questions were very inadequate."

"You think so, Hastings?" Poirot looked at me appealingly.

"I was boulverse, yes. What would you have

asked?"

I considered the question carefully, and then outlined

my scheme to Poirot. He listened with what seemed to

be close interest. My monologue lasted until we had

nearly reached home.

"Very excellent, very searching, Hastings," said Poirot, as he inserted his key in the door and preceded

me up the stairs. "But quite unnecessary."

"Unnecessary!" I cried, amazed. "If the man was poisoned--"

"Aha," cried Poirot, pouncing upon a note which lay on the table. "From Japp. Just as I thought." He flung it over to me. It was brief and to the point. No traces of poison had been found, and there was nothing to show

how the man came by his death.

"You see," said Poirot, "our questions would have been quite unnecessary."

"You guessed this beforehand?"

" 'Forecast the probable result of the deal,' " quoted Poirot from a recent Bridge problem on which I had

spent much time. "Mon ami, when you do that successfully, you do not call it guessing."

"Don't let's split hairs," I said impatiently. "You foresaw this?"

"I did."

"Why?"

Poirot put his hand into his pocket and pulled out--a

white bishop,

"Why," I cried, "you forgot to give it back to Dr. Savaronoff."

"You are in error, my friend. That bishop still

reposes in my left-hand pocket. I took its fellow from

the box of chessmen Mademoiselle Daviloff kindly permitted me to examine. The plural of one bishop is two

bishops."

He sounded the final "s" with a great hiss. I was completely mystified.

"But why did you take it?"

"Parbleu, I wanted to see if they were exactly alike." He stood them on the table side by side.

"Well, they are, of course," I said. "exactly alike." Poirot looked at them with his head on one side.

"They seem so, I admit. But one should take no fact for granted until it is proved. Bring me, I pray you, my little scales."

With infinite care he weighed the two chessmen, then

turned to me with a face alight with triumph.

"I was right. See you,'I was right. Impossible to deceive Hercule Poirot!"

He rushed to the telephone--waited impatiently.

"Is that Japp? Ah! Japp, it is you. Hercule Poirot

speaks. Watch the man-servant, Ivan. On no account let

him slip through your fingers. Yes, yes, it is as I say." He dashed down the receiver and turned to me.

"You see it not, Hastings? I will explain. Wilson was not poisoned, he was electrocuted. A thin metal rod

passes up the middle of one of those chessmen. The

table was prepared beforehand and set upon a certain

spot on the floor. When the bishop was placed upon one

of the silver squares, the current passed through Wilson's body, killing him instantly. The only mark was the

electric burn upon his hand--his left hand, because he

was left-handed. The 'special table' was an extremely