She replied politely:
“Do tell me.”
They were just finishing their lunch. Ruth gulped down her coffee, rose from her seat, and quite oblivious of the fact that Katherine had not begun to sip her coffee, said: “Come to my compartment with me.”
They were two single compartments with a communicating door between them. In the second of them a thin maid, whom Katherine had noticed at Victoria, was sitting very upright on the seat, clutching a big scarlet morocco case with the initials R. V. K. on it. Mrs. Kettering pulled the communicating door to and sank down on the seat. Katherine sat down beside her.
“I am in trouble and I don’t know what to do. There is a man whom I am fond of—very fond of indeed. We cared for each other when we were young, and we were thrust apart most brutally and unjustly. Now we have come together again.”
“Yes?”
“I—I am going to meet him now. Oh! I daresay you think it is all wrong, but you don’t know the circumstances. My husband is impossible. He has treated me disgracefully.”
“Yes,” said Katherine again.
“What I feel so badly about is this. I have deceived my father—it was he who came to see me off at Victoria today. He wishes me to divorce my husband, and, of course, he has no idea—that I am going to meet this other man. He would think it extraordinarily foolish.”
“Well, don’t you think it is?”
“I—I suppose it is.”
Ruth Kettering looked down at her hands; they were shaking violently.
“But I can’t draw back now.”
“Why not?”
“I—it is all arranged, and it would break his heart.”
“Don’t you believe it,” said Katherine robustly; “hearts are pretty tough.”
“He will think I have no courage, no strength of purpose.”
“It seems to me an awfully silly thing that you are going to do,” said Katherine. “I think you realize that yourself.”
Ruth Kettering buried her face in her hands. “I don’t know—I don’t know. Ever since I left Victoria I have had a horrible feeling of something—something that is coming to me very soon—that I can’t escape.”
She clutched convulsively at Katherine’s hand.
“You must think I am mad talking to you like this, but I tell you I know something horrible is going to happen.”
“Don’t think it,” said Katherine; “try to pull yourself together. You could send your father a wire from Paris, if you like, and he would come to you at once.”
The other brightened.
“Yes, I could do that. Dear old Dad. It is queer—but I never knew until today how terribly fond of him I am.” She sat up and dried her eyes with a handkerchief. “I have been very foolish. Thank you so much for letting me talk to you. I don’t know why I got into such a queer, hysterical state.”
She got up. “I am quite all right now. I suppose, really, I just needed someone to talk to. I can’t think now why I have been making such an absolute fool of myself.”
Katherine got up too.
“I am glad you feel better,” she said, trying to make her voice sound as conventional as possible. She was only too well aware that the aftermath of confidences is embarrassment. She added tactfully:
“I must be going back to my own compartment.”
She emerged into the corridor at the same time as the maid was also coming out from the next door. The latter looked towards Katherine, over her shoulder, and an expression of intense surprise showed itself on her face. Katherine turned also, but by that time whoever it was who had aroused the maid’s interest had retreated into his or her compartment, and the corridor was empty. Katherine walked down it to regain her own place, which was in the next coach. As she passed the end compartment the door opened and a woman’s face looked out for a moment and then pulled the door to sharply. It was a face not easily forgotten, as Katherine was to know when she saw it again. A beautiful face, oval and dark, very heavily made-up in a bizarre fashion. Katherine had a feeling that she had seen it before somewhere.
She regained her own compartment without other adventure and sat for some time thinking of the confidence which had just been made to her. She wondered idly who the woman in the mink coat might be, wondered also how the end of her story would turn out.
“If I had stopped anyone from making an idiot of themselves, I suppose I have done good work,” she thought to herself. “But who knows? That is the kind of woman who is hardheaded and egotistical all her life, and it might be good for her to do the other sort of thing for a change. Oh, well—I don’t suppose I shall ever see her again. She certainly won’t want to see me again. That is the worst of letting people tell you things. They never do.”
She hoped that she would not be given the same place at dinner. She reflected, not without humour, that it might be awkward for both of them. Leaning back with her head against a cushion she felt tired and vaguely depressed. They had reached Paris, and the slow journey round the ceinture, with its interminable stops and waits, was very wearisome. When they arrived at the Gare de Lyon she was glad to get out and walk up and down the platform. The keen cold air was refreshing after the steam-heated train. She observed with a smile that her friend of the mink coat was solving the possible awkwardness of the dinner problem in her own way. A dinner basket was being handed up and received through the window by the maid.
When the train started once more, and dinner was announced by a violent ringing of bells, Katherine went along to it much relieved in mind. Her vis-à-vis tonight was of an entirely different kind—a small man, distinctly foreign in appearance, with a rigidly waxed moustache and an egg-shaped head which he carried rather on one side. Katherine had taken in a book to dinner with her. She found the little man’s eyes fixed upon it with a kind of twinkling amusement.
“I see, Madame, that you have a roman policier. You are fond of such things?”
“They amuse me,” Katherine admitted.
