The Mystery of the Blue Train (11 page)

Seventeen

A
N
A
RISTOCRATIC
G
ENTLEMAN

“
Y
ou have been to the Riviera before, Georges?” said Poirot to his valet the following morning.

George was an intensely English, rather wooden-faced individual.

“Yes, sir. I was here two years ago when I was in the service of Lord Edward Frampton.”

“And today,” murmured his master, “you are here with Hercule Poirot. How one mounts in the world!”

The valet made no reply to this observation. After a suitable pause he asked:

“The brown lounge suit, sir? The wind is somewhat chilly today.”

“There is a grease spot on the waistcoat,” objected Poirot. “A
morceau
of
filet de sole à la Jeanette
alighted there when I was lunching at the Ritz last Tuesday.”

“There is no spot there now, sir,” said George reproachfully. “I have removed it.”

“
Très bien!
” said Poirot. “I am pleased with you, Georges.”

“Thank you, sir.”

There was a pause, and then Poirot murmured dreamily:

“Supposing, my good Georges, that you had been born in the same social sphere as your late master, Lord Edward Frampton—that, penniless yourself, you had married an extremely wealthy wife, but that wife proposed to divorce you, with excellent reasons, what would you do about it?”

“I should endeavour, sir,” replied George, “to make her change her mind.”

“By peaceful or by forcible methods?”

George looked shocked.

“You will excuse me, sir,” he said, “but a gentleman of the aristocracy would not behave like a Whitechapel coster. He would not do anything low.”

“Would he not, Georges? I wonder now. Well, perhaps you are right.”

There was a knock on the door. George went to it and opened it a discreet inch or two. A low murmured colloquy went on, and then the valet returned to Poirot.

“A note, sir.”

Poirot took it. It was from M. Caux, the Commissary of Police.

“We are about to interrogate the Comte de la Roche. The Juge d'Instruction begs that you will be present.”

“Quickly, my suit, Georges! I must hasten myself.”

A quarter of an hour later, spick and span in his brown suit, Poirot entered the Examining Magistrate's room. M. Caux was already there, and both he and M. Carrège greeted Poirot with polite
empressement.

“The affair is somewhat discouraging,” murmured M. Caux.

“It appears that the Comte arrived in Nice the day before the murder.”

“If that is true, it will settle your affair nicely for you,” responded Poirot.

M. Carrège cleared his throat.

“We must not accept this alibi without very cautious inquiry,” he declared. He struck the bell upon the table with his hand.

In another minute a tall dark man, exquisitely dressed, with a somewhat haughty cast of countenance, entered the room. So very aristocratic-looking was the Count, that it would have seemed sheer heresy even to whisper that his father had been an obscure corn chandler in Nantes—which, as a matter of fact, was the case. Looking at him, one would have been prepared to swear that innumerable ancestors of his must have perished by the guillotine in the French Revolution.

“I am here, gentlemen,” said the Count haughtily. “May I ask why you wish to see me?”

“Pray be seated, Monsieur le Comte,” said the Examining Magistrate politely. “It is the affair of the death of Madame Kettering that we are investigating.”

“The death of Madame Kettering? I do not understand.”

“You were—ahem!—acquainted with the lady, I believe, Monsieur le Comte?”

“Certainly I was acquainted with her. What has that to do with the matter?”

Sticking an eyeglass in his eye, he looked coldly round the room, his glance resting longest on Poirot, who was gazing at him with a kind of simple, innocent admiration which was most pleasing to the Count's vanity. M. Carrège leaned back in his chair and cleared his throat.

“You do not perhaps know, Monsieur le Comte”—he paused—“that Madame Kettering was murdered?”

“Murdered?
Mon Dieu,
how terrible!”

The surprise and the sorrow were excellently done—so well done, indeed, as to seem wholly natural.

“Madame Kettering was strangled between Paris and Lyons,” continued M. Carrège, “and her jewels were stolen.”

“It is iniquitous!” cried the Count warmly; “the police should do something about these train bandits. Nowadays no one is safe.”

