The little man shook his head.
"I never prophesy," he declared pompously. "It is true that I have the habit of being always right—but I do not boast of it. Good-night, Mademoiselle, and may you sleep well."
Katherine went back along the train amused and entertained by her little neighbour. She passed the open door of her friend's compartment and saw the conductor making up the bed. The lady in the mink coat was standing looking out of the window. The second compartment, as Katherine saw through the communicating door, was empty, with rugs and bags heaped up on the seat. The maid was not there.
Katherine found her own bed prepared, and since she was tired, she went to bed and switched off her light about half-past nine.
She woke with a sudden start; how much time had passed she did not know. Glancing at her watch, she found that it had stopped. A feeling of intense uneasiness pervaded her and grew stronger moment by moment. At last she got up, threw her dressing-gown round her shoulders, and stepped out into the corridor. The whole train seemed wrapped in slumber. Katherine let down the window and sat by it for some minutes, drinking in the cool night air and trying vainly to calm her uneasy fears. She presently decided that she would go along to the end and ask the conductor for the right time so that she could set her watch. She found, however, that his little chair was vacant. She hesitated for a moment and then walked through into the next coach. She looked down the long, dim line of the corridor and saw, to her surprise, that a man was standing with his hand on the door of the compartment occupied by the lady in the mink coat. That is to say, she thought it was the compartment. Probably, however, she was mistaken. He stood there for a moment or two with his back to her, seeming uncertain and hesitating in his attitude. Then he slowly turned, and with an odd feeling of fatality, Katherine recognized him as the same man whom she had noticed twice before—once in the corridor of the Savoy hotel and once in Cook's offices. Then he opened the door of the compartment and passed in, drawing it to behind him.
An idea flashed across Katherine's mind. Could this be the man of whom the other woman had spoken—the man she was journeying to meet.
Then Katherine told herself that she was romancing. In all probability she had mistaken the compartment.
She went back to her own carriage. Five minutes later the train slackened speed. There was the long plaintive hiss of the Westinghouse brake, and a few minutes later the train came to a stop at Lyons.
Katherine wakened the next morning to brilliant sunshine. She went along to breakfast early, but met none of her acquaintances of the day before. When she returned to her compartment it had just been restored to its day-time appearance by the conductor, a dark man with a drooping moustache and melancholy face.
"Madame is fortunate," he said; "the sun shines. It is always a great disappointment to passengers when they arrive on a grey morning."
"I should have been disappointed, certainly," said Katherine.
The man prepared to depart.
"We are rather late, Madame," he said. "I will let you know just before we get to Nice."
Katherine nodded. She sat by the window, entranced by the sunlit panorama. The palm trees, the deep blue of the sea, the bright yellow mimosa came with all the charm of novelty to the woman who for fourteen years had known only the drab winters of England.
When they arrived at Cannes, Katherine got out and walked up and down the platform. She was curious about the lady in the mink coat, and looked up at the windows of her compartment. The blinds were still drawn down—the only ones to be so on the whole train. Katherine wondered a little, and when she re-entered the train she passed along the corridor and noticed that these two compartments were still shuttered and closed. The lady of the mink coat was clearly no early riser.
Presently the conductor came to her and told her that in a few minutes the train would arrive at Nice. Katherine handed him a tip; the man thanked her, but still lingered. There was something odd about him. Katherine, who had at first wondered whether the tip had not been big enough, was now convinced that something far more serious was amiss. His face was of a sickly pallor, he was shaking all over, and looked as if he had been frightened out of his life. He was eyeing her in a curious manner. Presently he said abruptly: "Madame will excuse me, but is she expecting friends to meet her at Nice?"
"Probably," said Katherine. "Why?"
But the man merely shook his head and murmured something that Katherine could not catch and moved away, not reappearing until the train came to rest at the station, when he started handing her belongings down from the window.
Katherine stood for a moment or two on the platform rather at a loss, but a fair young man with an ingenuous face came up to her and said rather hesitatingly:
"Miss Grey, is it not?"
Katherine said that it was, and the young man beamed upon her seraphically and murmured:
"I am Chubby, you know—Lady Tamplin's husband. I expect she mentioned me, but perhaps she forgot. Have you got yourbillet de bagages? I lost mine when I came out this year, and you would not believe the fuss they made about it. Regular French red tape!"
Katherine produced it, and was just about to move off beside him when a very gentle and insidious voice murmured in her ear:
"A little moment, Madame, if you please."
Katherine turned to behold an individual who made up for insignificance of stature by a large quantity of gold lace and uniform. The individual explained. "There were certain formalities. Madame would perhaps be so kind as to accompany him. The regulations of the police—" He threw up his arms. "Absurd, doubtless, but there it was."
Mr. Chubby Evans listened with a very imperfect comprehension, his French being of a limited order.
"So like the French," murmured Mr. Evans. He was one of those staunch patriotic Britons who, having made a portion of a foreign country their own, strongly resent the original inhabitants of it. "Always up to some silly dodge or other. They've never tackled people on the station before, though. This is something quite new. I suppose you'll have to go."
Katherine departed with her guide. Somewhat to her surprise, he led her towards a siding where a coach of the departed train had been shunted. He invited her to mount into this, and, preceding her down the corridor, held aside the door of one of the compartments. In it was a pompous-looking official personage, and with him a nondescript being who appeared to be a clerk. The pompous-looking personage rose politely, bowed to Katherine, and said:
"You will excuse me, Madame, but there are certain formalities to be complied with. Madame speaks French, I trust?"
