Nine

POIROT PROPOUNDS¹ TWO SOLUTIONS

The passengers came crowding into the restaurant car and took their seats round the tables. Theyall bore more or less the same expression, one of expectancy² mingled³ with apprehension⁴. TheSwedish lady was still weeping and Mrs. Hubbard was comforting her.

“Now you must just take a hold on yourself, my dear. Everything’s going to be perfectly⁵ allright. You mustn’t lose your grip on yourself. If one of us is a nasty murderer we know quite wellit isn’t you. Why, anyone would be crazy even to think of such a thing. You sit here and I’ll stayright by you; and don’t you worry any.”

Her voice died away as Poirot stood up.

The Wagon⁶ Lit conductor was hovering⁷ in the doorway⁸.

“You permit that I stay, Monsieur?”

“Certainly, Michel.”

Poirot cleared his throat.

“Messieurs et Mesdames, I will speak in English, since I think all of you know a little of thatlanguage. We are here to investigate the death of Samuel Edward Ratchett—alias Cassetti. Thereare two possible solutions of the crime. I shall put them both before you, and I shall ask M. Boucand Dr. Constantine here to judge which solution is the right one.

“Now you all know the facts of the case. Mr. Ratchett was found stabbed this morning. He waslast known to be alive at 12:37 last night, when he spoke⁹ to the Wagon Lit conductor through thedoor. A watch in his pyjama pocket was found to be badly dented¹⁰ and it had stopped at a quarterpast one. Dr. Constantine, who examined the body when found, puts the time of death as havingoccurred between midnight and two in the morning. At half an hour after midnight, as you allknow, the train ran into a snowdrift. After that time it was impossible for anyone to leave the train.

“The evidence of Mr. Hardman, who is a member of a New York Detective Agency” (severalheads turned to look at Mr. Hardman) “shows that no one could have passed his compartment¹¹ (No.

16 at the extreme end) without being seen by him. We are therefore forced to the conclusion thatthe murderer is to be found among the occupants of one particular coach—the Stamboul-Calaiscoach.

“That, I will say, was our theory.”

“Comment?” ejaculated M. Bouc, startled.

“But I will put before you an alternative theory. It is very simple. Mr. Ratchett had a certainenemy whom he feared. He gave Mr. Hardman a description of this enemy and told him that theattempt, if made at all, would most probably be made on the second night out from Stamboul.”

“Now I put it to you, ladies and gentlemen, that Mr. Ratchett knew a good deal more than hetold. The enemy as Mr. Ratchett expected, joined the train at Belgrade, or possibly at Vincouci, bythe door left open by Colonel Arbuthnot and Mr. MacQueen who had just descended¹² to theplatform. He was provided with a suit of Wagon Lit uniform, which he wore over his ordinaryclothes, and a pass key which enabled him to gain access to Mr. Ratchett’s compartment in spiteof the door being locked. Mr. Ratchett was under the influence of a sleeping draught¹³. This manstabbed him with great ferocity and left the compartment through the communicating door leadingto Mrs. Hubbard’s compartment—”

“That’s so,” said Mrs. Hubbard, nodding her head.

“He thrust the dagger¹⁴ he had used into Mrs. Hubbard’s sponge bag in passing. Without knowingit, he lost a button of his uniform. Then he slipped out of the compartment and along the corridor.

He hastily thrust the uniform into a suitcase in an empty compartment, and a few minutes later,dressed in ordinary clothes, he left the train just before it started off. Again using the same meansof egress—the door near the dining car.”

Everybody gasped¹⁵.

“What about that watch?” demanded Mr. Hardman.

“There you have the explanation of the whole thing. Mr. Ratchett had ommitted to put his watchback an hour as he should have done at Tzaribrod. His watch still registered Eastern Europeantime, which is one hour ahead of Central European time. It was a quarter past twelve when Mr.

Ratchett was stabbed—not a quarter past one.”

