Big Four

The Unexpected Quest

I have met people who enjoy a channel crossing; men

who can sit calmly in their deck-chairs and, on arrival, wait until the boat is moored, then gather their belongings together without fuss and disembark. Personally, I

can never manage this. From the moment I get on board

I feel that the time is too short to settle down to anything. I move my suitcases from one spot to another,

and if I go down to the saloon for a meal. I bolt my food with an uneasy feeling that the boat may arrive unexpectedly whilst I am below. Perhaps all this is merely a

legacy from one's short leaves in the war, when it

seemed a matter of such importance to secure a place

near the gangway, and to be amongst the first to disembark lest one should waste precious minutes of one's

three or five days' leave.

2 Agatha Christie

On this particular July morning, as I stood by the rail

and watched the white cliffs of Dover drawing nearer, I

marvelled at the passengers who could sit calmly in their chairs and never even raise their eyes for the first sight of the native land. Yet perhaps their case was different from mine. Doubtless many of them had only crossed to

Paris for the week-end, whereas I had spent the last year and a half on a ranch in the Argentine. I had prospered

there, and my wife and I had both enjoyed^the free and

easy life of the South American continent, nevertheless

it was with a lump in my throat that I watched the

familiar shore draw nearer and nearer.

I had landed in France two days before, transacted

some necessary business, and was now en route for London. I should be there some months--time enough to

look up old friends, and one old friend in particular. A little man with an egg-shaped head and green eyes-Hercule Poirot! I proposed to take him completely by surprise. My last letter from the Argentine had given no hint of my intended voyage--indeed, that had been decided upon hurriedly as a result of certain business

complications--and I spent many amused moments picturing to myself his delight and stupefaction on beholding

me.

He, I knew, was not likely to be far from his headquarters. The time when his cases had drawn him from

one end of England to the other was past. His fame had

spread, and no longer would he allow one case to absorb

all his time. He aimed more and more, as time went on,

at being considered a "consulting detective"--as much a specialist as a Harley Street physician. He had always scoffed at the popular idea of the human bloodhound

who assumed wonderful disguises to track criminals,

and who paused at every footprint to measure it.

THE BIG FOUR 3

"No, my friend Hastings," he would say; "we leave that to Giraud and his friends. Hercule Poirot's methods are his own. Order and method, and 'the little gray