"Sufficiently, I think, Monsieur," replied Katherine in that language.
"That is good. Pray be seated, Madame. I am M. Caux, the Commissary of Police." He blew out his chest importantly, and Katherine tried to look sufficiently impressed.
"You wish to see my passport?" she inquired. "Here it is."
The Commissary eyed her keenly and gave a little grunt.
"Thank you, Madame," he said, taking the passport from her. He cleared his throat. "But what I really desire is a little information."
"Information?"
The Commissary nodded his head slowly.
"About a lady who has been a fellow-passenger of yours. You lunched with her yesterday."
"I am afraid I can't tell you anything about her. We fell into conversation over our meal, but she is a complete stranger to me. I have never seen her before."
"And yet," said the Commissary sharply, "you returned to her compartment with her after lunch and sat talking for some time?"
"Yes," said Katherine; "that is true."
The Commissary seemed to expect her to say something more. He looked at her encouragingly.
"Yes, Madame?"
"Well, Monsieur?" said Katherine.
"You can, perhaps, give me some kind of idea of that conversation?"
"I could," said Katherine, "but at the moment I see no reason to do so."
In somewhat British fashion she felt annoyed. This foreign official seemed to her impertinent.
"No reason?" cried the Commissary. "Oh yes, Madame, I can assure you that thereisa reason."
"Then perhaps you will give it to me."
The Commissary rubbed his chin thoughtfully for a minute or two without speaking.
"Madame," he said at last, "the reason is very simple. The lady in question was found dead in her compartment this morning."
"Dead!" gasped Katherine. "What was it—heart failure?"
"No," said the Commissary in a reflective, dreamy voice. "No—she was murdered."
"Murdered!" cried Katherine.
"So you see, Madame, why we are anxious for any information we can possibly get."
"But surely her maid—"
"The maid has disappeared."
"Oh!" Katherine paused to assemble her thoughts.
"Since the conductor had seen you talking with her in her compartment, he quite naturally reported the fact to the police, and that is why, Madame, we have detained you, in the hope of gaining some information."
"I am very sorry," said Katherine; "I don't even know her name."
"Her name is Kettering. That we know from her passport and from the labels on her luggage. If we—"
There was a knock on the compartment door. M. Caux frowned. He opened it about six inches.
"What is the matter?" he said peremptorily. "I cannot be disturbed."
The egg-shaped head of Katherine's dinner acquaintance showed itself in the aperture. On his face was a beaming smile.
"My name," he said, "is Hercule Poirot."
"Not," the Commissary stammered, "nottheHercule Poirot?"
"The same," said M. Poirot. "I remember meeting you once, M. Caux, at theSûretéin Paris, though doubtless you have forgotten me?"
"Not at all, Monsieur, not at all," declared the Commissary heartily. "But enter, I pray of you. You know of this—"
"Yes, I know," said Hercule Poirot. "I came to see if I might be of any assistance?"
"We should be flattered," replied the Commissary promptly. "Let me present you, M. Poirot, to"—he consulted the passport he still held in his hand—"to Madame—er—Mademoiselle Grey."
Poirot smiled across at Katherine.
"It is strange, is it not," he murmured, "that my words should have come true so quickly?"
"Mademoiselle, alas! can tell us very little," said the Commissary.
"I have been explaining," said Katherine, "that this poor lady was a complete stranger to me."
Poirot nodded.
"But she talked to you, did she not?" he said gently. "You formed an impression—is it not so?"
"Yes," said Katherine thoughtfully. "I suppose I did."
"And that impression was—"
"Yes, Mademoiselle"—the Commissary jerked himself forward—"let us by all means have your impressions."
Katherine sat turning the whole thing over in her mind. She felt in a way as if she were betraying a confidence, but with that ugly word "Murder" ringing in her ears she dared not keep anything back. Too much might hang upon it. So, as nearly as she could, she repeated word for word the conversation she had had with the dead woman.
"That is interesting," said the Commissary, glancing at the other. "Eh, M. Poirot, that is interesting? Whether it has anything to do with the crime—" He left the sentence unfinished.
"I suppose it could not be suicide," said Katherine, rather doubtfully.
"No," said the Commissary, "it could not be suicide. She was strangled with a length of black cord."
"Oh!" Katherine shivered. M. Caux spread out his hands apologetically. "It is not nice—no. I think that our train robbers are more brutal than they are in your country."
"It is horrible."
"Yes, yes"—he was soothing and apologetic—"but you have great courage, Mademoiselle. At once, as soon as I saw you, I said to myself, 'Mademoiselle has great courage.' That is why I am going to ask you to do something more—something distressing, but I assure you very necessary."
Katherine looked at him apprehensively.
He spread out his hands apologetically.
"I am going to ask you, Mademoiselle, to be so good as to accompany me to the next compartment."
"Must I?" asked Katherine in a low voice.
"Some one must identify her," said the Commissary, "and since the maid has disappeared"—he coughed significantly—"you appear to be the person who has seen most of her since she joined the train."
"Very well," said Katherine quietly; "if it is necessary—"
She rose. Poirot gave her a little nod of approval.