“But it is absurd, that explanation,” cried M. Bouc. “What of the voice that spoke from thecompartment at twenty-three minutes to one. It was either the voice of Ratchett—or else of hismurderer.”

“Not necessarily. It might have been—well—a third person. One who had gone in to speak toRatchett and found him dead. He rang the bell to summon the conductor, then, as you express it,the wind rose in him—he was afraid of being accused of the crime and he spoke pretending to beRatchett.”

“C’est possible,” admitted M. Bouc grudgingly¹⁶.

Poirot looked at Mrs. Hubbard.

“Yes, Madame, you were going to say—?”

“Well, I don’t quite know what I was going to say. Do you think I forgot to put my watch backtoo?”

“No, Madame. I think you heard the man pass through—but unconsciously; later you had anightmare of a man being in your compartment and woke up with a start and rang for theconductor.”

“Well, I suppose that’s possible,” admitted Mrs. Hubbard.

Princess Dragomiroff was looking at Poirot with a very direct glance.

“How do you explain the evidence of my maid, Monsieur?”

“Very simply, Madame. Your maid recognized the handkerchief I showed her as yours. Shesomewhat clumsily tried to shield you. She did encounter the man—but earlier—while the trainwas at Vincovci station. She pretended to have seen him at a later hour with a confused idea ofgiving you a watertight alibi¹⁷.”

The Princess bowed her head.

“You have thought of everything, Monsieur. I—I admire you.”

There was a silence.

Then everyone jumped as Dr. Constantine suddenly hit the table a blow with his fist.

“But no,” he said. “No, no, and again no! That is an explanation that will not hold water. It isdeficient in a dozen minor¹⁸ points. The crime was not committed so—M. Poirot must know thatperfectly well.”

Poirot turned a curious glance on him.

“I see,” he said, “that I shall have to give my second solution. But do not abandon this one tooabruptly. You may agree with it later.”

He turned back again to face the others.

“There is another possible solution of the crime. This is how I arrived at it.

“When I had heard all the evidence, I leaned back and shut my eyes and began to think. Certainpoints presented themselves to me as worthy¹⁹ of attention. I enumerated²⁰ these points to my twocolleagues. Some I have already elucidated—such as a grease spot on a passport, etc. I will runover the points that remain. The first and most important is a remark made to me by M. Bouc inthe restaurant car at lunch on the first day after leaving Stamboul—to the effect that the companyassembled was interesting because it was so varied²¹ — representing as it did all classes andnationalities.

“I agreed with him, but when this particular point came into my mind, I tried to imaginewhether such an assembly were ever likely to be collected under any other conditions. And theanswer I made to myself was—only in America. In America there might be a household composedof just such varied nationalities—an Italian chauffeur²², and English governess, a Swedish nurse, aFrench lady’s maid and so on. That led me to my scheme of ‘guessing’—that is, casting eachperson for a certain part in the Armstrong drama much as a producer casts a play. Well, that gaveme an extremely interesting and satisfactory result.

“I had also examined in my own mind each separate person’s evidence with some curiousresults. Take first the evidence of Mr. MacQueen. My first interview with him was entirelysatisfactory. But in my second he made rather a curious remark. I had described to him the findingof a note mentioning the Armstrong case. He said, ‘But surely—’ and then paused and went on, ‘Imean—that was rather careless of the old man.’

“Now I could feel that that was not what he had started out to say. Supposing what he hadmeant to say was, ‘But surely that was burnt!’ In which case, MacQueen knew of the note and ofits destruction—in other words, he was either the murderer or an accomplice²³ of the murderer.

Very good.

“Then the valet. He said his master was in the habit of taking a sleeping draught when travellingby train. That might be true, but would Ratchett have taken one last night? The automatic underhis pillow gave the lie to that statement. Ratchett intended to be on the alert last night. Whatevernarcotic was administered to him must have been done so without his knowledge. By whom?

