The Big Four. Agatha Christie

      

      The Big Four

      Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published in Great Britain by

      Collins 1927

      Agatha Christie® Poirot® The Big Four™

      Copyright © 1927 Agatha Christie Limited. All rights reserved.

       www.agathachristie.com

      Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016

      Title lettering by Ghost Design

      Cover layout design © HarperColl‌insPublishers Ltd 2016. Title lettering by Ghost Design. Cover photograph © Andrew Proudlove/Arcangel Images

      Agatha Christie asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

      A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

      This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

      Source ISBN: 9780008164904

      Ebook Edition © September 2016 ISBN: 9780007422166

      Version: 2019-01-03

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

       Copyright

       CHAPTER 1: The Unexpected Guest

       CHAPTER 2: The Man From the Asylum

       CHAPTER 3: We Hear More About LI Chang Yen

       CHAPTER 4: The Importance of a Leg of Mutton

       CHAPTER 5: Disappearance of a Scientist

      

       CHAPTER 6: The Woman on the Stairs

      

       CHAPTER 7: The Radium Thieves

      

       CHAPTER 8: In the House of the Enemy

      

       CHAPTER 9: The Yellow Jasmine Mystery

      

       CHAPTER 10: We Investigate at Croftlands

      

       CHAPTER 11: The Chess Problem

      

       CHAPTER 12: The Baited Trap

      

       CHAPTER 13: The Mouse Walks in

      

       CHAPTER 14: The Peroxide Blonde

      

       CHAPTER 15: The Terrible Catastrophe

      

       CHAPTER 16: The Dying Chinaman

      

       CHAPTER 17: Number Four Wins a Trick

      

       CHAPTER 18: In the Felsenlabyrinth

      

       Also by Agatha Christie

      

       About the Publisher

       CHAPTER 1

       The Unexpected Guest

      I have met people who enjoy a channel crossing; men who can sit calmly in their deckchairs and, on arrival, wait until the boat is moored, then gather their belongings together without fuss and disembark. Personally, I can never manage this. From the moment I get on board I feel that the time is too short to settle down to anything. I move my suitcases from one spot to another, and if I go down to the saloon for a meal, I bolt my food with an uneasy feeling that the boat may arrive unexpectedly whilst I am below. Perhaps all this is merely a legacy from one’s short leaves in the war, when it seemed a matter of such importance to secure a place near the gangway, and to be amongst the first to disembark lest one should waste precious minutes of one’s three or five days’ leave.

      On this particular July morning, as I stood by the rail and watched the white cliffs of Dover drawing nearer, I marvelled at the passengers who could sit calmly in their chairs and never even raise their eyes for the first sight of their native land. Yet perhaps