Murder on the Orient Express

He retailed at length the conclusions that he and the doctor had arrived at together from the nature of the dead man’s wounds. M. Bouc groaned and held his head again. “I know,” said Poirot sympathetically. “I know exactly how you feel. The head spins, does it not?”

“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 it must 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 the train, there are two mysterious strangers. There is the Wagon Lit attendant answering to the description 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, Miss Debenham, M. MacQueen and myself (and smelt, I may say, by Colonel Arbuthnot!). Who was she? No one on the train admits to having a scarlet kimono. She, too, has vanished. Was she one and the same with the spurious Wagon Lit attendant? Or was she some quite distinct personality? Where are they, these two? And incidentally, where are the Wagon Lit uniform and the scarlet kimono?”

“Ah! that is something definite.” M. Bouc sprang up eagerly. “We must search all the passengers’ 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 the uniform 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 uniform may 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 shrill cries and protests in a woman’s voice. The door at the end of the dining-car burst open. Mrs. Hubbard burst in.

“It’s too horrible!” she cried. It’s just too horrible. In my sponge-bag. My sponge-bag! A great knife – all over blood?”

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

14. The Evidence of the Weapon

With more vigour than chivalry, A Bouc deposited the fainting lady with her head on the table. Dr. Constantine yelled for one of the restaurant attendants, who came at a run.

“Keep her head so,” said the doctor. “If she revives give her a little cognac. You understand?”

Then he hurried off after the other two. His interest lay wholly in the crime – swooning middle-aged ladies did not interest him at all.

It is possible that Mrs. Hubbard revived rather more quickly by these methods than she might otherwise have done. A few minutes later she was sitting up, sipping cognac from a glass proffered by the attendant, and talking once more.

“I just can’t tell you how terrible it was! I don’t suppose anybody on this train can understand my feelings. I’ve always been very, very sensitive ever since I was a child. The mere sight of blood – ugh! Why, even now I get faint when I think about it!”

The attendant proffered the glass again. “Encore un peu, Madame?”

“D’you think I’d better? I’m a lifelong teetotaller. I never touch spirits or wine at any time. All my family are abstainers. Still, perhaps as this is only medicinal–”

She sipped once more.

In the meantime Poirot and M. Bouc, closely followed by Dr. Constantine, had hurried out of the restaurant car and along the corridor of the Stamboul coach towards Mrs. Hubbard’s compartment.

Every traveller on the train seemed to be congregated outside the door. The conductor, a harassed look on his face, was keeping them back.

“Mais il n’y a rien à voir,” he said, and repeated the sentiment in several other languages.

“Let me pass if you please,” said M. Bouc.

Squeezing his rotundity past the obstructing passengers he entered the compartment, Poirot close behind him.

“I am glad you have come, Monsieur,” said the conductor with a sigh of relief. “Everyone has been trying to enter. The American lady – such screams as she gave – ma foi, I thought she too had been murdered! I came at a run, and there she was screaming like a mad woman; and she cried out that she must fetch you, and she departed screeching at the top of her voice and telling everybody whose carriage she passed what had occurred.”

He added, with a gesture of the hand: “Itis in there, Monsieur. I have not touched it.”