“In Madame's handbag,” continued the Judge, “we found a letter to her from you. She had, it seemed, arranged to meet you?”

The Count shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands.

“Of what use are concealments,” he said frankly. “We are all men of the world. Privately and between ourselves, I admit the affair.”

“You met her in Paris and travelled down with her, I believe?” said M. Carrège.

“That was the original arrangement, but by Madame's wish it was changed. I was to meet her at Hyères.”

“You did not meet her on the train at Gare de Lyon on the evening of the 14th?”

“On the contrary, I arrived in Nice on the morning of that day, so what you suggest is impossible.”

“Quite so, quite so,” said M. Carrège. “As a matter of form, you would perhaps give me an account of your movements during the evening and night of the 14th.”

The Count reflected for a minute.

“I dined in Monte Carlo at the Café de Paris. Afterwards I went to the Le Sporting. I won a few thousand francs,” he shrugged his shoulders. “I returned home at perhaps one o'clock.”

“Pardon me, Monsieur, but how did you return home?”

“In my own two-seater car.”

“No one was with you?”

“No one.”

“You could produce witnesses in support of this statement?”

“Doubtless many of my friends saw me there that evening. I dined alone.”

“Your servant admitted you on your return to your villa?”

“I let myself in with my own latchkey.”

“Ah!” murmured the Magistrate.

Again he struck the bell on the table with his hand. The door opened, and a messenger appeared.

“Bring in the maid, Mason,” said M. Carrège.

“Very good, Monsieur le Juge.”

Ada Mason was brought in.

“Will you be so good, Mademoiselle, as to look at this gentleman. To the best of your ability was it he who entered your mistress's compartment in Paris?”

The woman looked long and searchingly at the Count, who was, Poirot fancied, rather uneasy under this scrutiny.

“I could not say, sir, I am sure,” said Mason at last. “It might be and again it might not. Seeing as how I only saw his back, it's hard to say. I rather think it
was
the gentleman.”

“But you are not sure?”

“No-o,” said Mason unwillingly; “n-no, I am not sure.”

“You have seen this gentleman before in Curzon Street?”

Mason shook her head.

“I should not be likely to see any visitors that come to Curzon Street,” she explained, “unless they were staying in the house.”

“Very well, that will do,” said the Examining Magistrate sharply.

Evidently he was disappointed.

“One moment,” said Poirot. “There is a question I would like to put to Mademoiselle, if I may?”

“Certainly, M. Poirot—certainly, by all means.”

Poirot addressed himself to the maid.

“What happened to the tickets?”

“The tickets, sir?”

“Yes; the tickets from London to Nice. Did you or your mistress have them?”

“The mistress had her own Pullman ticket, sir; the others were in my charge.”

“What happened to them?”

“I gave them to the conductor on the French train, sir; he said it was usual. I hope I did right, sir?”

“Oh, quite right, quite right. A mere matter of detail.”

Both M. Caux and the Examining Magistrate looked at him curiously. Mason stood uncertainly for a minute or two, and then the magistrate gave her a brief nod of dismissal, and she went out. Poirot scribbled something on a scrap of paper and handed it across to M. Carrège. The latter read it and his brow cleared.

“Well, gentlemen,” demanded the Count haughtily, “am I to be detained further?”

“Assuredly not, assuredly not,” M. Carrège hastened to say, with a great deal of amiability. “Everything is now cleared up as regards your own position in this affair. Naturally, in view of Madame's letter, we were bound to question you.”

The Count rose, picked up his handsome stick from the corner, and, with rather a curt bow, left the room.

“And that is that,” said M. Carrège. “You were quite right, M. Poirot—much better to let him feel he is not suspected. Two of my men will shadow him night and day, and at the same time we will go into the question of the alibi. It seems to me rather—er—a fluid one.”

“Possibly,” agreed Poirot thoughtfully.

