As we came slowly into Boulogne Harbour Poirot appeared, neat and
smiling, and announced to me in a whisper that Laverguier’s system
had succeeded “to a marvel!”
Japp’s forefinger was still tracing imaginary routes on his map.
“Nonsense! The car started from Boulogne—here they branched off.
Now, my idea is that they transferred the Prime Minister to another
car. See?”
“Well,” said the tall detective, “I shall make for the seaports.
Ten to one, they’ve smuggled him on board a ship.”
Japp shook his head. “Too obvious. The order went out at once to
close all the ports.”
The day was just breaking as we landed. Major Norman touched Poirot
on the arm. “There’s a military car here waiting for you, sir.”
“Thank you, monsieur. But, for the moment, I do not propose to
leave Boulogne.”
“What?”
“No, we will enter this hotel here, by the quay.”
He suited the action to the word, demanded and was accorded a
private room. We three followed him, puzzled and uncomprehending.
He shot a quick glance at us. “It is not so that the good detective
should act, eh? I perceive your thought. He must be full of energy.
He must rush to and fro. He should prostrate himself on the dusty
road and seek the marks of tyres through a little glass. He must
gather up the cigarette-end, the fallen match? That is your idea,
is it not?”
His eyes challenged us. “But I—Hercule Poirot—tell you that it is
not so! The true clues are within—_here_!” He tapped his forehead.
“See you, I need not have left London. It would have been sufficient
for me to sit quietly in my rooms there. All that matters is the
little grey cells within. Secretly and silently they do their part,
until suddenly I call for a map, and I lay my finger on a
spot—so—and I say: the Prime Minister is _there_! And it is so!
With method and logic one can accomplish anything! This frantic
rushing to France was a mistake—it is playing a child’s game of
hide-and-seek. But now, though it may be too late, I will set to
work the right way, from within. Silence, my friends, I beg of
you.”
And for five long hours the little man sat motionless, blinking
his eyelids like a cat, his green eyes flickering and becoming
steadily greener and greener. The Scotland Yard man was obviously
contemptuous, Major Norman was bored and impatient, and I myself
found the time pass with wearisome slowness.
Finally, I got up, and strolled as noiselessly as I could to the
window. The matter was becoming a farce. I was secretly concerned
for my friend. If he failed, I would have preferred him to fail in
a less ridiculous manner. Out of the window I idly watched the
daily leave boat, belching forth columns of smoke, as she lay
alongside the quay.
Suddenly I was aroused by Poirot’s voice close to my elbow.
“_Mes amis_, let us start!”
I turned. An extraordinary transformation had come over my friend.
His eyes were flickering with excitement, his chest was swelled to
the uttermost.
“I have been an imbecile, my friends! But I see daylight at last.”
Major Norman moved hastily to the door. “I’ll order the car.”
“There is no need. I shall not use it. Thank Heaven the wind has
fallen.”
“Do you mean you are going to walk, sir?”
“No, my young friend. I am no St. Peter. I prefer to cross the sea
by boat.”
“To cross the _sea_?”
“Yes. To work with method, one must begin from the beginning. And
the beginning of this affair was in England. Therefore, we return
to England.”
• • • • • • •
At three o’clock, we stood once more upon Charing Cross platform.
To all our expostulations, Poirot turned a deaf ear, and reiterated
again and again that to start at the beginning was not a waste of
time, but the only way. On the way over, he had conferred with
Norman in a low voice, and the latter had despatched a sheaf of
telegrams from Dover.
Owing to the special passes held by Norman, we got through
everywhere in record time. In London, a large police car was
waiting for us, with some plain-clothes men, one of whom handed a
typewritten sheet of paper to my friend. He answered my inquiring
glance.
“A list of the cottage hospitals within a certain radius west of
London. I wired for it from Dover.”
We were whirled rapidly through the London streets. We were on the
Bath Road. On we went, through Hammersmith, Chiswick and Brentford.
I began to see our objective. Through Windsor and on to Ascot. My
heart gave a leap. Ascot was where Daniels had an aunt living. We
were after _him_, then, not O’Murphy.
We duly stopped at the gate of a trim villa. Poirot jumped out and
rang the bell. I saw a perplexed frown dimming the radiance of his
face. Plainly, he was not satisfied. The bell was answered. He was
ushered inside. In a few moments he reappeared, and climbed into
the car with a short, sharp shake of his head. My hopes began to
die down. It was past four now. Even if he found certain evidence
incriminating Daniels, what would be the good of it, unless he
could wring from some one the exact spot in France where they were
holding the Prime Minister?
Our return progress towards London was an interrupted one. We
deviated from the main road more than once, and occasionally
stopped at a small building, which I had no difficulty in
recognizing as a cottage hospital. Poirot only spent a few minutes
at each, but at every halt his radiant assurance was more and more
restored.
He whispered something to Norman, to which the latter replied:
“Yes, if you turn off to the left, you will find them waiting by
the bridge.”
We turned up a side road, and in the failing light I discerned a
second car, waiting by the side of the road. It contained two men
in plain clothes. Poirot got down and spoke to them, and then we
started off in a northerly direction, the other car following close
behind.
We drove for some time, our objective being obviously one of the
northern suburbs of London. Finally, we drove up to the front door
of a tall house, standing a little back from the road in its own
grounds.
Norman and I were left with the car. Poirot and one of the
detectives went up to the door and rang. A neat parlourmaid opened
it. The detective spoke.
“I am a police officer, and I have a warrant to search this house.”
The girl gave a little scream, and a tall, handsome woman of
middle-age appeared behind her in the hall.