The little man nodded with the air of complete understanding.
“They have a good sale always, so I am told. Now why is that, eh, Mademoiselle? I ask you as a student of human nature—why should that be?”
Katherine felt more and more amused.
“Perhaps they give one the illusion of living an exciting life,” she suggested.
He nodded gravely.
“Yes; there is something in that.”
“Of course, one knows that such things don’t really happen,” Katherine was continuing, but he interrupted her sharply.
“Sometimes, Mademoiselle! Sometimes! I who speak to you—they have happened to me.”
She threw him a quick, interested glance.
“Some day, who knows, you might be in the thick of things,” he went on. “It is all chance.”
“I don’t think it is likely,” said Katherine. “Nothing of that kind ever happens to me.”
He leaned forward.
“Would you like it to?”
The question startled her, and she drew in her breath sharply.
“It is my fancy, perhaps,” said the little man, as he dexterously polished one of the forks, “but I think that you have a yearning in you for interesting happenings. Eh bien, Mademoiselle, all through my life I have observed one thing—‘All one wants one gets!’ Who knows?” His face screwed itself up comically. “You may get more than you bargain for.”
“Is that a prophecy?” asked Katherine, smiling as she rose from the table.
The little man shook his head.
“I never prophesy,” he declared pompously. “It is true that I have the habit of being always right—but I do not boast of it. Goodnight, Mademoiselle and may you sleep well.”
Katherine went back along the train amused and entertained by her little neighbour. She passed the open door of her friend’s compartment and saw the conductor making up the bed. The lady in the mink coat was standing looking out of the window. The second compartment, as Katherine saw through the com
municating door, was empty, with rugs and bags heaped up on the seat. The maid was not there.
Katherine found her own bed prepared, and since she was tired, she went to bed and switched off her light about half past nine.
She woke with a sudden start; how much time had passed she did not know. Glancing at her watch, she found that it had stopped. A feeling of intense uneasiness pervaded her and grew stronger moment by moment. At last she got up, threw her dressing-gown round her shoulders, and stepped out into the corridor. The whole train seemed wrapped in slumber. Katherine let the window down and sat by it for some minutes, drinking in the cool night air and trying vainly to calm her uneasy fears. She presently decided that she would go along to the end and ask the conductor for the right time so that she could set her watch. She found, however, that his little chair was vacant. She hesitated for a moment and then walked through into the next coach. She looked down the long, dim line of the corridor and saw, to her surprise, that a man was standing with his hand on the door of the compartment occupied by the lady in the mink coat. That is to say, she thought it was the compartment. Probably, however, she was mistaken. He stood there for a moment or two with his back to her, seeming uncertain and hesitating in his attitude. Then he slowly turned, and with an odd feeling of fatality, Katherine recognized him as the same man whom she had noticed twice before—once in the corridor of the Savoy Hotel and once in Cook’s offices. Then he opened the door of the compartment and passed in, drawing it to behind him.
An idea flashed across Katherine’s mind. Could this be the man of whom the other woman had spoken—the man she was journeying to meet?
Then Katherine told herself that she was romancing. In all probability she had mistaken the compartment.
She went back to her own carriage. Five minutes later the train slackened speed. There was the long plaintive hiss of the Westinghouse brake, and a few minutes later the train came to a stop at Lyons.
Eleven
MURDER
Katherine wakened the next morning to brilliant sunshine. She went along to breakfast early, but met none of her acquaintances of the day before. When she returned to her compartment it had just been restored to its daytime appearance by the conductor, a dark man with a drooping moustache and melancholy face.
“Madame is fortunate,” he said; “the sun shines. It is always a great disappointment to passengers when they arrive on a grey morning.”
“I should have been disappointed, certainly,” said Katherine.
The man prepared to depart.
“We are rather late, Madame,” he said. “I will let you know just before we get to Nice.”
Katherine nodded. She sat by the window, entranced by the sunlit panorama. The palm trees, the deep blue of the sea, the bright yellow mimosa came with all the charm of novelty to the woman who for fourteen years had known only the drab winters of England.
When they arrived at Cannes, Katherine got out and walked up and down the platform. She was curious about the lady in the mink coat, and looked up at the windows of her compartment. The blinds were still drawn down—the only ones to be so on the whole train. Katherine wondered a little, and when she reentered the train she passed along the corridor and noticed that these two compartments were still shuttered and closed. The lady of the mink coat was clearly no early riser.
Presently the conductor came to her and told her that in a few minutes the train would arrive at Nice. Katherine handed him a tip; the man thanked her, but still lingered. There was something odd about him. Katherine, who had at first wondered whether the tip had not been big enough, was now convinced that something far more serious was amiss. His face was of a sickly pallor, he was shaking all over, and looked as if he had been frightened out of his life. He was eyeing her in a curious manner. Presently he said abruptly: “Madame will excuse me, but is she expecting friends to meet her at Nice?”
“Probably,” said Katherine. “Why?”
