I took up the telegram and was about to pass out again when an idea struck me.
Could I not leave some sign which would mean nothing to my enemies but which Poirot himself would find significant.
I hurried across to the bookcase and tumbled out four books on to the floor.
No fear of Poirot's not seeing them.
They would outrage his eyes immediately - and coming on top of his little lecture, surely he would find them unusual.
Next I put a shovelful of coal on the fire and managed to spill four knobs into the grate.
I had done all I could - pray Heaven Poirot would read the sign aright.
I hurried down again.
The Chinaman took the telegram from me, read it, then placed it in his pocket and with a nod beckoned me to follow him.
It was a long weary march that he led me.
Once we took a bus and once we went for some considerable way in a train, and always our route led us steadily eastward.
We went through strange districts, the existence I had never dreamed of.
We were down by the docks now, I knew, and I realised that I was being taken into the heart of Chinatown.
In spite of myself I shivered.
Still my guide plodded on, turning and twisting through mean streets and byways, until at last he stopped at a dilapidated house and rapped four times upon the door.
It was opened immediately by another Chinaman who stood aside to let us pass in.
The clanging to of the door behind me was the knell of my last hopes.
I was indeed in the hands of the enemy.
I was now handed over to the second Chinaman.
He led me down some rickety stairs and into a cellar which was filled with bales and casks and which exhaled a pungent odour, as of Eastern spices.
I felt wrapped all round with the atmosphere of the East, tortuous, cunning, sinister - Suddenly my guide rolled aside two of the casks, and I saw a low tunnel-like opening in the wall.
He motioned me to go ahead.
The tunnel was of some length, and it was just too low for me to stand upright.
At last, however, it broadened out into a passage, and a few minutes later we stood in another cellar.
My Chinaman went forward, and rapped four times on one of the walls.
A whole section of the wall swung out, leaving a narow doorway.
I passed through, and to my utter astonishment found myself in a kind of Arabian Nights' palace.
A low long subterranean chamber hung with rich oriental silks, brilliantly lighted and fragrant with perfumes and spices.
There five or six silk covered divans, and exquisite carpets of Chinese workmanship covered the ground.
At the end of the room was a curtained recess.
From behind these curtains came a voice.
"You have brought our honoured guest?"
"Excellency, he is here," replied my guide.
"Let our guest enter," was the answer.
At the same moment, the curtains were drawn aside by an unseen hand, and I was facing an immense cushioned divan on which sat a tall thin Oriental dressed in wonderfully embroidered robes, and clearly, by the length of his finger nails, a great man.
"Be seated, I pray you, Captain Hastings," he said, with a wave of his hand. "You acceded to my request to come immediately, I am glad to see."
"Who are you?" I asked. "Li Chang Yen?"
"Indeed no, I am but the humblest of the master's servants.
I carry out his behests, that is all - as do other of his servants in other countries - in South America, for instance."
I advanced a step.
"Where is she?
What have you done with her out there?"
"She is in a place of safety - where none will find her.
As yet, she is unharmed.
You observe that I say - as yet!"
Cold shivers ran down my spine as I confronted this smiling devil.
"What do you want?" I cried. "Money?"
"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."