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 the last hour—by Scotland Yard men. It is checkmate, Mr. Abe Ryland.”

He uttered a curious whistle, and as though by magic, the place was alive with men. They seized Ryland and the valet and disarmed them. After speaking a few words to the officer in charge, Poirot took me by the arm, and led me away.

Once clear of the quarry he embraced me with vigour.

“You are alive—you are unhurt. It is magnificent. Often have I blamed myself for letting you go.”

“I’m perfectly all right,” I said, disengaging myself. “But I’m just a big fogged. You tumbled to their little scheme, did you?”

“But I was waiting for it! For what else did I permit you to go there? Your false name, your disguise, not for a moment was it intended to deceive!”

“What?” I cried. “You never told me.”

“As I have frequently told you, Hastings, you have a nature so beautiful and so honest that unless you are yourself deceived, it is impossible for you to deceive others. Good, then, you are spotted from the first, and they do what I had counted on their doing—a mathematical certainty to any one who uses his gray cells properly—use you as a decoy. They set