Page:The Big Four (Christie).pdf/164

 With infinite care he weighed the two chessmen, then turned to me with a face alight with triumph.

“I was right. See you, I was right. Impossible to deceive Hercule Poirot!”

He rushed to the telephone—waited impatiently.

“Is that Japp? Ah! Japp, it is you. Hercule Poirot speaks. Watch the manservant, Ivan. On no account let him slip through your fingers. Yes, yes, it is as I say.”

He dashed down the receiver and turned to me.

“You see it not, Hastings? I will explain. Wilson was not poisoned, he was electrocuted. A thin metal rod passes up the middle of one of those chessmen. The table was prepared beforehand and set upon a certain spot on the floor. When the bishop was placed upon one of the silver squares, the current passed through Wilson’s body, killing him instantly. The only mark was the electric burn upon his hand—his left hand, because he was left-handed. The “special table” was an extremely cunning piece of mechanism. The table I examined was a duplicate, perfectly innocent. It was substituted for the other immediately after the murder. The thing was worked from the flat below, which,