The sea was not too choppy. I enjoyed a passable dinner, made up my
mind as to the majority of my fellow passengers, and had a rubber or
two of Bridge. Then I turned in and slept like a log as I always do on
board ship.
I was awakened by feeling myself persistently shaken. Dazed and
bewildered, I saw that one of the ship's officers was standing over me.
He gave a sigh of relief as I sat up.
"Thank the Lord I've got you awake at last. I've had no end of a job.
Do you always sleep like that?"
"What's the matter?" I asked, still bewildered and not fully awake. "Is
there anything wrong with the ship?"
"I expect you know what's the matter better than I do," he replied
dryly. "Special instructions from the Admiralty. There's a destroyer
waiting to take you off."
"What?" I cried. "In mid-ocean?"
"It seems a most mysterious affair, but that's not my business. They've
sent a young fellow aboard who is to take your place, and we are all
sworn to secrecy. Will you get up and dress?"
Utterly unable to conceal my amazement I did as I was told. A boat
was lowered, and I was conveyed aboard the destroyer. There I was
received courteously, but got no further information. The commander's
instructions were to land me at a certain spot on the Belgian coast.
There his knowledge and responsibility ended.
The whole thing was like a dream. The one idea I held to firmly was
that all this must be part of Poirot's plan. I must simply go forward
blindly, trusting in my dead friend.
I was duly landed at the spot indicated. There a motor was waiting,
and soon I was rapidly whirling along across the flat Flemish plains.
I slept that night at a small hotel in Brussels. The next day we went
on again. The country became wooded and hilly. I realised that we were
penetrating into the Ardennes, and I suddenly remembered Poirot's
saying that he had a brother who lived at Spa.
But we did not go to Spa itself. We left the main road and wound into
the leafy fastnesses of the hills, till we reached a little hamlet, and
an isolated white villa high on the hill-side. Here the car stopped in
front of the green door of the villa.
The door opened as I alighted. An elderly man-servant stood in the
doorway bowing.
"M. le Capitaine Hastings?" he said in French. "Monsieur le Capitaine
is expected. If he will follow me."
He led the way across the hall, and flung open a door at the back,
standing aside to let me pass in.
I blinked a little, for the room faced west and the afternoon sun
was pouring in. Then my vision cleared and I saw a figure waiting to
welcome me with outstretched hands.
It was--oh, impossible, it couldn't be--but yes!
"Poirot!" I cried, and for once did not attempt to evade the embrace
with which he overwhelmed me.
"But yes, but yes, it is indeed I! Not so easy to kill Hercule Poirot!"
"But Poirot--_why_?"
"A _ruse de guerre_, my friend, a _ruse de guerre_. All is
now ready for our grand coup."
"But you might have told _me_!"
"No, Hastings, I could not. Never, never, in a thousand years, could
you have acted the part at the funeral. As it was, it was perfect. It
could not fail to carry conviction to the Big Four."
"But what I've been through--"
"Do not think me too unfeeling. I carried out the deception partly for
your sake. I was willing to risk my own life, but I had qualms about
continually risking yours. So, after the explosion, I have an idea of
great brilliancy. The good Ridgeway, he enables me to carry it out. I
am dead, you will return to South America. But, _mon ami_, that is
just what you would not do. In the end I have to arrange a solicitor's
letter, and a long rigmarole. But, at all events, here you are--that
is the great thing. And now we lie here--_perdu_--till the moment
comes for the last grand coup--the final overthrowing of the Big Four."