The Big Four. Агата Кристи
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 that 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 looked steadily at Poirot.
‘There’s a catch in it still. Why did nobody see him?’
‘Ah! That is where the cleverness of Number Four—for it was 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.’
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 testified 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 two 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 round-up 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 organisation 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?’