Six

A SECOND INTERVIEW WITH COLONEL ARBUTHNOT

Colonel Arbuthnot was clearly annoyed at being summoned to the dining car for a secondinterview. His face wore a most forbidding expression as he sat down and said:

“Well?”

“All my apologies for troubling you a second time,” said Poirot. “But there is still someinformation that I think you might be able to give us.”

“Indeed? I hardly think so.”

“To begin with, you see this pipe cleaner?”

“Yes.”

“Is it one of yours?”

“Don’t know. I don’t put a private mark on them, you know.”

“Are you aware, Colonel Arbuthnot, that you are the only man amongst the passengers in theStamboul-Calais carriage who smokes a pipe?”

“In that case it probably is one of mine.”

“Do you know where it was found?”

“Not the least idea.”

“It was found by the body of the murdered man.”

Colonel Arbuthnot raised his eyebrows¹.

“Can you tell us, Colonel Arbuthnot, how it is likely to have got there?”

“If you mean did I drop it there myself, no, I didn’t.”

“Did you go into Mr. Ratchett’s compartment² at any time?”

“I never even spoke³ to the man.”

“You never spoke to him and you did not murder him?”

The Colonel’s eyebrows went up again sardonically⁴.

“If I had, I should hardly be likely to acquaint you with the fact. As a matter of fact I didn’tmurder the fellow.”

“Ah, well,” murmured Poirot. “It is of no consequence.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I said that it was of no consequence.”

“Oh!” Arbuthnot looked taken aback. He eyed Poirot uneasily.

“Because, you see,” continued the little man, “the pipe cleaner, it is of no importance. I canmyself think of eleven other excellent explanations of its presence.”

Arbuthnot stared at him.

“What I really wished to see you about was quite another matter,” went on Poirot. “MissDebenham may have told you, perhaps, that I overheard some words spoken to you at the stationof Konya?”

Arbuthnot did not reply.

“She said, ‘Not now. When it’s all over. When it’s behind us.’ Do you know to what thosewords referred?”

“I am sorry, M. Poirot, but I must refuse to answer that question.”

“Pourquoi?”

The Colonel said stiffly:

“I suggest that you should ask Miss Debenham herself for the meaning of those words.”

“I have done so.”

“And she refused to tell you?”

“Yes.”

“Then I should think it would have been perfectly⁵ plain—even to you—that my lips are sealed.”

“You will not give away a lady’s secret?”

“You can put it that way, if you like.”

“Miss Debenham told me that they referred to a private matter of her own.”

“Then why not accept her word for it?”

“Because, Colonel Arbuthnot, Miss Debenham is what one might call a highly suspiciouscharacter.”

“Nonsense,” said the Colonel with warmth.

“It is not nonsense.”

“You have nothing whatever against her.”

“Not the fact that Miss Debenham was companion governess in the Armstrong household at thetime of the kidnapping of little Daisy Armstrong?”

There was a minute’s dead silence.

Poirot nodded his head gently.

“You see,” he said, “we know more than you think. If Miss Debenham is innocent, why did sheconceal that fact? Why did she tell me that she had never been in America?”

The Colonel cleared his throat.

“Aren’t you possibly making a mistake?”

“I am making no mistake. Why did Miss Debenham lie to me?”

Colonel Arbuthnot shrugged⁶ his shoulders.

“You had better ask her. I still think that you are wrong.”

Poirot raised his voice and called. One of the restaurant attendants came from the far end of thecar.

“Go and ask the English lady in No. 11 if she will be good enough to come here.”

“Bien, Monsieur.”

The man departed. The four men sat in silence. Colonel Arbuthnot’s face looked as though itwere carved out of wood, it was rigid⁷ and impassive.

The man returned.

“Thank you.”

A minute or two later Mary Debenham entered the dining car.

 

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