for Hanwell.

"You are the Asylum, yes? I understand there has been an escape to-day? What is that you say? A little moment, if you please. Will you repeat that? Ah! _parfaitement_."

He hung up the receiver, and turned to me.

"You heard, Hastings? _There has been no escape_."

"But the man who came--the keeper?" I said."I wonder--I very much wonder."
"You mean--?"
"Number Four--the destroyer."
I gazed at Poirot dumbfounded. A minute or two after, on recovering my voice, I said:--
"We shall know him again, anywhere, that's one thing. He was a man of very pronounced personality."
"Was he, _mon ami_? I think not. He was burly and bluff and red-faced, with a thick moustache and a hoarse voice. He will be none of those things by this time, and for the rest, he has nondescript eyes, nondescript ears, and a perfect set of false teeth. Identification is not such an easy matter as you seem to think. Next time--"
"You think there will be a next time?" I interrupted.
Poirot's face grew very grave.
"It is a duel to the death, _mon ami_. You and I on the one side, the Big Four on the other. They have won the first trick; but they have failed in their plan to get me out of the way, and in the future they have to reckon with Hercule Poirot!"
3. WE HEAR MORE ABOUT LI CHANG YEN
For a day or two after our visit from the fake Asylum attendant I was in some hopes that he might return, and I refused to leave the flat even for a moment. As far as I could see, he had no reason to suspect that we had penetrated his disguise. He might, I thought, return and try to remove the body, but Poirot scoffed at my reasoning.
"_Mon ami_," he said, "if you wish you may wait in to put salt on the little bird's tail, but for me I do not waste my time so."
"Well then, Poirot," I argued, "why did he run the risk of coming at all. If he intended to return later for the body, I can see some point in his visit. He would at least be removing the evidence against himself; as it is, he does not seem to have gained anything."
Poirot shrugged his most Gallic shrug. "But you do not see with the eyes of Number Four, Hastings," he said. "You talk of evidence, but what evidence have we against him? True, we have a body, but we have no proof even that the man was murdered--prussic acid, when inhaled, leaves no trace. Again, we can find no one who saw any one enter the flat during our absence, and we have found out nothing about the movements of our late friend, Mayerling...."

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