Obviously by MacQueen or the valet.

“Now we come to the evidence of Mr. Hardman. I believed all that he told me about his ownidentity, but when it came to the actual methods he had employed to guard Mr. Ratchett, his storywas neither more nor less than absurd. The only way effectively to have protected Ratchett was tohave passed the night actually in his compartment or in some spot where he could watch the door.

The only thing that his evidence did show plainly was that no one in any other part of the traincould possibly have murdered Ratchett. It drew a clear circle round the Stamboul-Calais carriage.

That seemed to me a rather curious and inexplicable²⁴ fact, and I put it aside to think over.

“You probably have all heard by now of the few words I overheard between Miss Debenhamand Colonel Arbuthnot. The interesting thing to my mind was the fact that Colonel Arbuthnotcalled her Mary and was clearly on terms of intimacy²⁵ with her. But the Colonel was only supposedto have met her a few days previously—and I know Englishmen of the Colonel’s type. Even if hehad fallen in love with the young lady at first sight, he would have advanced slowly and withdecorum—not rushing things. Therefore I concluded that Colonel Arbuthnot and Miss Debenhamwere in reality well acquainted, and were for some reason pretending to be strangers. Anothersmall point was Miss Debenham’s easy familiarity with the term ‘long distance’ for a telephonecall. Yet Miss Debenham had told me that she had never been in the States.

“To pass to another witness. Mrs. Hubbard had told us that lying in bed she was unable to seewhether the communicating door was bolted or not, and so asked Miss Ohlsson to see for her.

Now, though her statement would have been perfectly true if she had been occupyingcompartments Nos. 2, 4, 12, or any even number—where the bolt is directly under the handle ofthe door—in the uneven²⁶ numbers, such as compartment No. 3, the bolt is well above the handleand could not therefore be masked by the sponge bag in the least. I was forced to the conclusionthat Mrs. Hubbard was inventing an incident that had never occurred.

“And here let me say just a word or two about times. To my mind, the really interesting pointabout the dented watch was the place where it was found — in Ratchett’s pyjama pocket, asingularly uncomfortable and unlikely place to keep one’s watch, especially as there is a watch‘hook’ provided just by the head of the bed. I felt sure, therefore, that the watch had beendeliberately placed in the pocket and faked. The crime, then, was not committed at a quarter pastone.

“Was it, then, committed earlier? To be exact, at twenty-three minutes to one? My friend M.

Bouc advanced as an argument in favour of it the loud cry which awoke me from sleep. But ifRatchett were heavily drugged he could not have cried out. If he had been capable of crying out hewould have been capable of making some kind of a struggle to defend himself, and there were nosigns of any such struggle.

“I remembered that MacQueen had called attention, not once but twice (and the second time ina very blatant²⁷ manner), to the fact that Ratchett could speak no French. I came to the conclusionthat the whole business at twenty-three minutes to one was a comedy played for my benefit!

Anyone might see through the watch business—it is a common enough device in detective stories.

They assumed that I should see through it and that, pluming²⁸ myself on my own cleverness, Iwould go on to assume that since Ratchett spoke no French the voice I heard at twenty-threeminutes to one could not be his, and that Ratchett must be already dead. But I am convinced that attwenty-three minutes to one Ratchett was still lying in his drugged sleep.

“But the device has succeeded! I have opened my door and looked out. I have actually heard theFrench phrase used. If I am so unbelievably dense²⁹ as not to realize the significance of that phrase,it must be brought to my attention. If necessary MacQueen can come right out in the open. He cansay, ‘Excuse me, M. Poirot, that can’t have been Mr. Ratchett speaking. He can’t speak French.’

“Now when was the real time of the crime? And who killed him?

“In my opinion, and this is only an opinion, Ratchett was killed at some time very close upontwo o’clock, the latest hour the doctor gives us as possible.

