young women with hair of a certain shade. I thought Poirot’s reference to be in the worst of taste, but fortunately I was able to counter him.
“And what about you?” I demanded. “Are you going to try to cure your ‘overweening vanity?’ Your ‘finicky tidiness?’ ”
I was quoting, and I could see that he was not pleased with my retort.
“Oh, without doubt, Hastings, in some things they deceive themselves— tant mieux ! They will learn in due time. Meanwhile we have learnt something, and to know is to be prepared.”
This last was a favourite axiom of his lately; so much so that I had begun to hate the sound of it.
“We know something, Hastings,” he continued. “Yes, we know something—and that is to the good—but we do not know nearly enough. We must know more.”
“In what way?”
Poirot settled himself back in his chair, straightened a box of matches which I had thrown carelessly down on the table, and assumed an attitude that I knew only too well. I saw that he was prepared to hold forth at some length.
“See you, Hastings, we have to contend against four adversaries; that is, against four different personalities. With Number One we have never come into personal contact—we know him, as it were, only by the impress of his mind—and in passing, Hastings, I will tell you that I begin to understand that mind very well—a mind most subtle and Oriental—every scheme and plot that we have encountered has emanated from the brain of Li Chang Yen. Number Two and Number Three are so powerful, so high up, that they are for the present immune from our