried back to London, and the following day saw us en route for the Continent. With rather a rueful smile, Poirot observed:

  “This Big Four, they make me to bestir myself, mon ami. I run up and down, all over the ground, like our old friend ‘the human foxhound.’”

  “Perhaps you’ll meet him in Paris,” I said, knowing that he referred to a certain Giraud, one of the most trusted detectives of the Sûreté, whom he had met on a previous occasion.

  Poirot made a grimace. “I devoutly hope not. He loved me not, that one.”

  “Won??
?t it be a very difficult task?” I asked. “To find out what an unknown Englishman did on an evening two months ago?”

  “Very difficult, mon ami. But as you know well, difficulties rejoice the heart of Hercule Poirot.”

  “You think the Big Four kidnapped him?”

  Poirot nodded.

  Our inquiries necessarily went over old ground, and we learnt little to add to what Mrs. Halliday had already told us. Poirot had a lengthy interview with Professor Bourgoneau, during which he sought to elicit whether Halliday had mentioned any plan of his own for the evening, but we drew a complete blank.

  Our next source of information was the famous Madame Olivier. I was quite excited as we mounted the steps of her villa at Passy. It has always seemed to me extraordinary that a woman should go so far in the scientific world. I should have thought a purely masculine brain was needed for such work.

  The door was opened by a young lad of seventeen or thereabouts, who reminded me vaguely of an acolyte, so ritualistic was his manner. Poirot had taken the trouble to arrange our interview beforehand, as he knew Madame Olivier never received anyone without an appointment, being immersed in research work most of the day.

  We were shown into a small salon, and presently the mistress of the house came to us there. Madame Olivier was a very tall woman, her tallness accentuated by the long white overall she wore, and a coif like a nun’s that shrouded her head. She had a long pale face, and wonderful dark eyes that burnt with a light almost fanatical. She looked more like a priestess of old than a modern Frenchwoman. One cheek was disfigured by a scar, and I remembered that her husband and coworker had been killed in an explosion in the laboratory three years before, and that she herself had been terribly burned. Ever since then she had shut herself away from the world, and plunged with fiery energy into the work of scientific research. She received us with cold politeness.

  “I have been interviewed by the police many times, messieurs. I think it hardly likely that I can help you, since I have not been able to help them.”

  “Madame, it is possible that I shall not ask you quite the same questions. To begin with, of what did you talk together, you and M. Halliday?”