“Shut the door, Edith. They are burglars, I expect.”
But Poirot swiftly inserted his foot in the door, and at the same
moment blew a whistle. Instantly the other detectives ran up, and
poured into the house, shutting the door behind them.
Norman and I spent about five minutes cursing our forced inactivity.
Finally the door reopened, and the men emerged, escorting three
prisoners—a woman and two men. The woman, and one of the men, were
taken to the second car. The other man was placed in our car by
Poirot himself.
“I must go with the others, my friend. But have great care of this
gentleman. You do not know him, no? _Eh bien_, let me present to
you, Monsieur O’Murphy!”
O’Murphy! I _gaped_ at him open-mouthed as we started again. He
was not handcuffed, but I did not fancy he would try to escape. He
sat there staring in front of him as though dazed. Anyway, Norman
and I would be more than a match for him.
To my surprise, we still kept a northerly route. We were not
returning to London, then! I was much puzzled. Suddenly, as the
car slowed down, I recognized that we were close to Hendon
Aerodrome. Immediately I grasped Poirot’s idea. He proposed to
reach France by aeroplane.
It was a sporting idea, but, on the face of it, impracticable. A
telegram would be far quicker. Time was everything. He must leave
the personal glory of rescuing the Prime Minister to others.
As we drew up, Major Norman jumped out, and a plain-clothes man
took his place. He conferred with Poirot for a few minutes, and
then went off briskly.
I, too, jumped out, and caught Poirot by the arm.
“I congratulate you, old fellow! They have told you the hiding-place?
But, look here, you must wire to France at once. You’ll be too late
if you go yourself.”
Poirot looked at me curiously for a minute or two.
“Unfortunately, my friend, there are some things that cannot be
sent by telegram.”
• • • • • • •
At that moment Major Norman returned, accompanied by a young
officer in the uniform of the Flying Corps.
“This is Captain Lyall, who will fly you over to France. He can
start at once.”
“Wrap up warmly, sir,” said the young pilot. “I can lend you a
coat, if you like.”
Poirot was consulting his enormous watch. He murmured to himself:
“Yes, there is time—just time.” Then he looked up, and bowed
politely to the young officer. “I thank you, monsieur. But it is
not I who am your passenger. It is this gentleman here.”
He moved a little aside as he spoke, and a figure came forward out
of the darkness. It was the second male prisoner who had gone in
the other car, and as the light fell on his face, I gave a gasp of
surprise.
_It was the Prime Minister!_
• • • • • • •
“For Heaven’s sake, tell me all about it,” I cried impatiently, as
Poirot, Norman, and I motored back to London. “How in the world
did they manage to smuggle him back to England?”
“There was no need to smuggle him back,” replied Poirot dryly. “The
Prime Minister has never left England. He was kidnapped on his way
from Windsor to London.”
“What?”
“I will make all clear. The Prime Minister was in his car, his
secretary beside him. Suddenly a pad of chloroform is clapped on
his face——”
“But by whom?”
“By the clever linguistic Captain Daniels. As soon as the Prime
Minister is unconscious, Daniels picks up the speaking-tube, and
directs O’Murphy to turn to the right, which the chauffeur, quite
unsuspicious, does. A few yards down that unfrequented road, a
large car is standing, apparently broken down. Its driver signals
to O’Murphy to stop. O’Murphy slows up. The stranger approaches.
Daniels leans out of the window, and, probably with the aid of an
instantaneous anæsthetic, such as ethylchloride, the chloroform
trick is repeated. In a few seconds, the two helpless men are
dragged out and transferred to the other car, and a pair of
substitutes take their places.”
“Impossible!”
“_Pas du tout!_ Have you not seen music-hall turns imitating
celebrities with marvellous accuracy? Nothing is easier than to
personate a public character. The Prime Minister of England is far
easier to understudy than Mr. John Smith of Clapham, say. As for
O’Murphy’s ‘double,’ no one was going to take much notice of him
until after the departure of the Prime Minister, and by then he
would have made himself scarce. He drives straight from Charing
Cross to the meeting-place of his friends. He goes in as O’Murphy,
he emerges as some one quite different. O’Murphy has disappeared,
leaving a conveniently suspicious trail behind him.”
“But the man who personated the Prime Minister was seen by every
one!”
“He was not seen by anyone who knew him privately or intimately.
And Daniels shielded him from contact with anyone as much as
possible. Moreover, his face was bandaged up, and anything unusual
in his manner would be put down to the fact that he was suffering
from shock as a result of the attempt upon his life. Mr. MacAdam
has a weak throat, and always spares his voice as much as possible
before any great speech. The deception was perfectly easy to keep
up as far as France. There it would be impracticable and
impossible—so the Prime Minister disappears. The police of this
country hurry across the Channel, and no one bothers to go into
the details of the first attack. To sustain the illusion that the
abduction has taken place in France, Daniels is gagged and
chloroformed in a convincing manner.”
“And the man who has enacted the part of the Prime Minister?”
“Rids himself of his disguise. He and the bogus chauffeur may be
arrested as suspicious characters, but no one will dream of
suspecting their real part in the drama, and they will eventually
be released for lack of evidence.”
“And the real Prime Minister?”
“He and O’Murphy were driven straight to the house of ‘Mrs.
Everard,’ at Hampstead, Daniels’ so-called ‘aunt.’ In reality, she
is Frau Bertha Ebenthal, and the police have been looking for her
for some time. It is a valuable little present that I have made to
them—to say nothing of Daniels! Ah, it was a clever plan, but he
did not reckon on the cleverness of Hercule Poirot!”