“As to who killed him—”

He paused, looking at his audience. He could not complain of any lack of attention. Every eyewas fixed³⁰ upon him. In the stillness you could have heard a pin drop.

He went on slowly:

“I was particularly struck by the extraordinary difficulty of proving a case against any oneperson on the train and on the rather curious coincidence that in each case the testimony³¹ giving analibi came from what I might describe as an ‘unlikely’ person. Thus Mr. MacQueen and ColonelArbuthnot provided alibis³² for each other—two persons between whom it seemed most unlikelythere should be any prior acquaintanceship. The same thing happened with the English valet andthe Italian, with the Swedish lady and the English girl. I said to myself, ‘This is extraordinary—they cannot all be in it!’

“And then, Messieurs, I saw light. They were all in it. For so many people connected with theArmstrong case to be travelling by the same train by a coincidence was not only unlikely, it wasimpossible. It must be not chance, but design. I remembered a remark of Colonel Arbuthnot’sabout trial by jury. A jury is composed of twelve people—there were twelve passengers—Ratchettwas stabbed twelve times. And the thing that had worried me all along—the extraordinary crowdtravelling in the Stamboul—Calais coach at a slack time of year was explained.

“Ratchett had escaped justice in America. There was no question as to his guilt³³. I visualized³⁴ aself-appointed jury of twelve people who condemned³⁵ him to death and were forced by exigenciesof the case to be their own executioners. And immediately, on that assumption, the whole case fellinto beautiful shining order.

“I saw it as a perfect mosaic³⁷, each person playing his or her allotted³⁸ part. It was so arranged thatif suspicion should fall on any one person, the evidence of one or more of the others would clearthe accused person and confuse the issue. Hardman’s evidence was necessary in case someoutsider should be suspected of the crime and be unable to prove an alibi. The passengers in theStamboul carriage were in no danger. Every minute detail of their evidence was worked outbeforehand. The whole thing was a very cleverly-planned jig-saw puzzle, so arranged that everyfresh piece of knowledge that came to light made the solution of the whole more difficult. As myfriend M. Bouc remarked, the case seemed fantastically impossible! That was exactly theimpression intended to be conveyed.

“Did this solution explain everything? Yes, it did. The nature of the wounds—each inflicted³⁹ bya different person. The artificial threatening letters—artificial since they were unreal, written onlyto be produced as evidence. (Doubtless there were real letters, warning Ratchett of his fate, whichMacQueen destroyed, substituting for them these others.) Then Hardman’s story of being called inby Ratchett—a lie, of course, from beginning to end—the description of the mythical⁴⁰ ‘small darkman with a womanish voice,’ a convenient description, since it had the merit of not incriminatingany of the actual Wagon Lit conductors and would apply equally well to a man or a woman.

“The idea of stabbing is at first sight a curious one, but on reflection nothing would fit thecircumstances so well. A dagger was a weapon that could be used by everyone—strong or weak—and it made no noise. I fancy, though I may be wrong, that each person in turn entered Ratchett’sdarkened compartment through that of Mrs. Hubbard—and struck! They themselves would neverknow which blow actually killed him.

“The final letter which Ratchett had probably found on his pillow was carefully burnt. With noclue pointing to the Armstrong case, there would be absolutely no reason for suspecting any of thepassengers on the train. It would be put down as an outside job, and the ‘small dark man with thewomanish voice’ would actually have been seen by one or more of the passengers leaving the trainat Brod.

