Fifteen
THE EVIDENCE OF THE PASSENGERS’ LUGGAGE
Having delivered himself of various polite insincerities, and having told Mrs. Hubbard that he would order coffee to be brought to her, Poirot was able to take his leave accompanied by his two friends.
“Well, we have made a start and drawn a blank,” observed M. Bouc. “Whom shall we tackle next?”
“It would be simplest, I think, just to proceed along the train carriage by carriage. That means that we start with No. 16—the amiable M. Hardman.”
Mr. Hardman, who was smoking a cigar, welcomed them affably.
“Come right in, gentlemen—that is, if it’s humanly possible. It’s just a mite cramped in here for a party.”
M. Bouc explained the object of their visit, and the big detective nodded comprehendingly.
“That’s O.K. To tell the truth, I’ve been wondering you didn’t get down to it sooner. Here are my keys, gentlemen and if you like to search my pockets too, why, you’re welcome. Shall I reach the grips down for you?”
“The conductor will do that. Michel!”
The contents of Mr. Hardman’s two “grips” were soon examined and passed. They contained perhaps an undue proportion of spirituous liquor. Mr. Hardman winked.
“It’s not often they search your grips at the frontiers—not if you fix the conductor. I handed out a wad of Turkish notes right away, and there’s been no trouble so far.”
“And at Paris?”
Mr. Hardman winked again.
“By the time I get to Paris,” he said, “what’s left over of this little lot will go into a bottle labelled hairwash.”
“You are not a believer in Prohibition, Monsieur Hardman,” said M. Bouc with a smile.
“Well,” said Hardman. “I can’t say Prohibition has ever worried me any.”
“Ah!” said M. Bouc. “The speakeasy.” He pronounced the word with care, savouring it.
“Your American terms are so quaint, so expressive,” he said.
“Me, I would much like to go to America,” said Poirot.
“You’d learn a few go-ahead methods over there,” said Hardman. “Europe wants waking up. She’s half asleep.”
“It is true that America is the country of progress,” agreed Poirot. “There is much that I admire about Americans. Only—I am perhaps old-fashioned—but me, I find the American woman less charming than my own countrywomen. The French or Belgian girl, coquettish, charming—I think there is no one to touch her.”
Hardman turned away to peer out at the snow for a minute.
“Perhaps you’re right, M. Poirot,” he said. “But I guess every nation likes its own girls best.”
He blinked as though the snow hurt his eyes.
“Kind of dazzling, isn’t it?” he remarked. “Say, gentlemen, this business is getting on my nerves. Murder and the snow and all, and nothing doing. Just hanging about and killing time. I’d like to get busy after someone or something.”
“The true Western spirit of hustle,” said Poirot with a smile.
The conductor replaced the bags and they moved on to the next compartment. Colonel Arbuthnot was sitting in a corner smoking a pipe and reading a magazine.
Poirot explained their errand. The Colonel made no demur. He had two heavy leather suitcases.
“The rest of my kit has gone by long sea,” he explained.
Like most Army men, the Colonel was a neat packer. The examination of his baggage took only a few minutes. Poirot noted a packet of pipe cleaners.
“You always use the same kind?” he asked.
“Usually. If I can get ’em.”
“Ah!” Poirot nodded.
These pipe cleaners were identical with the one he had found on the floor of the dead man’s compartment.
Dr. Constantine remarked as much when they were out in the corridor again.
“Tout de même,” murmured Poirot, “I can hardly believe it. It is not dans son caractère, and when you have said that you have said everything.”
The door of the next compartment was closed. It was that occupied by Princess Dragomiroff. They knocked on the door and the Princess’s deep voice called, “Entrez.”
M. Bouc was spokesman. He was very deferential and polite as he explained their errand.
The Princess listened to him in silence, her small toad-like face quite impassive.
“If it is necessary, Messieurs,” she said quietly when he had finished, “that is all there is to it. My maid has the keys. She will attend to it with you.”
“Does your maid always carry your keys, Madame?” asked Poirot.
“Certainly, Monsieur.”
“And if during the night at one of the frontiers the Customs officials should require a piece of luggage to be opened?”
The old lady shrugged her shoulders.
“It is very unlikely. But in such a case this conductor would fetch her.”
“You trust her, then, implicitly, Madame?”
“I have told you so already,” said the Princess quietly. “I do not employ people whom I do not trust.”
“Yes,” said Poirot thoughtfully. “Trust is indeed something in these days. It is, perhaps, better to have a homely woman whom one can trust than a more chic maid—for example, some smart Parisienne.”
He saw the dark intelligent eyes come slowly round and fasten themselves upon his face.
“What exactly are you implying, M. Poirot?”
“Nothing, Madame. I? Nothing.”
“But yes. You think, do you not, that I should have a smart Frenchwoman to attend to my toilet?”
“It would be, perhaps, more usual, Madame.”
She shook her head.
“Schmidt is devoted to me.” Her voice dwelt lingeringly on the words. “Devotion—c’est impayable.”
