“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.”