"Mademoiselle is sensible," he said. "May I accompany you, M. Caux?"
"Enchanted, my dear M. Poirot."
They went out into the corridor, and M. Caux unlocked the door of the dead woman's compartment. The blinds on the far side had been drawn half-way up to admit light. The dead woman lay on the berth to their left, in so natural a posture that one could have thought her asleep. The bedclothes were drawn up over her, and her head was turned to the wall, so that only the red auburn curls showed. Very gently M. Caux laid a hand on her shoulder and turned the body back so that the face came into view. Katherine flinched a little and dug her nails into her palms. A heavy blow had disfigured the features almost beyond recognition. Poirot gave a sharp exclamation.
"When was that done, I wonder?" he demanded. "Before death or after?"
"The doctor says after," said M. Caux.
"Strange," said Poirot, drawing his brows together. He turned to Katherine. "Be brave, Mademoiselle; look at her well. Are you sure that this is the woman you talked to in the train yesterday?"
Katherine had good nerves. She steeled herself to look long and earnestly at the recumbent figure. Then she leaned forward and took up the dead woman's hand.
"I am quite sure," she replied at length. "The face is too disfigured to recognize, but the build and carriage and hair are exact, and besides I noticedthis"—she pointed to a tiny mole on the dead woman's wrist—"while I was talking to her."
"Bon," approved Poirot. "You are an excellent witness, Mademoiselle. There is, then, no question as to the identity, but it is strange, all the same." He frowned down on the dead woman in perplexity.
M. Caux shrugged his shoulders.
"The murderer was carried away by rage, doubtless," he suggested.
"If she had been struck down, it would have been comprehensible," mused Poirot, "but the man who strangled her slipped up behind and caught her unawares. A little choke—a little gurgle—that is all that would be heard, and then afterwards—that smashing blow on her face. Now why? Did he hope that if the face were unrecognizable she might not be identified? Or did he hate her so much that he could not resist striking that blow even after she was dead?"
Katherine shuddered, and he turned at once to her kindly.
"You must not let me distress you, Mademoiselle," he said. "To you this is all very new and terrible. To me, alas! it is an old story. One moment, I pray of you both."
They stood against the door watching him as he went quickly round the compartment. He noted the dead woman's clothes neatly folded on the end of the berth, the big fur coat that hung from a hook, and the little red lacquer hat tossed up on the rack. Then he passed through into the adjoining compartment, that in which Katherine had seen the maid sitting. Here the berth had not been made up. Three or four rugs were piled loosely on the seat; there was a hat-box and a couple of suit-cases. He turned suddenly to Katherine.
"You were in here yesterday," he said. "Do you see anything changed, anything missing?"
Katherine looked carefully round both compartments.
"Yes," she said, "there is something missing—a scarlet morocco case. It had the initials 'R. V. K.' on it. It might have been a small dressing-case or a big jewel-case. When I saw it, the maid was holding it."
"Ah!" said Poirot.
"But, surely," said Katherine. "I—of course, I don't know anything about such things, but surely it is plain enough, if the maid and the jewel-case are missing?"
"You mean that it was the maid who was the thief? No, Mademoiselle; there is a very good reason against that."
"What?"
"The maid was left behind in Paris."
He turned to Poirot.
"I should like you to hear the conductor's story yourself," he murmured confidentially. "It is very suggestive."
"Mademoiselle would doubtless like to hear it also," said Poirot. "You do not object, Monsieur le Commissaire?"
"No," said the Commissary, who clearly did object very much. "No, certainly, M. Poirot, if you say so. You have finished here?"
"I think so. One little minute."
He had been turning over the rugs, and now he took one to the window and looked at it, picking something off it with his fingers.
"What is it?" demanded M. Caux sharply.
"Four auburn hairs." He bent over the dead woman. "Yes, they are from the head of Madame."
"And what of it? Do you attach importance to them?"
Poirot let the rug drop back on the seat.
"What is important? What is not? One cannot say at this stage. But we must note each little fact carefully."
They went back again into the first compartment, and in a minute or two the conductor of the carriage arrived to be questioned.
"Your name is Pierre Michel?" said the Commissary.
"Yes, Monsieur le Commissaire."
"I should like you to repeat to this gentleman"—he indicated Poirot—"the story that you told me as to what happened in Paris."
"Very good, Monsieur le Commissaire. It was after we had left the Gare de Lyon. I came along to make the beds, thinking that Madame would be at dinner, but she had a dinner basket in her compartment. She said to me that she had been obliged to leave her maid behind in Paris, so that I need make up only one berth. She took her dinner basket into the adjoining compartment, and sat there while I made up the bed; then she told me that she did not wish to be wakened early in the morning, that she liked to sleep on. I told her I quite understood, and she wished me 'good-night.'"
"You yourself did not go into the adjoining compartment?"
"No, Monsieur."
"Then you did not happen to notice if a scarlet morocco case was amongst the luggage there?"
"No, Monsieur, I did not."
"Would it have been possible for a man to have been concealed in the adjoining compartment?"
The conductor reflected.
"The door was half open," he said. "If a man had stood behind that door I should not have been able to see him, but he would, of course, have been perfectly visible to Madame when she went in there."
"Quite so," said Poirot. "Is there anything more you have to tell us?"
"I think that is all, Monsieur. I can remember nothing else."
"And now this morning?" prompted Poirot.
