“Hands up!” said Mr. Ryland succinctly. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
He was seated in the shadow of the rock, so that I could not see his face, but the menace in his voice was unpleasant. Then I felt a ring of cold steel on the back of my neck, and Ryland lowered his own automatic.
“That’s right, George,” he drawled. “March him around here.”
Raging inwardly, I was conducted to a spot in the shadows, where the unseen George (whom I suspected of being the impeccable Deaves) gagged and bound me securely.
Ryland spoke again in a tone which I had difficulty in recognizing, so cold and menacing was it.
“This is going to be the end of you two. You’ve got in the way of the Big Four once too often. Ever heard of landslides? There was one about here two years ago. There’s going to be another tonight. I’ve fixed that good and square. Say, that friend of yours doesn’t keep his dates very punctually.”
A wave of horror swept over me. Poirot! In another minute he would walk straight into the trap. And I was powerless to warn him. I could only pray that he had elected to leave the matter in my hands, and had remained in London. Surely, if he had been coming, he would have been here by now.
With every minute that passed, my hopes rose.
Suddenly they were dashed to pieces. I heard footsteps—cautious footsteps, but footsteps nevertheless. I writhed in impotent agony. They came down the path, paused and then Poirot himself appeared, his head a little on one side, peering into the shadows.
I heard the growl of satisfaction Ryland gave as he raised the big automatic and shouted, “Hands up.” Deaves sprang forward as he did so, and took Poirot in the rear. The ambush was complete.
“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Hercule Poirot,” said the American grimly.
Poirot’s self-possession was marvellous. He did not turn a hair. But I saw his eyes searching in the shadows.
“My friend? He is here?”
“Yes, you are both in the trap—the trap of the Big Four.”
He laughed.
“A trap?” queried Poirot.
“Say, haven’t you tumbled to it yet?”
“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 anyone who uses his grey cells properly—use you as a decoy. They set the girl on—By the way, mon ami, as an interesting fact psychologically, had she got red hair?”
“If you mean Miss Martin,” I said coldly. “Her hair is a delicate shade of auburn, but—”
“They are épatants—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 posthaste 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 Lo
ndon 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.
Nine
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.