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30 week of his indiscretion each was dead. One was poisoned; one died of cholera, an isolated case—not part of an epidemic; and one was found dead in his bed. The cause of the last death was never determined, but I was told by a doctor who saw the corpse that it was burnt and shrivelled as though a wave of electrical energy of incredible power had passed through it.”

“And Li Chang Yen?” inquired Poirot. “Naturally nothing is traced to him, but there are signs, eh?”

Mr. Ingles shrugged.

“Oh, signs—yes, certainly. And once I found a man who would talk, a brilliant young Chinese chemist who was a protegé of Li Chang Yen’s. He came to me one day, this chemist, and I could see that he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. He hinted to me of experiments on which he’d been engaged in Li Chang Yen’s palace under the mandarin’s direction—experiments on coolies in which the most revolting disregard for human life and suffering had been shown. His nerve had completely broken, and he was in the most pitiable state of terror. I put him to bed in a top room of my own house, intending to question him the next day—and that, of course, was stupid of me.

“How did they get him?” demanded Poirot.