“I asked M. Kettering to come here this morning,” continued the Magistrate, “though really I doubt if we have much to ask him, but there are one or two suspicious circumstances—” He paused, rubbing his nose.

“Such as?” asked Poirot.

“Well”—the Magistrate coughed—“this lady with whom he is said to be travelling—Mademoiselle Mirelle. She is staying at one hotel and he at another. That strikes me—er—as rather odd.”

“It looks,” said M. Caux, “as though they were being careful.”

“Exactly,” said M. Carrège triumphantly; “and what should they have to be careful about?”

“An excess of caution is suspicious, eh?” said Poirot.

“Précisément.”

“We might, I think,” murmured Poirot, “ask M. Kettering one or two questions.”

The Magistrate gave instructions. A moment or two later, Derek Kettering, debonair as ever, entered the room.

“Good morning, Monsieur,” said the Judge politely.

“Good morning,” said Derek Kettering curtly. “You sent for me. Has anything fresh turned up?”

“Pray sit down, Monsieur.”

Derek took a seat and flung his hat and stick on the table.

“Well?” he asked impatiently.

“We have, so far, no fresh data,” said M. Carrège cautiously.

“That's very interesting,” said Derek drily. “Did you send for me here in order to tell me that?”

“We naturally thought, Monsieur, that you would like to be informed of the progress of the case,” said the Magistrate severely.

“Even if the progress is nonexistent.”

“We also wished to ask you a few questions.”

“Ask away.”

“You are quite sure that you neither saw nor spoke with your wife on the train.”

“I've answered that already. I did not.”

“You had, no doubt, your reasons.”

Derek stared at him suspiciously.

“I—did—not—know—she—was—on—the—train,” he explained, spacing his words elaborately, as though to someone dull of intellect.

“That is what you say, yes,” murmured M. Carrège.

A quick frown suffused Derek's face.

“I should like to know what you are driving at. Do you know what I think, M. Carrège?”

“What do you think, Monsieur?”

“I think the French police are vastly overrated. Surely you must have some data as to these gangs of train robbers. It's outrageous that such a thing could happen on a
train de luxe
like that, and that the French police should be helpless to deal with the matter.”

“We are dealing with it, Monsieur, never fear.”

“Madame Kettering, I understand, did not leave a will,” interposed Poirot suddenly. His fingertips were joined together, and he was looking intently at the ceiling.

“I don't think she ever made one,” said Kettering. “Why?”

“It is a very pretty little fortune that you inherit there,” said Poirot—“a very pretty little fortune.”

Although his eyes were still on the ceiling, he managed to see the dark flush that rose to Derek Kettering's face.

“What do you mean, and who are you?”

Poirot gently uncrossed his knees, withdrew his gaze from the ceiling, and looked the young man full in the face.

“My name is Hercule Poirot,” he said quietly, “and I am probably the greatest detective in the world. You are quite sure that you did not see or speak to your wife on that train?”

“What are you getting at? Do you—do you mean to insinuate that I—I killed her?”

He laughed suddenly.

“I mustn't lose my temper; it's too palpably absurd. Why, if I killed her I should have had no need to steal her jewels, would I?”

“That is true,” murmured Poirot, with a rather crestfallen air. “I did not think of that.”

“If ever there were a clear case of murder and robbery this is it,” said Derek Kettering. “Poor Ruth, it was those damned rubies did for her. It must have got about she had them with her. There has been murder done for those same stones before now, I believe.”

Poirot sat up suddenly in his chair. A very faint green light glowed in his eyes. He looked extraordinarily like a sleek, well-fed cat.

“One more question, M. Kettering,” he said. “Will you give me the date when you last saw your wife?”

“Let me see,” Kettering reflected. “It must have been—yes, over three weeks ago. I am afraid I can't give you the date exactly.”

“No matter,” said Poirot drily; “that is all I wanted to know.”

“Well,” said Derek Kettering impatiently, “anything further?”

He looked towards M. Carrège. The latter sought inspiration from Poirot, and received it in a very faint shake of the head.