Chinese servant and ushered into the presence of his master. Mr. Ingles was a squarely-built man, somewhat yellow of countenance, with deep-set eyes that were oddly reflective in character. He rose to greet us, setting aside an open letter which he had held in his hand. He referred to it after his greeting.
"Sit down, won't you? Halsey tells me that you want some information and that I may be useful to you in the matter."
"That is so, monsieur. I ask of you if you have any knowledge of a man named Li Chang Yen?"
"That's rum--very rum indeed. How did you come to hear about the man?"
"You know him, then?"
"I've met him once. And I know something of him--not quite as much as I should like to. But it surprises me that any one else in England should even have heard of him. He's a great man in his way--mandarin class and all that, you know--but that's not the crux of the matter. There's good reason to suppose that he's the man behind it all."
"Behind what?"
"Everything. The world-wide unrest, the labour troubles that beset every nation, and the revolutions that break out in some. There are people, not scaremongers, who know what they are talking about, and they say that there is a force behind the scenes which aims at nothing less than the disintegration of civilisation. In Russia, you know, there were many signs that Lenin and Trotsky were mere puppets whose every action was dictated by another's brain. I have no definite proof that would count with you, but I am quite convinced that this brain was Li Chang Yen's."
"Oh, come," I protested, "isn't that a bit farfetched? How would a Chinaman cut any ice in Russia?"
Poirot frowned at me irritably.
"For you, Hastings," he said, "everything is farfetched that comes not from your own imagination; for me, I agree with this gentleman. But continue, I pray, monsieur."
"What exactly he hopes to get out of it all I cannot pretend to say for certain," went on Mr. Ingles; "but I assume his disease is one that has attacked great brains from the time of Akbar and Alexander to Napoleon--a lust for power and personal supremacy. Up to modern times armed force was necessary for conquest, but in this century of unrest a man like Li Chang Yen can use other means. I have evidence that he has unlimited money behind him for bribery and propaganda, and there are signs that he controls some scientific force more powerful than the world has dreamed of."
Poirot was following Mr. Ingles's words with the closest attention.
"And in China?" he asked. "He moves there too?"
The other nodded in emphatic assent.
"There," he said, "although I can produce no proof that would count in a court of law, I speak from my own knowledge. I know personally every man who counts for anything in China today, and this I can tell you: the men who 

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