Chapter VI
A Woman

First of all, Poirot wanted to talk to young Mr. MacQueen. “He may be able to give us valuable information.”

M. Bouc asked the chief of the train to invite Mr. MacQueen to come to their compartment.

The conductor returned with passports and tickets. M. Bouc took them from him and told him to go back to his post.

“We will take your evidence formally later,” he said.

“Very good, Monsieur,” said Michel, and left the carriage.

The chief of the train returned with Hector MacQueen.

M. Bouc rose. “We are a little crowded here,” he said pleasantly. “Take my seat, Mr. MacQueen. M. Poirot will sit opposite you – so.”

He turned to the chief of the train and told him to ask all the passengers leave the restaurant car free for M. Poirot.

“You will conduct your interviews there, my dear?”

“It would be the most convenient, yes,” agreed Poirot.

“What's up on the train? Has anything happened?” MacQueen looked from one man to another.

Poirot nodded. “Yes. Prepare yourself for a shock. Your employer, M. Ratchett, is dead!”

MacQueen didn't show any sign of shock. He just whistled, and his eyes grew a bit brighter.

“So they got him after all,” he said.

“You suppose,” said Poirot, “that M. Ratchett was murdered?”

“That's just what I thought,” MacQueen said slowly. “Do you mean he just died in his sleep? Why, the old man was so strong.”

“No, no,” said Poirot. “Your supposition was quite right.

M. Ratchett was murdered. Stabbed. But I would like to know why you were so sure it was murder.”

MacQueen didn't answer at once. “I must understand,” he said, “who you are exactly.”

“I represent the Sleeping-cars International Company.” Poirot paused, then added, “I am a detective. My name is Hercule Poirot.”

His words didn't produce the effect he expected.

“You know the name, perhaps?”

“Well, it seems familiar. Only I always thought it was a woman's dressmaker.”

Hercule Poirot looked at him with dislike. “It is incredible!”

Poirot began to ask his questions. From MacQueen's answers he learnt that the young man had become Ratchett's secretary in Persia over a year ago. He had come to Persia from New York on business, but things had gone badly for him. Mr. Ratchett was in the same hotel. He had just parted with his secretary and offered the job to MacQueen.

“And since then?”

“We've travelled a lot. Mr. Ratchett wanted to see the world, but he didn't know any foreign language. I acted more as a courier than as a secretary. It was a pleasant life.”

“Now tell me as much as you can about your employer.”

The young man said it was not easy.

“I know that his full name is Samuel Edward Ratchett, that he was an American citizen”

“What else do you know?”

“In fact, Mr. Poirot, I know nothing at all! Mr. Ratchett never spoke of himself, of his relatives, or of his life in America.”

“Why do you think that was?”

“I don't know. He might be ashamed of his beginnings. Some men are.”

“You must have formed some theory, Mr. MacQueen.”

“Well, I don't believe Ratchett was his real name. I think he left America in order to escape someone or something. I think he was successful – until a few weeks ago when he began to get threatening letters. The first letter came a fortnight ago.”

“Were these letters destroyed?”

“No, I think I've got a couple still in my files.”

Poirot asked MacQueen to bring those letters. In a few minutes he laid down two letters before Poirot.

The first letter ran as follows:

Thought you'd escape, did you? Never. We're out to GET you, Ratchett, and we WILL get you!

There was no signature.

Poirot read the second letter.

We're going to take you for a ride, Ratchett. Some time soon. We're going to GET you – see?

“The style is monotonous!” Poirot said. “But not the handwriting.”

MacQueen looked surprised.

“This letter,” explained Poirot, “was not written by one person, M. MacQueen. Two or more persons wrote it – one letter of a word was written by one person, another letter was written by another persion. Also, the letters are printed. It is much more difficult to identify the handwriting that way.”

Poirot asked then what Ratchett's reaction to the first letter was. MacQueen said that he had laughed quietly, but he had shivered slightly.

Poirot nodded. Then he asked an unexpected question.

“Mr. MacQueen, will you tell me, quite honestly, did you like your employer?”