"As Madame had ordered, I did not disturb her. It was not until just before Cannes that I ventured to knock at the door. Getting no reply, I opened it. The lady appeared to be in her bed asleep. I took her by the shoulder to rouse her, and then—"
"And then you saw what had happened," volunteered Poirot. "Très bien.I think I know all I want to know."
"I hope, Monsieur le Commissaire, it is not that I have been guilty of any negligence," said the man piteously. "Such an affair to happen on the Blue Train! It is horrible."
"Console yourself," said the Commissary. "Everything will be done to keep the affair as quiet as possible, if only in the interests of justice. I cannot think you have been guilty of any negligence."
"And Monsieur le Commissaire will report as much to the Company?"
"But certainly, but certainly," said M. Caux impatiently. "That will do now."
The conductor withdrew.
"According to the medical evidence," said the Commissary, "the lady was probably dead before the train reached Lyons. Who then was the murderer? From Mademoiselle's story, it seems clear that somewhere on her journey she was to meet this man of whom she spoke. Her action in getting rid of the maid seems significant. Did the man join the train at Paris, and did she conceal him in the adjoining compartment? If so, they may have quarrelled, and he may have killed her in a fit of rage. That is one possibility. The other, and the more likely to my mind, is that her assailant was a train robber travelling on the train; that he stole along the corridor unseen by the conductor, killed her, and went off with the red morocco case, which doubtless contained jewels of some value. In all probability he left the train at Lyons, and we have already telegraphed to the station there for full particulars of any one seen leaving the train."
"Or he might have come on to Nice," suggested Poirot.
"He might," agreed the Commissary, "but that would be a very bold course."
Poirot let a minute or two go by before speaking, and then he said:
"In the latter case you think the man was an ordinary train robber?"
The Commissary shrugged his shoulders.
"It depends. We must get hold of the maid. It is possible that she has the red morocco case with her. If so, then the man of whom she spoke to Mademoiselle may be concerned in the case, and the affair is a crime of passion. I myself think the solution of a train robber is the more probable. These bandits have become very bold of late."
Poirot looked suddenly across to Katherine.
"And you, Mademoiselle," he said, "you heard and saw nothing during the night?"
"Nothing," said Katherine.
Poirot turned to the Commissary.
"We need detain Mademoiselle no longer, I think," he suggested.
The latter nodded.
"She will leave us her address?" he said.
Katherine gave him the name of Lady Tamplin's villa. Poirot made her a little bow.
"You permit that I see you again, Mademoiselle?" he said. "Or have you so many friends that your time will be all taken up?"
"On the contrary," said Katherine, "I shall have plenty of leisure, and I shall be very pleased to see you again."
"Excellent," said Poirot, and gave her a little friendly nod. "This shall be a'roman policier' à nous. We will investigate this affair together."
"Then you were really in the thick of it all!" said Lady Tamplin enviously. "My dear, how thrilling!" She opened her china blue eyes very wide and gave a little sigh.
"A real murder," said Mr. Evans gloatingly.
"Of course Chubby had no idea of anything of the kind," went on Lady Tamplin; "he simply couldnotimagine why the police wanted you. My dear, what an opportunity! I think, you know—yes, I certainly think something might be made out of this."
A calculating look rather marred the ingenuousness of the blue eyes.
Katherine felt slightly uncomfortable. They were just finishing lunch, and she looked in turn at the three people sitting round the table. Lady Tamplin, full of practical schemes; Mr. Evans, beaming with naïve appreciation, and Lenox with a queer crooked smile on her dark face.
"Marvellous luck," murmured Chubby; "I wish I could have gone along with you—and seen—all the exhibits."
His tone was wistful and childlike.
Katherine said nothing. The police had laid no injunctions of secrecy upon her, and it was clearly impossible to suppress the bare facts or try to keep them from her hostess. But she did rather wish it had been possible to do so.
"Yes," said Lady Tamplin, coming suddenly out of her reverie, "I do think something might be done. A little account, you know, cleverly written up. An eye-witness, a feminine touch: 'How I chatted with the dead woman, little thinking—' that sort of thing, you know."
"Rot!" said Lenox.
"You have no idea," said Lady Tamplin in a soft, wistful voice, "what newspapers will pay for a little titbit! Written, of course, by some one of really unimpeachable social position. You would not like to do it yourself, I dare say, Katherine dear, but just give me the bare bones of it, andIwill manage the whole thing for you. Mr. de Haviland is a special friend of mine. We have a little understanding together. A most delightful man—not at all reporterish. How does the idea strike you, Katherine?"
"I would much prefer to do nothing of the kind," said Katherine bluntly.
Lady Tamplin was rather disconcerted at this uncompromising refusal. She sighed and turned to the elucidation of further details.
"A very striking-looking woman, you said? I wonder now who she could have been. You didn't hear her name?"
"It was mentioned," Katherine admitted, "but I can't remember it. You see, I was rather upset."
"I should think so," said Mr. Evans; "it must have been a beastly shock."
It is to be doubted whether, even if Katherine had remembered the name, she would have admitted the fact. Lady Tamplin's remorseless cross-examination was making her restive. Lenox, who was observant in her own way, noticed this, and offered to take Katherine upstairs to see her room. She left her there, remarking kindly before she went: "You mustn't mind Mother; she would make a few pennies' profit out of her dying grandmother if she could."
