It was a month before I was fully restored to health.

THE BIG FOUR 179

Towards the end of April, I sought, and obtained, an interview with the Home Secretary.

Mr. Crowther's manner was reminiscent of that of

Dr. Ridgeway. It was soothing and negative. Whilst appreciating the offer of my services, he gently and considerately

declined them. The papers referred to by

Poirot had passed into his keeping, and he assured me

that all possible steps were being taken to deal with the approaching menace.

With that cold comfort I was forced to be satisfied.

Mr. Crowther ended the interview by urging me to

return to South America. I found the whole thing profoundly unsatisfactory.

I should, I suppose, in its proper place, have described Poirot's funeral. It was a solemn and moving

ceremony, and the extraordinary number of floral

tributes passed belief. They came from high and low

alike, and bore striking testimony to the place my friend had made for himself in the country of his adoption.

For myself, I was frankly overcome by emotion as I

stood by the grave side and thought of all our varied

experiences and the happy days we had passed together.

By the beginning of May I had mapped out a plan of

campaign. I felt that I could not do better than keep

Poirot's scheme of advertising for any information

respecting Claud Darrell. I had an advertisement to this effect inserted in a number of morning newspapers, and

I was sitting in a small restaurant in Soho, and judging of the effect of the advertisement, when a small paragraph in another part of the paper gave me a nasty

shock.

Very briefly, it reported the mysterious disappearance

of Mr. John Ingles from the S.S. Shanghai, shortly after the latter had left Marseilles. Although the weather was 180 Agatha Christie

perfectly smooth, it was feared that the unfortunate

gentleman must have fallen overboard. The paragraph

ended with a brief reference to Mr. Ingles' long and

distinguished service in China.

The news was unpleasant. I read into Ingles' death a

sinister motive. Not for one moment did I believe the

theory of an accident. Ingles had been murdered, and

his death was only too clearly the handiwork of that accursed Big Four.

As I sat there, stunned by the blow, and turning the

whole matter over in my mind, I was startled by the

remarkable behaviour of the man sitting opposite me.

So far I had not paid much attention to him. He was a

thin, dark man of middle age, sallow of complexion,

with a small pointed beard. He had sat down opposite

me so quietly that I had hardly noticed his arrival.

But his actions now were decidedly peculiar, to say

the least of them. Leaning forward, he deliberately

helped me to salt, putting it in four little heaps round the edge of my plate.

"You will excuse me," he said, in a melancholy voice.

"To help a stranger to salt is to help them to sorrow, they say. That may be an unavoidable necessity. I hope