It was signed “S.E. Ratchett.”
“Eh bien?”
“I reported at the time stated and Mr. Ratchett put me wise to the situation. He showed me a couple of letters he’d got.”
“He was alarmed?”
“Pretended not to be, but he was rattled all right. He put up a proposition to me. I was to travel by the same train as he did to Parrus and see that nobody got him. Well, gentlemen, I did travel by the same train and, in spite of me, somebody did get him. I certainly feel sore about it. It doesn’t look any too good for me.”
“Did he give you any indication of the line you were to take?”
“Sure. He had it all taped out. It was his idea that I should travel in the compartment alongside his—well, that was blown upon straight away. The only place I could get was berth No. 16, and I had a bit of a job getting that. I guess the conductor likes to keep that compartment up his sleeve. But that’s neither here nor there. When I looked all round the situation, it seemed to me that No. 16 was a pretty good strategic position. There was only the dining car in front of the Stamboul sleeping car, the door on to the platform at the front end was barred at night. The only way a thug could come was through the rear end door to the platform or along the train from the rear—in either case he’d have to pass right by my compartment.”
“You had no idea, I suppose, of the identity of the possible assailant.”
“Well, I knew what he looked like. Mr. Ratchett described him to me.”
“What?”
All three men leaned forward eagerly.
Hardman went on:
“A small man, dark, with a womanish kind of voice—that’s what the old man said. Said, too, that he didn’t think it would be the first night out. More likely the second or third.”
“He knew something,” said M. Bouc.
“He certainly knew more than he told his secretary,” said Poirot thoughtfully. “Did he tell you anything about this enemy of his? Did he, for instance, say why his life was threatened?”
“No, he was kinder reticent about that part of it. Just said the fellow was out for his blood and meant to get it.”
“A small man—dark—with a womanish voice,” said Poirot thoughtfully.
Then, fixing a sharp glance on Hardman, he said:
“You knew who he really was, of course?”
“Which, mister?”
“Ratchett. You recognized him?”
“I don’t get you.”
“Ratchett was Cassetti, the Armstrong murderer.”
Mr. Hardman gave way to a prolonged whistle.
“That certainly is some surprise!” he said. “Yes, sir! No, I didn’t recognize him. I was away out West when that case came on. I suppose I saw photos of him in the papers, but I wouldn’t recognize my own mother when a press photographer had done with her. Well, I don’t doubt that a few people had it in for Cassetti all right.”
“Do you know of anyone connected with the Armstrong case who answers to that description—small, dark, womanish voice?”
Hardman reflected a minute or two.
“It’s hard to say. Pretty nearly everyone to do with that case is dead.”
“There was the girl who threw herself out of the window, remember.”
“Sure. That’s a good point, that. She was a foreigner of some kind. Maybe she had some wop relations. But you’ve got to remember that there were other cases besides the Armstrong case. Cassetti had been running this kidnapping stunt some time. You can’t concentrate on that only.”
“Ah, but we have reason to believe that this crime is connected with the Armstrong case.”
Mr. Hardman cocked an inquiring eye. Poirot did not respond. The American shook his head.
“I can’t call to mind anybody answering that description in the Armstrong case,” he said slowly. “But of course I wasn’t in it and didn’t know much about it.”
“Well, continue your narrative, M. Hardman.”
“There’s very little to tell. I got my sleep in the daytime and stayed awake on the watch at night. Nothing suspicious happened the first night. Last night was the same, as far as I was concerned. I had my door a little ajar and watched. No stranger passed.”
“You are sure of that, M. Hardman?”
“I’m plumb certain. Nobody got on that train from outside and nobody came along the train from the rear carriages. I’ll take my oath on that.”
“Could you see the conductor from your position?”
“Sure. He sits on that little seat almost flush with my door.”
“Did he leave that seat at all after the train stopped at Vincovci?”
“That was the last station? Why, yes, he answered a couple of bells—that would be just after the train came to a halt for good. Then, after that, he went past me into the rear coach—was there about a quarter of an hour. There was a bell ringing like mad and he came back running. I stepped out into the corridor to see what it was all about—felt a mite nervous, you understand—but it was only the American dame. She was raising hell about something or other. I grinned. Then he went on to another compartment and came back and got a bottle of mineral water for someone. After that he settled down in his seat till he went up to the far end to make somebody’s bed up. I don’t think he stirred after that until about five o’clock this morning.”
“Did he doze off at all?”
“That I can’t say. He may have done.”
Poirot nodded. Automatically his hands straightened the papers on the table. He picked up the official card once more.
“Be so good as just to initial this,” he said.
The other complied.
“There is no one, I suppose, who can confirm your story of your identity, M. Hardman?”
“On this train? Well, not exactly. Unless it might be young MacQueen. I know him well enough—seen him in his father’s office in New York—but that’s not to say he’ll remember me from a crowd of other operatives. No, Mr. Poirot, you’ll have to wait and cable New York when the snow lets up. But it’s O.K. I’m not telling the tale. Well, so long, gentlemen. Pleased to have met you, Mr. Poirot.”