Hector MacQueen didn't answer at once.

“No,” he said at last. “I did not.”

“Why?”

“I felt he was a cruel and dangerous man.”

“Thank you, Mr. MacQueen. One more question: when did you last see Mr. Ratchett alive?”

“Last evening about – ” he paused for a minute – “ten o'clock, I would say. I went into his compartment to take down some instruction from him.”

“On what subject?”

“It was about some tiles and antique pottery that he bought in Persia.”

“And that was the last time Mr. Ratchett was seen alive?”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“Do you know when Mr. Ratchett received the last threatening letter?”

“On the morning of the day we left Constantinople.”

“Thank you, Mr. MacQueen. That is all for the present,” Poirot said.

The American left the carriage.

“Do you believe what this young man says?” asked M. Bouc.

“He seems honest. He did not pretend to like his employer, as he probably would have done if he had been mixed up in this.”

“So one person at least is innocent of the crime,” said M. Bouc cheerfully.

“I suspect everybody till the last minute,” Poirot said. “But yes, I cannot see how MacQueen could lose his head and stab his victim twelve or fourteen times.”

“No,” said M. Bouc thoughtfully. “It's more like the Latin temperament. Or, as our friend the chief of the train insisted – a woman.”

Chapter VII
The Body

Poirot and Dr. Constantine went to the compartment occupied by the murdered man. The window was still open. Poirot examined the window carefully.

“You are right,” he said. “Nobody left the carriage this way.”

He examined the frame of the window carefully.

“No fingerprints at all,” he said. “Criminals do not make mistakes of that kind nowadays.”

Then he turned his attention to the body of the murdered man.

“How many wounds are there exactly?”

“I make it twelve. One or two are practically scratches. Just three were fatal.”

The doctor frowned suddenly.

“What is it?” asked Poirot.

“These two wounds,” The doctor pointed. “They are deep, but they have not bled.”

“What does that mean?”

“That the man was already dead when the stabs were made.”

“Anything else?” asked Poirot.

“Well, the wound near the right shoulder. The blow was almost certainly struck with the left hand.”

“So, our murderer is left-handed? No, it is more difficult than that, is it not?”

“Yes, M. Poirot. Some of the other blows are righthanded.”

“So, two people,” murmured the detective. He asked suddenly, “Was the electric light on?”

“It is difficult to say. It is turned off by the conductor every morning about ten o'clock.”

“The switches will tell us,” said Poirot.

He examined the switch of the top light and also the bedhead light. The former was turned off. The latter was closed.

“Well,” he said thoughtfully. “We have here a hypothesis of the First and the Second Murderer. The First Murderer stabbed his victim and left the compartment, turning off the light. The second Murderer came in in the dark and stabbed at least twice at a dead body. What do you think?”

“Excellent!” the little doctor said.

“It seems a little like nonsense to me.”

“Can there be any other explanation?”

“That is what I am asking myself. What else can show that two people have been mixed up in this?”

“I think I can say yes. Some of these blows are very weak, like scratches. But great strength was needed for two others.”

“You think they were struck by a man?”

“Most certainly.”

“It could not have been a woman?”

“It might have been a young, athletic woman, driven by a strong emotion, but, in my opinion, it is highly unlikely.”

Poirot was silent a moment or two.

“The matter begins to clear itself up wonderfully! The murderer was a man of great strength – he was weak – it was a woman – it was a right-handed person – it was a left-handed person. It's just ridiculous!” He spoke with sudden anger. “And the victim – what does he do? Does he cry out? Does he struggle? Does he defend himself?”

He drew out the automatic pistol from under the pillow.

“Fully loaded, you see,” he said.

They looked round them. On the small table formed by the lid of the washbasin were various objects, an empty glass and an ash-tray among them. There was the butt of a cigar in it and some charred fragments of paper; also two burnt matches.

The doctor picked up the empty glass and sniffed it.

“That is why there was no struggle – the victim was drugged,” he said quietly.

