Thirteen

SUMMARY OF THE PASSENGERS’ EVIDENCE

“A small dark man with a womanish voice,” said M. Bouc.

The three conductors and Hildegarde Schmidt had been dismissed.

“But I understand nothing—but nothing of all this! The enemy that this Ratchett spoke¹ of, hewas then on the train after all? But where is he now? How can he have vanished into thin air? Myhead, it whirls. Say something, then, my friend, I implore² you. Show me how the impossible canbe possible!”

“It is a good phrase that,” said Poirot. “The impossible cannot have happened, therefore theimpossible must be possible in spite of appearances.”

“Explain to me then, quickly, what actually happened on the train last night.”

“I am not a magician, mon cher. I am, like you, a very puzzled man. This affair advances in avery strange manner.”

“It does not advance at all. It stays where it was.”

Poirot shook his head.

“No, that is not true. We are more advanced. We know certain things. We have heard theevidence of the passengers.”

“And what has that told us? Nothing at all.”

“I would not say that, my friend.”

“I exaggerate, perhaps. The American, Hardman, and the German maid—yes, they have addedsomething to our knowledge. That is to say, they have made the whole business moreunintelligible than it was.”

“No, no, no,” said Poirot soothingly³. M. Bouc turned upon him.

“Speak, then, let us hear the wisdom of Hercule Poirot.”

“Did I not tell you that I was, like you, a very puzzled man? But at least we can face ourproblem. We can arrange such facts as we have with order and method.”

“Pray continue, Monsieur,” said Dr. Constantine.

Poirot cleared his throat and straightened a piece of blotting-paper.

“Let us review the case as it stands at this moment. First, there are certain indisputable facts.

This man Ratchett, or Cassetti, was stabbed in twelve places and died last night. That is fact one.”

“I grant it to you—I grant it, mon vieux,” said M. Bouc with a gesture of irony⁴.

Hercule Poirot was not at all put out. He continued calmly.

“I will pass over for the moment certain rather peculiar⁵ appearances which Dr. Constantine andI have already discussed together. I will come to them presently. The next fact of importance, tomy mind, is the time of the crime.”

“That, again, is one of the few things we do know,” said M. Bouc. “The crime was committed ata quarter past one this morning. Everything goes to show that was so.”

“Not everything. You exaggerate. There is, certainly, a fair amount of evidence to support thatview.”

“I am glad you admit that at least.”

Poirot went on calmly, unperturbed by the interruption.

“We have before us three possibilities:

“One: That the crime was committed, as you say, at a quarter past one. This is supported by theevidence of the German woman, Hildegarde Schmidt. It agrees with the evidence of Dr.

Constantine.

“Possibility two: The crime was committed later and the evidence of the watch was deliberatelyfaked.

“Possibility three: The crime was committed earlier and the evidence faked for the same reasonas above.

“Now, if we accept possibility one as the most likely to have occurred and the one supported bymost evidence, we must also accept certain facts arising from it. To begin with, if the crime wascommitted at a quarter past one, the murderer cannot have left the train, and the question arises:

Where is he? And who is he?

“To begin with, let us examine the evidence carefully. We first hear of the existence of this man—the small dark man with a womanish voice—from the man Hardman. He says that Ratchett toldhim of this person and employed him to watch out for the man. There is no evidence to supportthis—we have only Hardman’s word for it. Let us next examine the question: Is Hardman theperson he pretends to be—an operative of a New York Detective Agency?

“What to my mind is so interesting in this case is that we have none of the facilities afforded tothe police. We cannot investigate the bona fides of any of these people. We have to rely solely⁶ ondeduction. That, to me, makes the matter very much more interesting. There is no routine work. Itis a matter of the intellect. I ask myself, ‘Can we accept Hardman’s account of himself?’ I makemy decision and I answer, ‘Yes.’ I am of the opinion that we can accept Hardman’s account ofhimself.”

“You rely on the intuition—what the Americans call the hunch⁷?” said Dr. Constantine.

“Not at all. I regard the probabilities. Hardman is travelling with a false passport—that will atonce make him an object of suspicion. The first thing that the police will do when they do arriveupon the scene is to detain Hardman and cable as to whether his account of himself is true. In thecase of many of the passengers, to establish their bona fides will be difficult; in most cases it willprobably not be attempted, especially since there seems nothing in the way of suspicion attachingto them. But in Hardman’s case it is simple. Either he is the person he represents himself to be orhe is not. Therefore I say that all will prove to be in order.”

“You acquit⁸ him of suspicion?”

“Not at all. You misunderstand me. For all I know, any American detective might have his ownprivate reasons for wishing to murder Ratchett. No, what I am saying is that I think we can acceptHardman’s own account of himself. This story, then, that he tells of Ratchett’s seeking him out andemploying him, is not unlikely and is most probably, though not of course certainly, true. If we aregoing to accept it as true, we must see if there is any confirmation⁹ of it. We find it in rather anunlikely place—in the evidence of Hildegarde Schmidt. Her description of the man she saw inWagon Lit uniform tallies¹¹ exactly. Is there any further confirmation of these two stories? There is.

There is the button found in her compartment¹² by Mrs. Hubbard. And there is also anothercorroborating statement which you may not have noticed.”

“What is that?”

“The fact that both Colonel Arbuthnot and Hector MacQueen mention that the conductor passedtheir carriage. They attached no importance to the fact, but Messieurs, Pierre Michel has declaredthat he did not leave his seat except on certain specified¹³ occasions, none of which would take himdown to the far end of the coach past the compartment in which Arbuthnot and MacQueen weresitting.