Poirot proffered his cigarette case.
“But perhaps you prefer a pipe?”
“Not me.”
He helped himself, then strode briskly off.
The three men looked at each other.
“You think he is genuine?” asked Dr. Constantine.
“Yes, yes. I know the type. Besides, it is a story that would be very easily disproved.”
“He has given us a piece of very interesting evidence,” said M. Bouc.
“Yes, indeed.”
“A small man, dark, with a high-pitched voice,” said M. Bouc thoughtfully.
“A description which applies to no one on the train,” said Poirot.
Ten
THE EVIDENCE OF THE ITALIAN
“And now,” said Poirot with a twinkle in his eye, “we will delight the heart of M. Bouc and see the Italian.”
Antonio Foscarelli came into the dining car with a swift, catlike tread. His face beamed. It was a typical Italian face, sunny looking and swarthy.
He spoke French well and fluently, with only a slight accent.
“Your name is Antonio Foscarelli?”
“Yes, Monsieur.”
“You are, I see, a naturalized American subject?”
The American grinned.
“Yes, Monsieur. It is better for my business.”
“You are an agent for Ford motor cars?”
“Yes, you see—”
A voluble exposition followed. At the end of it, anything that the three men did not know about Foscarelli’s business methods, his journeys, his income, and his opinion of the United States and most European countries seemed a negligible factor. This was not a man who had to have information dragged from him. It gushed out.
His good-natured childish face beamed with satisfaction as with a last eloquent gesture, he paused and wiped his forehead
with a handkerchief.
“So you see,” he said, “I do big business. I am up to date. I understand salesmanship!”
“You have been in the United States, then, for the last ten years on and off?”
“Yes, Monsieur. Ah! well do I remember the day I first took the boat—to go to America, so far away! My mother, my little sister—”
Poirot cut short the flood of reminiscence.
“During your sojourn in the United States did you ever come across the deceased?”
“Never. But I know the type. Oh, yes.” He snapped his fingers expressively. “It is very respectable, very well dressed, but underneath it is all wrong. Out of my experience, I should say he was the big crook. I give you my opinion for what it is worth.”
“Your opinion is quite right,” said Poirot dryly. “Ratchett was Cassetti, the kidnapper.”
“What did I tell you? I have learned to be very acute—to read the face. It is necessary. Only in America do they teach you the proper way to sell.”
“You remember the Armstrong case?
“I do not quite remember. The name, yes? It was a little girl—a baby—was it not?”
“Yes, a very tragic affair.”
The Italian seemed the first person to demur to this view.
“Ah, well, these things they happen,” he said philosophically, “in a great civilization such as America—”
Poirot cut him short.
“Did you ever come across any members of the Armstrong family?”
“No, I do not think so. It is difficult to say. I will give you some figures. Last year alone I sold—”
“Monsieur, pray confine yourself to the point.”
The Italian’s hands flung themselves out in a gesture of apology.
“A thousand pardons.”
“Tell me, if you please, your exact movements last night from dinner onwards.”
“With pleasure. I stay here as long as I can. It is more amusing. I talk to the American gentleman at my table. He sells typewriter ribbons. Then I go back to my compartment. It is empty. The miserable John Bull who shares it with me is away attending to his master. At last he comes back—very long face as usual. He will not talk—says yes and no. A miserable race, the English—not sympathetic. He sits in the corner, very stiff, reading a book. Then the conductor comes and makes our beds.”
“Nos. 4 and 5,” murmured Poirot.
“Exactly—the end compartment. Mine is the upper berth. I get up there. I smoke and read. The little Englishman has, I think, the toothache. He gets out a little bottle of stuff that smells very strong. He lies in bed and groans. Presently I sleep. Whenever I wake I hear him groaning.”
“Do you know if he left the carriage at all during the night?”
“I do not think so. That, I should hear. The light from the corridor—one wakes up automatically thinking it is the Customs examination at some frontier.”
“Did he ever speak of his master? Ever express any animus against him?”
“I tell you he did not speak. He was not sympathetic. A fish.”
“You smoke, you say—a pipe, cigarettes, cigars?”
“Cigarettes only.”
Poirot proffered him one which he accepted.
“Have you ever been in Chicago?” inquired M. Bouc.
“Oh, yes—a fine city—but I know best New York, Washington, Detroit. You have been to the States? No? You should go, it—”
Poirot pushed a sheet of paper across to him.
“If you will sign this, and put your permanent address, please.”
The Italian wrote with a flourish. Then he rose—his smile was as engaging as ever.
“That is all? You do not require me further? Good day to you, Messieurs. I wish we could get out of the snow. I have an appointment in Milan—” He shook his head sadly. “I shall lose the business.”
He departed.
Poirot looked at his friend.
“He has been a long time in America,” said M. Bouc, “and he is an Italian, and Italians use the knife! And they are great liars! I do not like Italians.”
