Убийство в «Восточном экспрессе» / Murder on the Orient Express

“I am going to approach it from another angle. Let us go back to the handkerchief found at the scene of the crime. As we stated not long ago, three people are associated with the letter H: Mrs. Hubbard, Miss Debenham and the maid, Hildegarde Schmidt. Now let us regard that handkerchief from another point of view. It is, my friends, an extremely expensive handkerchief – an objet de luxe, hand-made, embroidered in Paris. Which of the passengers, apart from the initial, was likely to own such a handkerchief? Not Mrs. Hubbard, a worthy woman with no pretensions to reckless extravagance in dress. Not Miss Debenham – that class of Englishwoman has a dainty linen handkerchief, not an expensive wisp of cambric costing perhaps two hundred francs. And certainly not the maid. But there are two women on the tram who would be likely to own such a handkerchief. Let us see if we can connect them in any way with the letter H. The two women I refer to are Princess Dragomiroff—”

“Whose Christian name is Natalia,” put in M. Bouc ironically.

“Exactly. And her Christian name, as I said just now, is decidedly suggestive. The other woman is Countess Andrenyi. And at once something strikes us —”

“You!”

“Me, then. Her Christian name on her passport is disfigured by a blob of grease. just an accident, anyone would say. But consider that Christian name. Elena. Suppose that, instead of Elena, it were Helena. That capital H could be turned into a capital E and then run over the small e next to it quite easily – and then a spot of grease dropped to cover up the alteration.”

“Helena!” cried M. Bouc. “It is an idea, that.”

“Certainly it is an idea! I look about for any confirmation, however slight, of my idea – and I find it. One of the luggage labels on the Countess’s baggage is slightly damp. It is one that happens to run over the first initial on top of the case. That label has been soaked off and put on again in a different place.”

“You begin to convince me,” said M. Bouc. “But the Countess Andrenyi – surely—”

“Ah, now, mon vieux, you must turn yourself round and approach an entirely different angle of the case. How was this murder intended to appear to everybody? Do not forget that the snow has upset all the murderer’s original plan. Let us imagine, for a little minute, that there is no snow, that the train proceeded on its normal course. What, then, would have happened?

“The murder, let us say, would still have been discovered in all probability at the Italian frontier early this morning. Much of the same evidence would have been given to the Italian police. The threatening letters would have been produced by M. MacQueen; M. Hardman would have told his story; Mrs. Hubbard would have been eager to tell how a man passed through her compartment; the button would have been found. I imagine that two things only would have been different. The man would have passed through Mrs. Hubbard’s compartment just before one o’clock – and the Wagon Lit uniform would have been found cast off in one of the toilets.”

“You mean?”

“I mean that the murder was planned to look like an outside job. It would have been presumed that the assassin had left the train at Brod where it is timed to arrive at 0.58. Somebody would probably have passed a strange Wagon Lit conductor in the corridor. The uniform would be left in a conspicuous place so as to show clearly just how the trick had been played. No suspicion would have attached to the passengers. That, my friends, was how the affair was intended to appear to the outside world.

“But the accident to the train changes everything. Doubtless we have here the reason why the man remained in the compartment with his victim so long. He was waiting for the train to go on. But at last he realised that the train was not going on. Different plans would have to be made. The murderer would now be known to be still on the train.”

“Yes, yes,” said M. Bouc impatiently. “I see all that. But where does the handkerchief come in?”

“I am returning to it by a somewhat circuitous route. To begin with, you must realise that the threatening letters were in the nature of a blind. They might have been lifted bodily out of an indifferently written American crime novel. They are not real. They are, in fact, simply intended for the police. What we have to ask ourselves is: ‘Did they deceive Ratchett?’ On the face of it, the answer seems to be No. His instructions to Hardman seem to point to a definite ‘private’ enemy, of whose identity he was well aware. That is, if we accept Hardman’s story as true. But Ratchett certainly received one letter of a very different character – the one containing a reference to the Armstrong baby, a fragment of which we found in his compartment. In case Ratchett had not realised it sooner, this was to make sure that he understood the reason of the threats against his life.