A big limousine had just drawn up by the pavement.
A woman was leaning out. Exquisitely dressed in black, with wonderful pearls, I recognised the lady first known to us as Countess Vera Rossakoff, and afterwards under a different alias as an agent of the Big Four.
Poirot, for some reason or other, had always had a sneaking fondness for the countess.
Something in her very flamboyance attracted the little man.
She was, he was wont to declare in moments of enthusiasm, a woman in a thousand.
That she was arrayed against us, on the side of our bitterest enemies, never seemed to weigh in his judgment.
"Ah, do not pass on!" said the countess. "I have something most important to say to you.
And do not try to have me arrested either, for that would be stupid.
You were always a little stupid - yes, yes, it is so.
You are stupid now, when you persist in disregarding the warning we sent you.
It is the second warning I bring you.
Leave England at once.
You can do no good here - I tell you that frankly.
You will never accomplish anything."
"In that case," I said stiffly, "it seems rather extraordinary that you are all so anxious to get me out of the country."
The countess shrugged her shoulders - magnificent shoulders, and a magnificent gesture.
"For my part, I think that, too, stupid.
I would leave you here to play about happily. But the chiefs, you see, are fearful that some word of yours may give great help to those more intelligent than yourself.
Hence - you are to be banished."
The countess appeared to have a flattering idea of my abilities.
I concealed my annoyance.
Doubtless this attitude of hers was assumed expressly to annoy me and to give me the idea that I was unimportant.
"It would, of course, be quite easy to - remove you," she continued, "but I am quite sentimental sometimes.
I pleaded for you.
You have a nice little wife somewhere, have you not?
And it would please the poor little man who is dead to know that you were not to be killed.
I always liked him, you know.
He was clever - but clever!
Had it not been a case of four against one I honestly believe he might have been too much for us.
I confess it frankly - he was my master!
I sent a wreath to the funeral as a token of my admiration - an enormous one of crimson roses.
Crimson roses express my temperament."
I listened in silence and a growing distaste.
"You have the look of a mule when it puts its ears back and kicks.
Well, I have delivered my warning.
Remember this, the third warning will come by the hand of the Destroyer -" She made a sign, and the car whirled away rapidly.
I noted the number mechanically, but without the hope that it would lead to anything.
The Big Four were not apt to be careless in details.
I went home a little sobered.
One fact had emerged from the countess's flood of volubility.
I was in real danger of my life.
Though I had no intention of abandoning the struggle, I saw that it behoved me to walk warily and adopt every possible precaution.
Whilst I was reviewing all these facts and seeking for the best line of action, the telephone bell rang.
I crossed the room and picked up the receiver.
"Yes. Hallo. Who's speaking?"
A crisp voice answered me.
"This is St. Giles' Hospital.
We have a Chinaman here, knifed in the street and brought in.
He can't last long.
We rang you up because we found in his pocket a piece of paper with your name and address on it."