Lenox went down again to find her mother and her step-father discussing the newcomer.
"Presentable," said Lady Tamplin, "quite presentable. Her clothes are all right. That grey thing is the same model that Gladys Cooper wore inPalm Trees in Egypt."
"Have you noticed her eyes—what?" interposed Mr. Evans.
"Never mind her eyes, Chubby," said Lady Tamplin tartly; "we are discussing the things that really matter."
"Oh, quite," said Mr. Evans, and retired into his shell.
"She doesn't seem to me very—malleable," said Lady Tamplin, rather hesitating to choose the right word.
"She has all the instincts of a lady, as they say in books," said Lenox, with a grin.
"Narrow-minded," murmured Lady Tamplin. "Inevitable under the circumstances, I suppose."
"I expect you will do your best to broaden her," said Lenox, with a grin, "but you will have your work cut out. Just now, you noticed, she stuck down her fore feet and laid back her ears and refused to budge."
"Anyway," said Lady Tamplin hopefully, "she doesn't look to me at all mean. Some people, when they come into money, seem to attach undue importance to it."
"Oh, you'll easily touch her for what you want," said Lenox; "and, after all, that is all that matters, isn't it? That is what she is here for."
"She is my own cousin," said Lady Tamplin, with dignity.
"Cousin, eh?" said Mr. Evans, waking up again. "I suppose I call her Katherine, don't I?"
"It is of no importance at all what you call her, Chubby," said Lady Tamplin.
"Good," said Mr. Evans; "then I will. Do you suppose she plays tennis?" he added hopefully.
"Of course not," said Lady Tamplin. "She has been a companion, I tell you. Companions don't play tennis—or golf. They might possibly play golf-croquet, but I have always understood that they wind wool and wash dogs most of the day."
"O God!" said Mr. Evans; "do they really?"
Lenox drifted upstairs again to Katherine's room. "Can I help you?" she asked rather perfunctorily.
On Katherine's disclaimer, Lenox sat on the edge of the bed and stared thoughtfully at her guest.
"Why did you come?" she said at last. "To us, I mean. We're not your sort."
"Oh, I am anxious to get into Society."
"Don't be an ass," said Lenox promptly, detecting the flicker of a smile. "You know what I mean well enough. You are not a bit what I thought you would be. I say, youhavegot some decent clothes." She sighed. "Clothes are no good to me. I was born awkward. It's a pity, because I love them."
"I love them too," said Katherine, "but it has not been much use my loving them up to now. Do you think this is nice?"
She and Lenox discussed several models with artistic fervour.
"I like you," said Lenox suddenly. "I came up to warn you not to be taken in by Mother, but I think now that there is no need to do that. You are frightfully sincere and upright and all those queer things, but you are not a fool. Oh hell! what is it now?"
Lady Tamplin's voice was calling plaintively from the hall:
"Lenox, Derek has just rung up. He wants to come to dinner to-night. Will it be all right? I mean, we haven't got anything awkward, like quails, have we?"
Lenox reassured her and came back into Katherine's room. Her face looked brighter and less sullen.
"I'm glad old Derek is coming," she said; "you'll like him."
"Who is Derek?"
"He is Lord Leconbury's son, married a rich American woman. Women are simply potty about him."
"Why?"
"Oh, the usual reason—very good-looking and a regular bad lot. Every one goes off their head about him."
"Do you?"
"Sometimes I do," said Lenox, "and sometimes I think I would like to marry a nice curate and live in the country and grow things in frames." She paused a minute, and then added, "An Irish curate would be best, and then I should hunt."
After a minute or two she reverted to her former theme. "There is something queer about Derek. All that family are a bit potty—mad gamblers, you know. In the old days they used to gamble away their wives and their estates, and did most reckless things just for the love of it. Derek would have made a perfect highwayman—debonair and gay, just the right manner." She moved to the door. "Well, come down when you feel like it."
Left alone, Katherine gave herself up to thought. Just at present she felt thoroughly ill at ease and jarred by her surroundings. The shock of the discovery in the train and the reception of the news by her new friends jarred upon her susceptibilities. She thought long and earnestly about the murdered woman. She had been sorry for Ruth, but she could not honestly say that she had liked her. She had divined only too well the ruthless egoism that was the keynote of her personality, and it repelled her.
She had been amused and a trifle hurt by the other's cool dismissal of her when she had served her turn. That she had come to some decision, Katherine was quite certain, but she wondered now what that decision had been. Whatever it was, death had stepped in and made all decisions meaningless. Strange that it should have been so, and that a brutal crime should have been the ending of that fateful journey. But suddenly Katherine remembered a small fact that she ought, perhaps, to have told the police—a fact that had for the moment escaped her memory. Was it of any real importance? She had certainly thought that she had seen a man going into that particular compartment, but she realized that she might easily have been mistaken. It might have been the compartment next door, and certainly the man in question could be no train robber. She recalled him very clearly as she had seen him on those two previous occasions—once at the Savoy and once at Cook's office. No, doubtless she had been mistaken. He had not gone into the dead woman's compartment, and it was perhaps as well that she had said nothing to the police. She might have done incalculable harm by doing so.
She went down to join the others on the terrace outside. Through the branches of mimosa, she looked out over the blue of the Mediterranean, and, whilst listening with half an ear to Lady Tamplin's chatter, she was glad that she had come. This was better than St. Mary Mead.
