"Brandy--quickly."

I dashed some brandy into a glass and brought it.

Poirot managed to administer a little, and together we

raised him and carried him to the couch. In a few minutes he opened his eyes and looked round him with an

almost vacant stare.

"What is it you want, monsieur?" said Poirot.

THE BIG FOUR 7

The man opened his lips and spoke in a queer mechanical

voice.

"M. Hercule Poirot, 14 Farraway Street."

"Yes, yes; I am he."

The man did not seem to understand, and merely

repeated in exactly the same tone:-"M. Hercule Poirot, 14 Farraway Street." Poirot tried him with several questions. Sometimes

the man did not answer at all; sometimes he repeated the same phrase. Poirot made a sign to me to ring up on the

telephone.

"Get Dr. Ridgeway to come round."

The doctor was in luckily; and as his house was only

just round the corner, few minutes elapsed before he

came bustling in.

"What's all this, eh?"

Poirot gave a brief explanation, and the doctor

started examining our strange visitor, who seemed quite

unconscious of his presence or ours.

"H'm!" said Dr. Ridgeway, when he had finished.

"Curious case."

"Brain fever?" I suggested.

The doctor immediately snorted with contempt.

"Brain fever! Brain fever! No such thing as brain

fever. An invention of novelists. No; the man's had a

shock of some kind. He's come here under the force of a

persistent idea--to find M. Hercule Poirot, 14 Farraway

Street--and he repeats those words mechanically without

in the least knowing what they mean."

"Aphasia?" I said eagerly.

This suggestion did not cause the doctor to snort

quite as violently as my last one had done. He made

no answer, but handed the man a sheet of paper and a

pencil.

8 Agatha Christie

"Let's see what he'll do with that," he remarked. The man did nothing with it for some moments, then

he suddenly began to write feverishly. With equal suddenness he stopped and let both paper and pencil fall to

the ground. The doctor picked it up, and shook his

head.

"Nothing here. Only the figure 4 scrawled a dozen

times, each one bigger than the last. Wants to write 14

Farraway Street, I expect. It's an interesting case--very interesting. Can you possibly keep him here until this

afternoon? I'm due at the hospital now, but I'll come

back this afternoon and make all arrangements about

him. It's too interesting a case to be lost sight of." I explained Poirot's departure and the fact that I proposed to accompany him to Southampton.

"That's all right. Leave the man here. He won't get into mischief. He's suffering from complete exhaustion.

Will probably sleep for eight hours on end. I'll have a

word with that excellent Mrs. Funnyface of yours, and

tell her to keep an eye on him."

And Dr. Ridgeway bustled out with his usual celerity.

Poirot hastily completed his packing, with one eye on

the clock.

"The time, it marches with a rapidity unbelievable. Come now, Hastings, you cannot say that I have left