“Ça se voit,” said Poirot with a smile. “Well, it may be that you are right, but I will point out to you, my friend, that there is absolutely no evidence against the man.”
“And what about the psychology? Do not Italians stab?”
“Assuredly,” said Poirot. “Especially in the heat of a quarrel. But this—this is a different kind of crime. I have the little idea, my friend, that this is a crime very carefully planned and staged. It is a far-sighted, long-headed crime. It is not—how shall I express it?—a Latin crime. It is a crime that shows traces of a cool, resourceful, deliberate brain—I think an Anglo-Saxon brain.”
He picked up the last two passports.
“Let us now,” he said, “see Miss Mary Debenham.”
Eleven
THE EVIDENCE OF MISS DEBENHAM
When Mary Debenham entered the dining car she confirmed Poirot’s previous estimate of her.
Very neatly dressed in a little black suit with a French grey shirt, the smooth waves of her dark head were neat and unruffled. Her manner was as calm and unruffled as her hair.
She sat down opposite Poirot and M. Bouc and looked at them inquiringly.
“Your name is Mary Hermione Debenham, and you are twenty-six years of age?” began Poirot.
“Yes.”
“English?”
“Yes.”
“Will you be so kind, Mademoiselle, as to write down your permanent address on this piece of paper?”
She complied. Her writing was clear and legible.
“And now, Mademoiselle, what have you to tell us of the affair last night?”
“I am afraid I have nothing to tell you. I went to bed and slept.”
“Does it distress you very much, Mademoiselle, that a crime has been committed on this train?”
The question was clearly unexpected. Her grey eyes widened a little.
“I don’t quite understand you.”
“It was a perfectly simple question that I asked you, Mademoiselle. I will repeat it. Are you very much distressed that a crime should have been committed on this train?”
“I have not really thought about it from that point of view. No, I cannot say that I am at all distressed.”
“A crime—it is all in the day’s work to you, eh?”
“It is naturally an unpleasant thing to have happen,” said Mary Debenham quietly.
“You are very Anglo-Saxon. Mademoiselle. Vous n’éprouvez pas d’émotion.”
She smiled a little.
“I am afraid I cannot have hysterics to prove my sensibility. After all, people die every day.”
“They die, yes. But murder is a little more rare.”
“Oh, certainly.”
“You were not acquainted with the dead man?”
“I saw him for the first time when lunching here yesterday.”
“And how did he strike you?”
“I hardly noticed him.”
“He did not strike you as an evil personality.”
She shrugged her shoulders slightly.
“Really, I cannot say I thought about it.”
Poirot looked at her keenly.
“You are, I think, a little bit contemptuous of the way I prosecute my inquiries,” he said with a twinkle. “Not so, you think, would an English inquiry be conducted. There everything would be cut and dried—it would be all kept to the facts—a well-ordered business. But I, Mademoiselle, have my little originalities. I look first at my witness, I sum up his or her character, and I frame my questions accordingly. Just a little minute ago I am asking questions of a gentleman who wants to tell me all his ideas on every subject. Well, him I keep strictly to the point. I want him to answer yes or no, this or that. And then you come. I see at once that you will be orderly and methodical. You will confine yourself to the matter in hand. Your answers will be brief and to the point. And because, Mademoiselle, human nature is per
verse, I ask of you quite different questions. I ask what you feel, what you thought. It does not please you this method?”
“If you will forgive my saying so, it seems somewhat of a waste of time. Whether or not I liked Mr. Ratchett’s face does not seem likely to be helpful in finding out who killed him.”
“Do you know who the man Ratchett really was, Mademoiselle?”
She nodded.
“Mrs. Hubbard has been telling everyone.”
“And what do you think of the Armstrong affair?”
“It was quite abominable,” said the girl crisply.
Poirot looked at her thoughtfully.
“You are travelling from Baghdad, I believe, Miss Debenham?”
“Yes.”
“To London?”
“Yes.”
“What have you been doing in Baghdad?”
“I have been acting as governess to two children.”
“Are you returning to your post after your holiday?”
“I am not sure.”
“Why is that?”
“Baghdad is rather out of things. I think I should prefer a post in London if I can hear of a suitable one.”
“I see. I thought, perhaps, you might be going to be married.”
Miss Debenham did not reply. She raised her eyes and looked Poirot full in the face. The glance said plainly, “You are impertinent.”
“What is your opinion of the lady who shares your compartment—Miss Ohlsson?”
“She seems a pleasant, simple creature.”
“What colour is her dressing gown?”
Mary Debenham stared.
“A kind of brownish colour—natural wool.”
“Ah! I may mention without indiscretion, I hope, that I noticed the colour of your dressing gown on the way from Aleppo to Stamboul. A pale mauve, I believe.”
“Yes, that is right.”
“Have you any other dressing gown, Mademoiselle? A scarlet dressing gown, for example?”
“No, that is not mine.”
Poirot leaned forward. He was like a cat pouncing on a mouse.
“Whose, then?”
The girl drew back a little, startled.
“I don’t know. What do you mean?”