That evening she put on the mauvy pink dress that went by the name ofsoupir d'automne, and after smiling at her reflection in the mirror, went downstairs with, for the first time in her life, a faint feeling of shyness.
Most of Lady Tamplin's guests had arrived, and since noise was the essential of Lady Tamplin's parties, the din was already terrific. Chubby rushed up to Katherine, pressed a cocktail upon her, and took her under his wing.
"Oh, here you are, Derek," cried Lady Tamplin, as the door opened to admit the last comer. "Now at last we can have something to eat. I am starving."
Katherine looked across the room. She was startled. So this—was Derek, and she realized that she was not surprised. She had always known that she would some day meet the man whom she had seen three times by such a curious chain of coincidences. She thought, too, that he recognized her. He paused abruptly in what he was saying to Lady Tamplin, and went on again as though with an effort. They all went into dinner, and Katherine found that he was placed beside her. He turned to her at once with a vivid smile.
"I knew I was going to meet you soon," he remarked, "but I never dreamt that it would be here. It had to be, you know. Once at the Savoy and once at Cook's—never twice without three times. Don't say you can't remember me or never noticed me. I insist upon your pretending that you noticed me, anyway."
"Oh, I did," said Katherine; "but this is not the third time. It is the fourth. I saw you on the Blue Train."
"On the Blue Train!" Something undefinable came over his manner; she could not have said just what it was. It was as though he had received a check, a setback. Then he said carelessly:
"What was the rumpus this morning? Somebody had died, hadn't they?"
"Yes," said Katherine slowly; "somebody had died."
"You shouldn't die on a train," remarked Derek flippantly. "I believe it causes all sorts of legal and international complications, and it gives the train an excuse for being even later than usual."
"Mr. Kettering?" A stout American lady, who was sitting opposite, leaned forward and spoke to him with the deliberate intonation of her race. "Mr. Kettering, I do believe you have forgotten me, and I thought you such a perfectly lovely man."
Derek leaned forward, answering her, and Katherine sat almost dazed.
Kettering! That was the name, of course! She remembered it now—but what a strange, ironical situation! Here was this man whom she had seen go into his wife's compartment last night, who had left her alive and well, and now he was sitting at dinner, quite unconscious of the fate that had befallen her. Of that there was no doubt. He did not know.
A servant was leaning over Derek, handing him a note and murmuring in his ear. With a word of excuse to Lady Tamplin, he broke it open, and an expression of utter astonishment came over his face as he read; then he looked at his hostess.
"This is most extraordinary. I say, Rosalie, I am afraid I will have to leave you. The Prefect of Police wants to see me at once. I can't think what about."
"Your sins have found you out," remarked Lenox.
"They must have," said Derek; "probably some idiotic nonsense, but I suppose I shall have to push off to the Prefecture. How dare the old boy rout me out from dinner? It ought to be something deadly serious to justify that," and he laughed as he pushed back his chair and rose to leave the room.
On the afternoon of the 15th of February a thick yellow fog had settled down on London. Rufus Van Aldin was in his suite at the Savoy and was making the most of the atmospheric conditions by working double time. Knighton was overjoyed. He had found it difficult of late to get his employer to concentrate on the matters in hand. When he had ventured to urge certain courses, Van Aldin had put him off with a curt word. But now Van Aldin seemed to be throwing himself into work with redoubled energy, and the secretary made the most of his opportunities. Always tactful, he plied the spur so unobtrusively that Van Aldin never suspected it.
Yet in the middle of this absorption in business matters, one little fact lay at the back of Van Aldin's mind. A chance remark of Knighton's, uttered by the secretary in all unconsciousness, had given rise to it. It now festered unseen, gradually reaching further and further forward into Van Aldin's consciousness, until at last, in spite of himself, he had to yield to its insistence.
He listened to what Knighton was saying with his usual air of keen attention, but in reality not one word of it penetrated his mind. He nodded automatically, however, and the secretary turned to some other papers. As he was sorting them out, his employer spoke:
"Do you mind telling me that over again, Knighton?"
For a moment Knighton was at a loss.
"You mean about this, sir?" He held up a closely written Company report.
"No, no," said Van Aldin; "what you told me about seeing Ruth's maid in Paris last night. I can't make it out. You must have been mistaken."
"I can't have been mistaken, sir; I actually spoke to her."
"Well, tell me the whole thing again."
Knighton complied.
"I had fixed up the deal with Bartheimers," he explained, "and had gone back to the Ritz to pick up my traps preparatory to having dinner and catching the nine o'clock train from the Gare du Nord. At the reception desk I saw a woman whom I was quite sure was Mrs. Kettering's maid. I went up to her and asked if Mrs. Kettering was staying there."
"Yes, yes," said Van Aldin. "Of course. Naturally. And she told you that Ruth had gone on to the Riviera and had sent her to the Ritz to await further orders there?"
"Exactly that, sir."
"It is very odd," said Van Aldin. "Very odd, indeed, unless the woman had been impertinent or something of that kind."
"In that case," objected Knighton, "surely Mrs. Kettering would have paid her down a sum of money, and told her to go back to England. She would hardly have sent her to the Ritz."
"No," muttered the millionaire; "that's true."
