Murder on the Orient Express - Christie Agatha - Страница 30

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, the 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 canailleas 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 do? 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 whether 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 no need for you to apologise, Monsieur,” she said. “A murder has been committed. Certain actions have to be performed. That is all there is to it.”

“Vous etes bien aimable, Madame.”

She inclined her head slightly as they departed.

The doors of the next two carriages were shut. M. Bouc paused and scratched his head.

“Diable!” he said. “This may be awkward. These are diplomatic passports. Their luggage 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 to have an exception 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 by 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 and 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 and 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. He 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 much 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 order.”

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 yet 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.”