The German woman had arrived with the keys. The Princess spoke to her in her own language, telling her to open the valises and help the gentlemen in their search. She herself remained in the corridor looking out at the snow and Poirot remained with her, leaving M. Bouc to the task of searching the luggage.
She regarded him with a grim smile.
“Well, Monsieur, do you not wish to see what my valises contain?”
He shook his head.
“Madame, it is a formality, that is all.”
“Are you so sure?”
“In your case, yes.”
“And yet I knew and loved Sonia Armstrong. What do you think, then? That I would not soil my hands with killing such canaille as that man Cassetti? Well, perhaps you are right.”
She was silent a minute or two, then she said:
“With such a man as that, do you know what I should have liked to have done? I should have liked to call to my servants: “Flog this man to death and fling him out on the rubbish heap.” That is the way things were done when I was young. Monsieur.”
Still he did not speak, just listened attentively.
She looked at him with a sudden impetuosity.
“You do not say anything, M. Poirot. What is it that you are thinking, I wonder?”
He looked at her with a very direct glance.
“I think, Madame, that your strength is in your will—not in your arm.”
She glanced down at her thin, black-clad arms ending in those claw-like yellow hands with the rings on the fingers.
“It is true,” she said. “I have no strength in these—none. I do not know if I am sorry or glad.”
Then she turned abruptly back towards her carriage, where the maid was busily packing up the cases.
The Princess cut short M. Bouc’s apologies.
“There is not need for you to apologize, Monsieur,” she said. “A murder has been committed. Certain actions have to be performed. That is all there is to it.”
“Vous êtes bien amiable, Madame.”
She inclined her head slightly as they departed.
The doors of the next two carriages were shut. M. Bouc paused and scratched his h
ead.
“Diable!” he said. “This may be awkward. These are diplomatic passports. Their baggage is exempt.”
“From Customs examination, yes. But a murder is different.”
“I know. All the same—we do not want to have complications—”
“Do not distress yourself, my friend. The Count and Countess will be reasonable. See how amiable Princess Dragomiroff was about it.”
“She is truly grande dame. These two are also of the same position, but the Count impressed me as a man of somewhat truculent disposition. He was not pleased when you insisted on questioning his wife. And this will annoy him still further. Suppose—eh—we omit them. After all, they can have nothing to do with the matter. Why should I stir up needless trouble for myself.”
“I do not agree with you,” said Poirot. “I feel sure that Count Andrenyi will be reasonable. At any rate, let us make the attempt.”
And, before M. Bouc could reply, he rapped sharply on the door of No. 13.
A voice from within cried, “Entrez.”
The Count was sitting in the corner near the door reading a newspaper. The Countess was curled up in the opposite corner near the window. There was a pillow behind her head, and she seemed to have been asleep.
“Pardon, Monsieur le Comte,” began Poirot. “Pray forgive this intrusion. It is that we are making a search of all the baggage on the train. In most cases a mere formality. But it has to be done. M. Bouc suggests that, as you have a diplomatic passport, you might reasonably claim to be exempt from such a search.”
The Count considered for a moment.
“Thank you,” he said. “But I do not think that I care for an exception to be made in my case. I should prefer that our baggage should be examined like that of the other passengers.”
He turned to his wife.
“You do not object, I hope, Elena?”
“Not at all,” said the Countess without hesitation.
A rapid and somewhat perfunctory search followed. Poirot seemed to be trying to mask an embarrassment in making various small pointless remarks, such as:
“Here is a label all wet on your suitcase, Madame,” as he lifted down a blue morocco case with initials on it and a coronet.
The Countess did not reply to this observation. She seemed, indeed, rather bored by the whole proceeding, remaining curled up in her corner, staring dreamily out through the window whilst the men searched her luggage in the compartment next door.
Poirot finished his search by opening the little cupboard above the washbasin and taking a rapid glance at its contents—a sponge, face cream, powder and a small bottle labelled trional.
Then, with polite remarks on either side, the search party withdrew.
Mrs. Hubbard’s compartment, that of the dead man, and Poirot’s own came next.
They now came to the second-class carriages. The first one, Nos. 10, 11, was occupied by Mary Debenham, who was reading a book, and Greta Ohlsson, who was fast asleep but woke with a start at their entrance.
Poirot repeated his formula. The Swedish lady seemed agitated, Mary Debenham calmly indifferent.
Poirot addressed himself to the Swedish lady.
“If you permit, Mademoiselle, we will examine your baggage first, and then perhaps you would be so good as to see how the American lady is getting on. We have moved her into one of the carriages in the next coach, but she is still very upset as the result of her discovery. I have ordered coffee to be sent to her, but I think she is of those to whom someone to talk to is a necessity of the first water.”
The good lady was instantly sympathetic. She would go immediately. It must have been indeed a terrible shock to the nerves, and already the poor lady was upset by the journey and leaving her daughter. Ah, yes, certainly she would go at once—her case was not locked—and she would take with her some sal ammoniac.
She bustled off. Her possessions were soon examined. They were meagre in the extreme. She had evidently not noticed the missing wires from the hat box.