He was about to say something further, but checked himself. He was fond of Knighton and liked and trusted him, but he could hardly discuss his daughter's private affairs with his secretary. He had already felt hurt by Ruth's lack of frankness, and this chance information which had come to him did nothing to allay his misgivings.
Why had Ruth got rid of her maid in Paris? What possible object or motive could she have had in so doing?
He reflected for a moment or two on the curious combination of chance. How should it have occurred to Ruth, except as the wildest coincidence, that the first person that the maid should run across in Paris should be her father's secretary? Ah, but that was the way things happened. That was the way things got found out.
He winced at the last phrase; it had arisen with complete naturalness to his mind. Was there then "something to be found out"? He hated to put this question to himself; he had no doubt of the answer. The answer was—he was sure of it—Armand de la Roche.
It was bitter to Van Aldin that a daughter of his should be gulled by such a man, yet he was forced to admit that she was in good company—that other well-bred and intelligent women had succumbed just as easily to the Count's fascination. Men saw through him, women did not.
He sought now for a phrase that would allay any suspicion that his secretary might have felt.
"Ruth is always changing her mind about things at a moment's notice," he remarked, and then he added in a would-be careless tone: "The maid didn't give any—er—reason for this change of plan?"
Knighton was careful to make his voice as natural as possible as he replied:
"She said, sir, that Mrs. Kettering had met a friend unexpectedly."
"Is that so?"
The secretary's practised ears caught the note of strain underlying the seemingly casual tone.
"Oh, I see. Man or woman?"
"I think she said a man, sir."
Van Aldin nodded. His worst fears were being realized. He rose from his chair, and began pacing up and down the room, a habit of his when agitated. Unable to contain his feelings any longer, he burst forth:
"There is one thing no man can do, and that is to get a woman to listen to reason. Somehow or other, they don't seem to have any kind ofsense. Talk of woman's instinct—why, it is well known all the world over that a woman is the surest mark for any rascally swindler. Not one in ten of them knows a scoundrel when she meets one; they can be preyed on by any good-looking fellow with a soft side to his tongue. If I had my way—"
He was interrupted. A page-boy entered with a telegram. Van Aldin tore it open, and his face went a sudden chalky white. He caught hold of the back of a chair to steady himself, and waved the page-boy from the room.
"What's the matter, sir?"
Knighton had risen in concern.
"Ruth!" said Van Aldin hoarsely.
"Mrs. Kettering?"
"Killed!"
"An accident to the train?"
Van Aldin shook his head.
"No. From this it seems she has been robbed as well. They don't use the word, Knighton, but my poor girl has been murdered."
"Oh, my God, sir!"
Van Aldin tapped the telegram with his forefinger.
"This is from the police at Nice. I must go out there by the first train."
Knighton was efficient as ever. He glanced at the clock.
"Five o'clock from Victoria, sir."
"That's right. You will come with me, Knighton. Tell my man, Archer, and pack your own things. See to everything here. I want to go round to Curzon Street."
The telephone rang sharply, and the secretary lifted the receiver.
"Yes; who is it?"
Then to Van Aldin.
"Mr. Goby, sir."
"Goby? I can't see him now. No—wait, we have plenty of time. Tell them to send him up."
Van Aldin was a strong man. Already he had recovered that iron calm of his. Few people would have noticed anything amiss in his greeting to Mr. Goby.
"I am pressed for time, Goby. Got anything important to tell me?"
Mr. Goby coughed.
"The movements of Mr. Kettering, sir. You wished them reported to you."
"Yes—well?"
"Mr. Kettering, sir, left London for the Riviera yesterday morning."
"What?"
Something in his voice must have startled Mr. Goby. That worthy gentleman departed from his usual practice of never looking at the person to whom he was talking, and stole a fleeting glance at the millionaire.
"What train did he go on?" demanded Van Aldin.
"The Blue Train, sir."
Mr. Goby coughed again and spoke to the clock on the mantelpiece.
"Mademoiselle Mirelle, the dancer from the Parthenon, went by the same train."
"I cannot repeat to you often enough, Monsieur, our horror, our consternation, and the deep sympathy we feel for you."
Thus M. Carrège, the Juge d'Instruction, addressed Van Aldin. M. Caux, the Commissary, made sympathetic noises in his throat. Van Aldin brushed away horror, consternation, and sympathy with an abrupt gesture. The scene was the Examining Magistrate's room at Nice. Besides M. Carrège, the Commissary, and Van Aldin, there was a further person in the room. It was that person who now spoke.
"M. Van Aldin," he said, "desires action—swift action."
"Ah!" cried the Commissary, "I have not yet presented you. M. Van Aldin, this is M. Hercule Poirot; you have doubtless heard of him. Although he has retired from his profession for some years now, his name is still a household word as one of the greatest living detectives."
"Pleased to meet you, M. Poirot," said Van Aldin, falling back mechanically on a formula that he had discarded some years ago. "You have retired from your profession?"
"That is so, Monsieur. Now I enjoy the world."
The little man made a grandiloquent gesture.
"M. Poirot happened to be travelling on the Blue Train," explained the Commissary, "and he has been so kind as to assist us out of his vast experience."
The millionaire looked at Poirot keenly. Then he said unexpectedly:
"I am a very rich man, M. Poirot. It is usually said that a rich man labours under the belief that he can buy everything and every one. That is not true. I am a big man in my way, and one big man can ask a favour from another big man."