“I do not know exactly what happened when the conspirators⁴¹ discovered that that part of theirplan was impossible owing to the accident to the train. There was, I imagine, a hasty consultation⁴²,and then they decided⁴³ to go through with it. It was true that now one and all of the passengerswere bound to come under suspicion, but that possibility had already been foreseen and providedfor. The only additional thing to be done was to confuse the issue even further. Two so-called‘clues’ were dropped in the dead man’s compartment—one incriminating Colonel Arbuthnot (whohad the strongest alibi and whose connection with the Armstrong family was probably the hardestto prove) and the second clue, the handkerchief, incriminating Princess Dragomiroff, who byvirtue of her social position, her particularly frail⁴⁴ physique and the alibi given her by her maid andthe conductor, was practically in an unassailable position. Further to confuse the issue, a ‘redherring’ was drawn⁴⁵ across the trail—the mythical woman in the red kimono. Again I am to bearwitness to this woman’s existence. There is a heavy bang at my door. I get up and look out—andsee the scarlet⁴⁶ kimono disappearing in the distance. A judicious⁴⁷ selection of people — theconductor, Miss Debenham and MacQueen—will also have seen her. It was, I think, someone witha sense of humour who thoughtfully placed the scarlet kimono on the top of my suitcase whilst Iwas interviewing people in the dining car. Where the garment came from in the first place I do notknow. I suspect it is the property of Countess Andrenyi, since her luggage contained only a chiffonnegligée so elaborate as to be more a tea gown than a dressing⁴⁸ gown.

“When MacQueen first learned that the letter which had been so carefully burnt had in partescaped destruction, and that the word Armstrong was exactly the word remaining, he must atonce have communicated his news to the others. It was at this minute that the position of CountessAndrenyi became acute and her husband immediately took steps to alter the passport. It was theirsecond piece of bad luck!

“They one and all agreed to deny utterly⁴⁹ any connection with the Armstrong family. They knewI had no immediate³⁶ means of finding out the truth, and they did not believe that I should go intothe matter unless my suspicions were aroused against one particular person.

“Now there was one further point to consider. Allowing that my theory of the crime was thecorrect one, and I believe that it must be the correct one, then obviously the Wagon Lit conductorhimself must be privy⁵⁰ to the plot. But if so, that gave us thirteen persons, not twelve. Instead of theusual formula, ‘Of so many people one is guilty,’ I was faced with the problem that of thirteenpersons one and one only was innocent. Which was that person?

“I came to a very odd conclusion. I came to the conclusion that the person who had taken nopart in the crime was the person who would be considered the most likely to do so. I refer toCountess Andrenyi. I was impressed by the earnestness of her husband when he swore to mesolemnly on his honour that his wife never left her compartment that night. I decided that CountAndrenyi took, so to speak, his wife’s place.

“If so, then Pierre Michel was definitely one of the twelve. But how could one explain hiscomplicity? He was a decent man who had been many years in the employ of the Company—notthe kind of man who could be bribed⁵¹ to assist in a crime. Then Pierre Michel must be involved inthe Armstrong case. But that seemed very improbable. Then I remembered that the deadnurserymaid was French. Supposing that that unfortunate girl had been Pierre Michel’s daughter.

That would explain everything—it would also explain the place chosen for the staging of thecrime. Were there any others whose part in the drama was not clear? Colonel Arbuthnot I putdown as a friend of the Armstrongs. They had probably been through the war together. The maid,Hildegarde Schmidt, I could guess her place in the Armstrong household. I am, perhaps,overgreedy, but I sense a good cook instinctively⁵². I laid a trap for her—she fell into it. I said Iknew she was a good cook. She answered, ‘Yes, indeed, all my ladies have said so.’ But if you areemployed as a lady’s maid your employers seldom have a chance of learning whether or not youare a good cook.

“Then there was Hardman. He seemed quite definitely not to belong to the Armstronghousehold. I could only imagine that he had been in love with the French girl. I spoke to him ofthe charm of foreign women—and again I obtained the reaction I was looking for. Sudden tearscame into his eyes, which he pretended were dazzled by the snow.

“There remains⁵³ Mrs. Hubbard. Now Mrs. Hubbard, let me say, played the most important partin the drama. By occupying the compartment communicating with that of Ratchett she was moreopen to suspicion than anyone else. In the nature of things she could not have an alibi to fall backupon. To play the part she played—the perfectly natural, slightly ridiculous American fond mother—an artist was needed. But there was an artist connected with the Armstrong family—Mrs.