But the man merely shook his head and murmured something that Katherine could not catch and moved away, not reappearing until the train came to rest at the station, when he started handing her belongings down from the window.
Katherine stood for a moment or two on the platform rather at a loss, but a fair young man with an ingenuous face came up to her and said rather hesitatingly:
“Miss Grey, is it not?”
Katherine said that it was, and the young man beamed upon her seraphically and murmured: “I am Chubby, you know—Lady Tamplin’s husband. I expect she mentioned me, but perhaps she forgot. Have you got your billet de bagages? I lost mine when I came out this year, and you would not believe the fuss they made about it. Regular French red tape!”
Katherine produced it, and was just about to move off beside him when a very gentle and insidious voice murmured in her ear:
“A little moment, Madame, if you please.”
Katherine turned to behold an individual who made up for insignificance of stature by a large quantity of gold lace and uniform. The individual explained. “There were certain formalities. Madame would perhaps be so kind as to accompany him. The regulations of the police—” he threw up his arms. “Absurd, doubtless, but there it was.”
Mr. Chubby Evans listened with a very imperfect comprehension, his French being of a limited order.
“So like the French,” murmured Mr. Evans. He was one of those staunch patriotic Britons who, having made a portion of a foreign country their own, strongly resent the original inhabitants of it. “Always up to some silly dodge or other. They’ve never tackled people on the station before, though. This is something quite new. I suppose you’ll have to go.”
Katherine departed with her guide. Somewhat to her surprise, he led her towards a siding where a coach of the departed train had been shunted. He invited her to mount into this, and, preceding her down the corridor, held aside the door of one of the compartments. In it was a pompous-looking official personage, and with him a nondescript being who appeared to be a clerk. The pompous-looking personage rose politely, bowed to Katherine, and said:
“You will excuse me, Madame, but there are certain formalities to be complied with. Madame speaks French, I trust?”
“Sufficiently, I think, Monsieur,” replied Katherine in that language.
“That is good. Pray be seated, Madame. I am M. Caux, the Commissary of Police.” He blew out his chest importantly, and Katherine tried to look sufficiently impressed.
“You wish to see my passport?” she inquired. “Here it is.”
The Commissary eyed her keenly and gave a little grunt.
“Thank you, Madame,” he said, taking the passport from her. He cleared his throat. “But what I really desire is a little information.”
“Information?”
The Commissary nodded his head slowly.
“About a lady who has been a fellow-passenger of yours. You lunched with her yesterday.”
“I am afraid I can’t tell you anything about her. We fell into conversation over our meal, but she is a complete stranger to me. I have never seen her before.”
“And yet,” said the Commissary sharply, “you returned to her compartment with her after lunch and sat talking for some time?”
“Yes,” said Katherine; “that is true.”
The Commissary seemed to expect her to say something more. He looked at her encouragingly.
“Yes, Madame?”
“Well, Monsieur?” said Katherine.
“You can, perhaps, give me some kind of idea of that conversation?”
“I could,” said Katherine, “but at the moment I see no reason to do so.”
In a somewhat British fashion she felt annoyed. This foreign official seemed to her impertinent.
“No reason?” cried the Commissary. “Oh yes, Madame, I can assure you that there is a reason.”
“Then perhaps you will give it to me.”
The Commissary rubbed his chin thoughtfully for a minute or two without speaking.
“Madame
,” he said at last, “the reason is very simple. The lady in question was found dead in her compartment this morning.”
“Dead!” gasped Katherine. “What was it—heart failure?”
“No,” said the Commissary in a reflective, dreamy voice. “No—she was murdered.”
“Murdered!” cried Katherine.
“So you see, Madame, why we are anxious for any information we can possibly get.”
“But surely her maid—”
“The maid has disappeared.”
“Oh!” Katherine paused to assemble her thoughts.
“Since the conductor had seen you talking with her in her compartment, he quite naturally reported the fact to the police, and that is why, Madame, we have detained you, in the hope of gaining some information.”
“I am very sorry,” said Katherine; “I don’t even know her name.”
“Her name is Kettering. That we know from her passport and from the labels on her luggage. If we—”
There was a knock on the compartment door. M. Caux frowned. He opened it about six inches.
“What is the matter?” he said peremptorily. “I cannot be disturbed.”
The egg-shaped head of Katherine’s dinner acquaintance showed itself in the aperture. On his face was a beaming smile.
“My name,” he said, “is Hercule Poirot.”
“Not,” the Commissary stammered, “not the Hercule Poirot?”
“The same,” said M. Poirot. “I remember meeting you once, M. Caux, at the Sûreté in Paris, though doubtless you have forgotten me?”
“Not at all, Monsieur, not at all,” declared the Commissary heartily. “But enter, I pray you. You know of this—?”
“Yes, I know,” said Hercule Poirot. “I came to see if I might be of any assistance?”
“We should be flattered,” replied the Commissary promptly. “Let me present you, M. Poirot, to”—he consulted the passport he still held in his hand—“to Madame—er—Mademoiselle Grey.”