Miss Debenham had put her book down. She was watching Poirot. When he asked her, she handed over her keys. Then, as he lifted down a case and opened it, she said:
“Why did you send her away, M. Poirot?”
“I, Mademoiselle? Why, to minister to the American lady.”
“An excellent pretext—but a pretext all the same.”
“I don’t understand you, Mademoiselle.”
“I think you understand me very well.”
She smiled.
“You wanted to get me alone. Wasn’t that it?”
“You are putting words into my mouth, Mademoiselle.”
“And ideas into your head? No, I don’t think so. The ideas are already there. That is right, isn’t it?”
“Mademoiselle, we have a proverb—”
“Que s’excuse s’accuse; is that what you were going to say? You must give me the credit for a certain amount of observation and common sense. For some reason or other you have got it into your head that I know something about this sordid business—this murder of a man I never saw before.”
“You are imagining things, Mademoiselle.”
“No, I am not imagining things at all. But it seems to me that a lot of time is wasted by not speaking the truth—by beating about the bush instead of coming straight out with things.”
“And you do not like the waste of time. No, you like to come straight to the point. You like the direct method. Eh bien, I will give it to you, the direct method. I will ask you the meaning of certain words that I overheard on the journey from Syria. I had got out of the train to do what the English call ‘stretch the legs’ at the station of Konya. Your voice and the Colonel’s, Mademoiselle, they came to me out of the night. You said to him, ‘Not now. Not now. When it’s all over. When it’s behind us.’ What did you mean by those words. Mademoiselle?”
She said very quietly:
“Do you think I meant—murder?”
“It is I who am asking you, Mademoiselle.”
She sighed—was lost a minute in thought. Then, as though rousing herself, she said:
“Those words had a meaning, Monsieur, but not one that I can tell you. I can only give you my solemn word of honour that I had never set eyes on this man Ratchett in my life until I saw him on this train.”
“And—you refuse to explain those words?”
“Yes—if you like to put it that way—I refuse. They had to do with—with a task I had undertaken.”
“A task that is now ended?”
“What do you mean?”
“It is ended, is it not?”
“Why should you think so?”
“Listen, Mademoiselle, I will recall to you another incident. There was a delay to the train on the day we were to reach Stamboul. You were very agitated, Mademoiselle. You, so calm, so self-controlled. You lost that calm.”
“I did not want to miss my connection.”
“So you said. But, Mademoiselle, the Orient Express leaves Stamboul every day of the week. Even if you had missed the connection it would only have been a matter of twenty-four hours’ delay.”
Miss Debenham for the first time showed signs of losing her temper.
“You do not seem to realize that one may have friends awaiting one’s arrival in London, and that a day’s delay upsets arrangements and causes a lot of annoyance.”
“Ah, it is like that? There are friends awaiting your arrival? You do not want to cause them inconvenience?”
“Naturally.”
“And yet—it is curious—”
“What is curious?”
“On this train—again we have a delay. And this time a more serious delay, since there is no possibility of sending a telegram to your friends or of getting them on the long—the long—”
“The long distance? The telephone, you mean.”
“Ah, yes, the portmanteau call, as you say in England.”
Mary Debenham smiled a little in spite of herself.
“Trunk call,?
?? she corrected. “Yes, as you say, it is extremely annoying not to be able to get any word through, either by telephone or telegraph.”
“And yet, mademoiselle, this time your manner is quite different. You no longer betray the impatience. You are calm and philosophical.”
Mary Debenham flushed and bit her lip. She no longer felt inclined to smile.
“You do not answer, Mademoiselle?”
“I am sorry. I did not know that there was anything to answer.”
“The explanation of your change of attitude, Mademoiselle.”
“Don’t you think that you are making rather a fuss about nothing, M. Poirot?”
Poirot spread out his hands in an apologetic gesture.
“It is perhaps a fault with us detectives. We expect the behaviour to be always consistent. We do not allow for changes of mood.”
Mary Debenham made no reply.
“You know Colonel Arbuthnot well, Mademoiselle?”
He fancied that she was relieved by the change of subject.
“I met him for the first time on this journey.”
“Have you any reason to suspect that he may have known this man Ratchett?”
She shook her head decisively.
“I am quite sure he didn’t.”
“Why are you sure?”
“By the way he spoke.”
“And yet, Mademoiselle, we found a pipe cleaner on the floor of the dead man’s compartment. And Colonel Arbuthnot is the only man on the train who smokes a pipe?”
He watched her narrowly, but she displayed neither surprise nor emotion, merely said:
“Nonsense. It’s absurd. Colonel Arbuthnot is the last man in the world to be mixed up in a crime—especially a theatrical kind of crime like this.”
It was so much what Poirot himself thought that he found himself on the point of agreeing with her. He said instead:
“I must remind you that you do not know him very well, Mademoiselle.”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“I know the type well enough.”
He said very gently:
“You still refuse to tell me the meaning of those words—‘When it’s behind us?’”
She said coldly:
“I have nothing more to say.”
“It does not matter,” said Hercule Poirot. “I shall find out.”