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28 Poirot frowned at me irritably.

“For you, Hastings,” he said, “everything is far-fetched that comes not from your own imagination; for me, I agree with this gentleman. But continue, I pray, monsieur.”

“What exactly he hopes to get out of it all I cannot pretend to say for certain,” went on Mr. Ingles; but I assume his disease is one that has attacked great brains from the time of Akbar and Alexander to Napoleon—a lust for power and personal supremacy. Up to modern times armed force was necessary for conquest, but in this century of unrest a man like Li Chang Yen can use other means. I have evidence that he has unlimited money behind him for bribery and propaganda, and there are signs that he controls some scientific force more powerful than the world has dreamed of.”

Poirot was following Mr. Ingles’s words with the closest attention.

“And in China?” he asked. “He moves there too?”

The other nodded in emphatic assent.

“There,” he said, “although I can produce no proof that would count in a court of law, I speak from my own knowledge. I know personally every man who counts for anything in China to-day, and this I can tell you: the men