Murder on the Orient Express - Christie Agatha - Страница 39

6. A Second Interview With Colonel Arbuthnot

Colonel Arbuthnot was clearly annoyed at being summoned to the dining-car for a second interview. 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 some information 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 the Stamboul-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 eyebrows.

“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 compartment at any time?”

“I never even spoke to the man.”

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

The colonel’s eyebrows went up again sardonically.

“If I had, I should hardly be likely to acquaint you with the fact. As a matter of fact I didn’t murder 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 can myself 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. “Miss Debenham may have told you, perhaps, that I overheard some words spoken to you at the station of Konya?”

Arbuthnot did not reply.

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

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

“Pourquoi?”

The Colonel said stiffly, “I suggest that you 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 perfectly 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 suspicious character.”

“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 the time 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 she conceal 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 shrugged 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 the car.

“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 it were carved out of wood, rigid and impassive.

The man returned.

“The lady is just coming, Monsieur.”

“Thank you.”

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

7. The Identity of Mary Debenham

She wore no hat. Her head was thrown back as though in defiance. The sweep of her hair back from her face, the curve of her nostril suggested the figure-head of a ship plunging gallantly into a rough sea. In that moment she was beautiful.

Her eyes went to Arbuthnot for a minute – just a minute. She said to Poirot, “You wished to see me?”

“I wished to ask you, Mademoiselle, why you lied to us this morning?”

“Lied to you? I don’t know what you mean.”

“You concealed the fact that at the time of the Armstrong tragedy you were actually living in the house. You told me that you had never been in America.”

He saw her flinch for a moment and then recover herself.

“Yes,” she said. “That is true.”

“No, Mademoiselle, it was false.”

“You misunderstood me. I mean that it is true that I lied to you.”

“Ah, you admit it?”

Her lips curved into a smile. “Certainly, since you have found me out.”

“You are at least frank, Mademoiselle.”

“There does not seem anything else for me to be.”

“Well, of course, that is true. And now, Mademoiselle, may I ask you the reason for these evasions?”

“I should have thought the reason leapt to the eye, M. Poirot.”

“It does not leap to mine, Mademoiselle.”

She said in a quiet even voice with a trace of hardness in it, “I have my living to get.”

“You mean–?”

She raised her eyes and looked him full in the face. “How much do you know, M. Poirot, of the fight to get and keep decent employment? Do you think that a girl who had been detained in connection with a murder case, whose name and perhaps photograph were reproduced in the English papers – do you think that any nice ordinary middle-class woman would want to engage that girl as governess to her daughters?”

“I do not see why not – if no blame attached to you.”

“Oh, blame – it is not blame – it is the publicity! So far, M. Poirot, I have succeeded in life. I have had well-paid, pleasant posts. I was not going to risk the position I had attained when no good end could have been served.”

“I will venture to suggest, Mademoiselle, that I would have been the best judge of that, not you.”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“For instance, you could have helped me in the matter of identification.”

“What do you mean?”

“Is it possible, Mademoiselle, that you did not recognise in the Countess Andrenyi, Mrs. Armstrong’s young sister whom you taught in New York?”

“Countess Andrenyi? No.” She shook her head. “It may seem extraordinary to you – but I did not recognise her. She was not grown up, you see, when I knew her. That was over three years ago. It is true that the Countess reminded me of someone; it puzzled me. But she looks so foreign – I never connected her with the little American schoolgirl. I only glanced at her casually when coming into the restaurant car, and I noticed her clothes more than her face.” She smiled faintly. “Women do! And then – well – I had my own preoccupations.”

“You will not tell me your secret, Mademoiselle?”

Poirot’s voice was very gentle and persuasive.

She said in a low voice, “I can’t – I can’t.”

And suddenly, without warning, she broke down, dropping her face down upon her outstretched arms and crying as though her heart would break.

The Colonel sprang up and stood awkwardly beside her.

“I – look here–”

He stopped and turning round scowled fiercely at Poirot.

“I’ll break every bone in your damned body, you dirty little whipper-snapper,” he said.

“Monsieur,” protested M. Bouc.

Arbuthnot had turned back to the girl. “Mary – for God’s sake–”