“Therefore this story, the story of a small dark man with a womanish voice dressed in WagonLit uniform, rests on the testimony—direct or indirect—of four witnesses.”

“One small point,” said Dr. Constantine. “If Hildegarde Schmidt’s story is true, how is it thatthe real conductor did not mention having seen her when he came to answer Mrs. Hubbard’sbell?”

“That is explained, I think. When he arrived to answer Mrs. Hubbard, the maid was in with hermistress. When she finally returned to her own compartment, the conductor was in with Mrs.

Hubbard.”

M. Bouc had been waiting with difficulty until they had finished.

“Yes, yes, my friend,” he said impatiently to Poirot. “But whilst I admire your caution, yourmethod of advancing a step at a time, I submit that you have not yet touched the point at issue. Weare all agreed that this person exists. The point is—where did he go?”

Poirot shook his head reprovingly.

“You are in error. You are inclined to put the cart before the horse. Before I ask myself, ‘Wheredid this man vanish to?’ I ask myself, ‘Did such a man really exist?’ Because, you see, if the manwere an invention—a fabrication—how much easier to make him disappear! So I try to establishfirst that there really is such a flesh and blood person.”

“And having arrived at the fact that there is—eh bien—where is he now?”

“There are only two answers to that, mon cher. Either he is still hidden on the train in a place ofsuch extraordinary ingenuity¹⁴ that we cannot even think of it, or else he is, as one might say, twopersons. That is, he is both himself—the man feared by M. Ratchett—and a passenger on the trainso well disguised that M. Ratchett did not recognize him.”

“It is an idea, that,” said M. Bouc, his face lighting¹⁵ up. Then it clouded over again. “But there isone objection—”

Poirot took the words out of his mouth.

“The height of the man. It is that you would say? With the exception of M. Ratchett’s valet, allthe passengers are big men—the Italian, Colonel Arbuthnot, Hector MacQueen, Count Andrenyi.

Well, that leaves us the valet—not a very likely supposition. But there is another possibility.

Remember the ‘womanish’ voice. That gives us a choice of alternatives. The man may bedisguised as a woman, or, alternatively, he may actually be a woman. A tall woman dressed inman’s clothes would look small.”

“But surely Ratchett would have known—”

“Perhaps he did know. Perhaps, already this woman had attempted his life wearing men’sclothes the better to accomplish her purpose. Ratchett may have guessed that she would use thesame trick again, so he tells Hardman to look for a man. But he mentions, however, a womanishvoice.”

“It is a possibility,” said M. Bouc. “But—”

“Listen, my friend, I think that I should now tell you of certain inconsistencies noticed by Dr.

Constantine.”

He retailed¹⁶ at length the conclusions that he and the doctor had arrived at together from thenature of the dead man’s wounds. M. Bouc groaned¹⁷ and held his head again.

“I know,” said Poirot sympathetically. “I know exactly how you feel. The head spins, does itnot?”

“The whole thing is a fantasy,” cried M. Bouc.

“Exactly. It is absurd—improbable—it cannot be. So I myself have said. And yet, my friend,there it is! One cannot escape from the facts.”

“It is madness!”

“Is it not? It is so mad, my friend, that sometimes I am haunted by the sensation that really itmust be very simple…

“But that is only one of my ‘little ideas.’…”

“Two murderers,” groaned M. Bouc. “And on the Orient Express.”

The thought almost made him weep.

“And now let us make the fantasy more fantastic,” said Poirot cheerfully. “Last night on thetrain there are two mysterious strangers. There is the Wagon¹⁰ Lit attendant answering to thedescription given us by M. Hardman, and seen by Hildegarde Schmidt, Colonel Arbuthnot and M.

MacQueen. There is also a woman in a red kimono—a tall, slim woman—seen by Pierre Michel,by Miss Debenham, by M. MacQueen and by myself — and smelt¹⁸, I may say, by ColonelArbuthnot! Who was she? No one on the train admits to having a scarlet¹⁹ kimono. She, too, hasvanished. Was she one and the same with the spurious Wagon Lit attendant? Or was she somequite distinct personality? Where are they, these two? And, incidentally, where is the Wagon Lituniform and the scarlet kimono?”

“Ah! that is something definite.” M. Bouc sprang up eagerly. “We must search all thepassengers’ luggage. Yes, that will be something.”

Poirot rose also.

“I will make a prophecy,” he said.

“You know where they are?”

“I have a little idea.”

“Where, then?”

“You will find the scarlet kimono in the baggage of one of the men and you will find theuniform of the Wagon Lit conductor in the baggage of Hildegarde Schmidt.”

“Hildegarde Schmidt? You think—”

“Not what you are thinking. I will put it like this. If Hildegarde Schmidt is guilty, the uniformmight be found in her baggage—but if she is innocent it certainly will be.”

“But how—” began M. Bouc and stopped.

“What is this noise that approaches?” he cried. “It resembles a locomotive in motion.”

The noise drew nearer. It consisted of shrill²⁰ cries and protests in a woman’s voice. The door atthe end of the dining car flew open. Mrs. Hubbard burst in.

“It’s too horrible,” she cried. “It’s just too horrible. In my sponge bag. My sponge bag. A greatknife—all over blood.”

And, suddenly toppling forward, she fainted heavily on M. Bouc’s shoulder.

 

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