Poirot picked up the two matches and examined them carefully. One of them was flatter than the other. He felt the pockets of Ratchett's clothing and pulled out a box of matches. He compared them carefully with the burnt ones.

“The rounder one is a match struck by Mr. Ratchett,” he said.

“Let us see if he had also the flatter kind.”

No other matches were found, but from the floor Poirot picked up a small cambric handkerchief with an initial embroidered in the corner – H.

“Our friend the chief of the train was right,” said the doctor. “There is a woman mixed up in this.”

“And she leaves her handkerchief marked with an initial to make things easier for us. Exactly as it happens in the books and films!” said Poirot.

Before the doctor could say anything, he again picked up something from the floor. This time it was a pipe-cleaner.

There was no pipe in any of Mr. Ratchett's pockets, and no tobacco or tobacco pouch.

“It is a clue,” the doctor said.

“A masculine clue, this time. One cannot complain of having no clues in this case. By the way, what have you done with the weapon?”

“There was no sign of any weapon. The murderer must have taken it away with him.”

“I wonder why,” Poirot thought.

At this moment the doctor pulled out a gold watch from the breast pocket of the dead man's pyjama.

The case was badly damaged, and the hands pointed to a quarter past one.

“You see?” cried Dr. Constantine. “This gives us the hour of the crime. Between midnight and two in the morning is what I said, and probably about one o'clock. Here is confirmation. A quarter past one. That was the hour of the crime.”

“It is possible, yes. It is certainly possible.”

The doctor looked at him curiously. “You will pardon me, M. Poirot, but I do not quite understand you.”

“I do not understand myself,” said Poirot. “I understand nothing at all. And it worries me.”

He sighed and started examining the charred fragment of paper in the ash-tray. He murmured to himself, “I need an old – fashioned woman's hat-box.”

Poirot called for the conductor and the man arrived at a run. He wanted to know how many women there were on the carriage.

The conductor enumerated them – “the old American lady, the Swedish lady, the young English lady, the Countess Andrenyi, and Madame la Princesse Dragomiroff and her maid.”

“They all have hat-boxes, yes?”

“Yes, Monsieur.”

Poirot asked the conductor to bring him the Swedish lady's hat-box and that of the lady's maid.

The conductor brought the two hat-boxes. Poirot opened that of the maid, and put it aside. Then he opened the Swedish lady's and was satisfied. He took out the hats carefully and disclosed round humps of wire-netting.

“Yes, that's it! About fifteen years ago hat-boxes were made like this. You pierced the hat with a hatpin on to this hump of wire-netting.”

He skillfully removed two of the humps. Then he repacked the hat-box and told the conductor to return both boxes where they belonged.

When the conductor left, he turned to his companion.

“You see, my dear doctor, I mostly rely on the psychology, not on the fingerprint or the cigarette ash. But in this case I would welcome a little scientific assistance. This compartment is full of clues, but can I be sure that those are real clues?”

“I do not quite understand you, M. Poirot.”

“Well, for example, there are two possibilities. A man, committing the crime, decides to make it look like a woman's crime, makes several weak stabs, and drops a woman's handkerchief. Or a woman kills him and makes it look like a man's work, dropping a pipe-cleaner. Or should we seriously suppose that two people, a man and a woman, did it separately, and that each was so careless as to drop a clue to his or her identity? It is a little too much of a coincidence, that!”

“But what is the role of the hat-box?” asked the doctor, still puzzled.

“Ah! I am coming to that. All these clues we have found may be real, or they may be false. I cannot yet tell. But I think there is one real clue here – that flat match. I believe that that match was used by the murderer. It was used to burn some note that left a possible clue to the murderer. I am going to try to discover what it was.”

He left the compartment for a few moments and returned with a small spirit-lamp and a pair of curling-tongs.

“I use them for the moustaches,” he said, referring to the latter.

The doctor watched him with great interest. Poirot flattened out the two humps of wire, and with great care put the charred fragment of paper on one of them. Very quickly, he put the other on top of it and then, holding both pieces together with the tongs, held the whole thing over the flame of the spiritlamp.