“My dear Captain Hastings. We have no designs on your small savings, I can assure you. Not⁠—pardon me⁠—a very intelligent suggestion on your part. Your colleague would not have made it, I fancy.”

“I suppose,” I said heavily, “you wanted to get me into your toils. Well, you have succeeded. I have come here with my eyes open. Do what you like with me, and let her go. She knows nothing, and she can be no possible use to you. You’ve used her to get hold of me⁠—you’ve got me all right, and that settles it.”

The smiling Oriental caressed his smooth cheek, watching me obliquely out of his narrow eyes.

“You go too fast,” he said purringly. “That does not quite⁠—settle it. In fact, to ‘get hold of you’ as you express it, is not really our objective. But through you, we hope to get hold of your friend, M. Hercule Poirot.”

“I’m afraid you won’t do that,” I said, with a short laugh.