* * * * *
I came to myself slowly and painfully--all my senses dazed. The first
thing I saw was Poirot's face. He was sitting opposite me watching me
with an anxious face. He gave a cry of joy when he saw me looking at
him.
"Ah, you revive--you return to yourself. All is well! My friend--my
poor friend!"
"Where am I?" I said painfully.
"Where? But _chez vous_!"
I looked round me. True enough, I was in the old familiar surroundings.
And in the grate were the identical four knobs of coal I had carefully
spilt there.
Poirot had followed my glance.
"But yes, that was a famous idea of yours--that and the books. See
you, if they should say to me any time. 'That friend of yours, that
Hastings, he has not the great brain, is it not so?' I shall reply to
them: 'You are in error.' It was an idea magnificent and superb that
occurred to you there."
"You understood their meaning then?"
"Am I an imbecile? Of course I understood. It gave me just the warning
I needed, and the time to mature my plans. Somehow or other the Big
Four had carried you off. With what object? Clearly not for your
_beaux yeux_--equally clearly not because they feared you and
wanted to get you out of the way. No, their object was plain. You would
be used as a decoy to get the great Hercule Poirot into their clutches.
I have long been prepared for something of the kind. I make my little
preparations, and presently, sure enough, the messenger arrives--such
an innocent little street urchin. Me, I swallow everything, and hasten
away with him, and, very fortunately, they permit you to come out on
the doorstep. That was my one fear, that I should have to dispose of
them before I had reached the place where you were concealed, and that
I should have to search for you--perhaps in vain--afterwards."
"Dispose of them, did you say?" I asked feebly. "Single-handed."
"Oh, there is nothing very clever about that. If one is prepared in
advance all is simple--the motto of the Boy Scout, is it not? And
a very fine one. Me, I was prepared. Not so long ago, I rendered a
service to a very famous chemist, who did a lot of work in connection
with poison gas during the war. He devised for me a little bomb--simple
and easy to carry about--one has but to throw it and poof, the
smoke--and then the unconsciousness. Immediately I blow a little
whistle and straightway some of Japp's clever fellows who were watching
the house here long before the boy arrived, and who managed to follow
us all the way to Limehouse, came flying up and took charge of the
situation."
"But how was it you weren't unconscious too?"
"Another piece of luck. Our friend Number Four (who certainly
composed that ingenious letter) permitted himself a little jest at
my moustaches, which rendered it extremely easy for me to adjust my
respirator under the guise of a yellow muffler."
"I remember," I cried eagerly, and then with the word "Remember" all
the ghastly horror that I had temporarily forgotten came back to me.
_Cinderella_--