Poirot nodded a quick appreciation.
"That is very well said, M. Van Aldin. I place myself entirely at your service."
"Thank you," said Van Aldin. "I can only say call upon me at any time, and you will not find me ungrateful. And now, gentlemen, to business."
"I propose," said M. Carrège, "to interrogate the maid, Ada Mason. You have her here, I understand?"
"Yes," said Van Aldin. "We picked her up in Paris in passing through. She was very upset to hear of her mistress's death, but she tells her story coherently enough."
"We will have her in, then," said M. Carrège.
He rang the bell on his desk, and in a few minutes Ada Mason entered the room.
She was very neatly dressed in black, and the tip of her nose was red. She had exchanged her grey travelling gloves for a pair of black suède ones. She cast a look round the Examining Magistrate's office in some trepidation, and seemed relieved at the presence of her mistress's father. The Examining Magistrate prided himself on his geniality of manner, and did his best to put her at her ease. He was helped in this by Poirot, who acted as interpreter, and whose friendly manner was reassuring to the Englishwoman.
"Your name is Ada Mason; is that right?"
"Ada Beatrice I was christened, sir," said Mason primly.
"Just so. And we can understand, Mason, that this has all been very distressing."
"Oh, indeed it has, sir. I have been with many ladies and always given satisfaction, I hope, and I never dreamt of anything of this kind happening in any situation where I was."
"No, no," said M. Carrège.
"Naturally I have read of such things, of course, in the Sunday papers. And then I always have understood that those foreign trains—" She suddenly checked her flow, remembering that the gentlemen who were speaking to her were of the same nationality as the trains.
"Now let us talk this affair over," said M. Carrège. "There was, I understand, no question of your staying in Paris when you started from London?"
"Oh no, sir. We were to go straight through to Nice."
"Have you ever been abroad with your mistress before?"
"No, sir. I had only been with her two months, you see."
"Did she seem quite as usual when starting on this journey?"
"She was worried like and a bit upset, and she was rather irritable and difficult to please."
M. Carrège nodded.
"Now then, Mason, what was the first you heard of your stopping in Paris?"
"It was at the place they call the Gare de Lyon, sir. My mistress was thinking of getting out and walking up and down the platform. She was just going out into the corridor when she gave a sudden exclamation, and came back into her compartment with a gentleman. She shut the door between her carriage and mine, so that I didn't see or hear anything, till she suddenly opened it again and told me that she had changed her plans. She gave me some money and told me to get out and go to the Ritz. They knew her well there, she said, and would give me a room. I was to wait there until I heard from her; she would wire me what she wanted me to do. I had just time to get my things together and jump out of the train before it started off. It was a rush."
"While Mrs. Kettering was telling you this, where was the gentleman?"
"He was standing in the other compartment, sir, looking out of the window."
"Can you describe him to us?"
"Well, you see, sir, I hardly saw him. He had his back to me most of the time. He was a tall gentleman and dark; that's all I can say. He was dressed very like any other gentleman in a dark blue overcoat and a grey hat."
"Was he one of the passengers on the train?"
"I don't think so, sir; I took it that he had come to the station to see Mrs. Kettering in passing through. Of course he might have been one of the passengers; I never thought of that."
Mason seemed a little flurried by the suggestion.
"Ah!" M. Carrège passed lightly to another subject. "Your mistress later requested the conductor not to rouse her early in the morning. Was that a likely thing for her to do, do you think?"
"Oh yes, sir. The mistress never ate any breakfast and she didn't sleep well at nights, so that she liked sleeping on in the morning."
Again M. Carrège passed to another subject.
"Amongst the luggage there was a scarlet morocco case, was there not?" he asked. "Your mistress's jewel-case?"
"Yes, sir."
"Did you take that case to the Ritz?"
"Metake the mistress's jewel-case to the Ritz! Oh no, indeed, sir." Mason's tones were horrified.
"You left it behind you in the carriage?"
"Yes, sir."
"Had your mistress many jewels with her, do you know?"
"A fair amount, sir; made me a bit uneasy sometimes, I can tell you, with those nasty tales you hear of being robbed in foreign countries. They were insured, I know, but all the same it seemed a frightful risk. Why, the rubies alone, the mistress told me, were worth several hundred thousand pounds."
"The rubies! What rubies?" barked Van Aldin suddenly.
Mason turned to him.
"I think it was you who gave them to her, sir, not very long ago."
"My God!" cried Van Aldin. "You don't say she had those rubies with her? I told her to leave them at the Bank."
Mason gave once more the discreet cough which was apparently part of her stock-in-trade as a lady's maid. This time it expressed a good deal. It expressed far more clearly than words could have done, that Mason's mistress had been a lady who took her own way.
"Ruth must have been mad," muttered Van Aldin. "What on earth could have possessed her?"
M. Carrège in turn gave vent to a cough, again a cough of significance. It riveted Van Aldin's attention on him.
"For the moment," said M. Carrège, addressing Mason, "I think that is all. If you will go into the next room, Mademoiselle, they will read over to you the questions and answers, and you will sign accordingly."
Mason went out escorted by the clerk, and Van Aldin said immediately to the Magistrate:
"Well?"
M. Carrège opened a drawer in his desk, took out a letter, and handed it across to Van Aldin.
"This was found in Madame's handbag."