I could not have been unconscious more than a minute. I came to myself being hustled¹ along between two men. They had me under each arm, supporting my weight, and there was a gag in my mouth. It was pitch dark, but I gathered that we were not outside, but passing through the hotel. All round I could hear people shouting and demanding in every known language what had happened to the lights. My captors swung me down some stairs. We passed along a basement passage, then through a door and out into the open again through a glass door at the back of the hotel. In another moment we had gained the shelter of the pine trees.

 

I had caught a glimpse of another figure in a similar plight² to myself, and realised that Poirot, too, was a victim of this bold coup³.

 

By sheer audacity⁴, Number Four had won the day. He had employed, I gathered, an instant æsthetic, probably ethyl chloride—breaking a small bulb of it under our noses. Then, in the confusion of the darkness, his accomplices⁵, who had probably been guests sitting at the next table, had thrust gags in our mouths and hurried us away, taking us through the hotel to baffle pursuit.

 

I cannot describe the hour that followed. We were hurried through the woods at a break-neck pace, going uphill the whole time. At last we emerged in the open, on the mountain-side, and I saw just in front of us an extraordinary conglomeration⁶ of fantastic rocks and boulders⁷.

 

This must be the Felsenlabyrynth of which Harvey had spoken. Soon we were winding⁹ in and out of its recesses¹⁰. The place was like a

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