Armstrong’s mother—Linda Arden, the actress…”

He stopped.

Then, in a soft rich dreamy voice, quite unlike the one she had used all the journey, Mrs.

Hubbard said:

“I always fancied myself in comedy parts.”

She went on still dreamily:

“That slip about the sponge bag was silly. It shows you should always rehearse properly. Wetried it on the way out—I was in an even number compartment then, I suppose. I never thought ofthe bolts being in different places.”

She shifted her position a little and looked straight at Poirot.

“You know all about it, M. Poirot. You’re a very wonderful man. But even you can’t quiteimagine what it was like—that awful day in New York. I was just crazy with grief—so were theservants—and Colonel Arbuthnot was there, too. He was John Armstrong’s best friend.”

“He saved my life in the war,” said Arbuthnot.

“We decided then and there—perhaps we were mad—I don’t know—that the sentence of deaththat Cassetti had escaped had got to be carried out. There were twelve of us—or rather eleven—Susanne’s father was over in France, of course. First we thought we’d draw lots as to who shoulddo it, but in the end we decided on this way. It was the chauffeur, Antonio, who suggested it. Maryworked out all the details later with Hector MacQueen. He’d always adored Sonia—my daughter—and it was he who explained to us exactly how Cassetti’s money had managed to get him off.

“It took a long time to perfect our plan. We had first to track Ratchett down. Hardman managedthat in the end. Then we had to try to get Masterman and Hector into his employment—or at anyrate one of them. Well, we managed that. Then we had a consultation with Susanne’s father.

Colonel Arbuthnot was very keen on having twelve of us. He seemed to think it made it more inorder. He didn’t like the stabbing idea much, but he agreed that it did solve most of our difficulties.

Well, Susanne’s father was willing. Susanne was his only child. We knew from Hector thatRatchett would be coming back from the East sooner or later by the Orient Express. With PierreMichel actually working on that train, the chance was too good to be missed. Besides, it would bea good way of not incriminating any outsiders.

“My daughter’s husband had to know, of course, and he insisted on coming on the train withher. Hector wangled it so that Ratchett selected the right day for travelling when Michel would beon duty. We meant to engage every carriage in the Stamboul-Calais coach, but unfortunately therewas one carriage we couldn’t get. It was reserved long beforehand for a director of the company.

Mr. Harris, of course, was a myth. But it would have been awkward to have any stranger inHector’s compartment. And then, at the last minute, you came….”

She stopped.

“Well,” she said. “You know everything now, M. Poirot. What are you going to do about it? Ifit must all come out, can’t you lay the blame upon me and me only? I would have stabbed thatman twelve times willingly. It wasn’t only that he was responsible for my daughter’s death and herchild’s, and that of the other child who might have been alive and happy now. It was more thanthat. There had been other children before Daisy—there might be others in the future. Society hadcondemned him; we were only carrying out the sentence. But it’s unnecessary to bring all theseothers into it. All these good faithful souls—and poor Michel—and Mary and Colonel Arbuthnot—they love each other….”

Her voice was wonderful echoing through the crowded space—that deep, emotional, heart-stirring voice that had thrilled many a New York audience.

Poirot looked at his friend.

“You are a director of the company, M. Bouc,” he said, “What do you say?”

M. Bouc cleared his throat.

“In my opinion, M. Poirot,” he said, “the first theory you put forward was the correct one—decidedly so. I suggest that that is the solution we offer to the Yugo-Slavian police when theyarrive. You agree, Doctor?”

“Certainly I agree,” said Dr. Constantine. “As regards the medical evidence, I think—er—that Imade one or two fantastic suggestions.”

“Then,” said Poirot, “having placed my solution before you, I have the honour to retire from thecase….”

 

点击收听单词发音