“Now I could feel that that was not what he had started out to say.
Supposing what he had meant to say was
‘But surely that was burnt!’In which case, MacQueen knew of the note and of its destruction – in other words, he was either the murderer or an accomplice of the murderer.
Very good.
“Then the valet.
He said his master was in the habit of taking a sleeping draught when travelling by train.
That might be true, but would Ratchett have taken one last night?
The automatic under his pillow gave the lie to that statement. Ratchett intended to be on the alert last night.
Whatever narcotic was administered to him must have been given without his knowledge.
By whom?
Obviously by MacQueen or the valet.
“Now we come to the evidence of Mr. Hardman.
I believed all that he told me about his own identity, but when it came to the actual methods he had employed to guard Mr. Ratchett, his story was neither more nor less than absurd.
The only way to have protected Ratchett effectively was to pass the night actually in his compartment or in some spot where he could watch the door.
The one thing that his evidence did show plainly was that no one in any other part of the train could possibly have murdered Ratchett.
It drew a clear circle round the Stamboul-Calais carriage.
That seemed to me a rather curious and inexplicable fact, and I put it aside to think over.
“You probably all know by now of the few words I overheard between Miss Debenham and Colonel Arbuthnot.
The interesting thing to my mind was the fact that Colonel Arbuthnot called her Mary and was clearly on terms of intimacy with her.
But the Colonel was supposed to have met her only a few days previously. And I know Englishmen of the Colonel’s type – even if he had fallen in love with the young lady at first sight, he would have advanced slowly and with decorum, not rushing things.
Therefore I concluded that Colonel Arbuthnot and Miss Debenham were in reality well acquainted and were for some reason pretending to be strangers. Another small point was Miss Debenham’s easy familiarity with the term ‘long distance’ for a telephone call. Yet Miss Debenham had told me that she had never been in the States.
“To pass to another witness.
Mrs. Hubbard had told us that lying in bed she had been unable to see whether the communicating door was bolted or not, and so had asked Miss Ohlsson to see for her.
Now – though her statement would have been perfectly true if she had been occupying compartment No. 2, 4, 12 or any even number, in which the bolt is directly under the handle of the door – in the uneven numbers such as compartment No. 3 the bolt is well above the handle and could not therefore be masked by the sponge-bag in the least.
I was forced to the conclusion that Mrs. Hubbard was inventing an incident that had never occurred.
“And here let me say just a word or two about times.
To my mind the really interesting point about the dented watch, is the place where it was found – in Ratchett’s pyjama pocket, a singularly uncomfortable and unlikely place to keep one’s watch, especially as there is a watch ‘hook’ provided just by the head of the bed.
I felt sure, therefore, that the watch had been deliberately placed in the pocket – faked. The crime, then, was not committed at a quarter past one.
“Was it then committed earlier?
To be exact, at twenty-three minutes to one?
My friend M. Bouc advanced as an argument in favour of it the loud cry which awoke me from sleep.
But if Ratchett had been heavily drugged, he could not have cried out.
If he had been capable of crying out, he would have been capable of making some kind of struggle to defend himself, and there were no signs of any such struggle.
“I remembered that MacQueen had called attention, not once but twice (and the second time in a very blatant manner), to the fact that Ratchett could speak no French.
I came to the conclusion that the whole business at twenty-three minutes to one was a comedy played for my benefit!
Anyone might see through the watch business – it is a common enough device in detective stories.
They assumed that I should see through it and that, pluming myself on my own cleverness, I would go on to assume that since Ratchett spoke no French, the voice I heard at twenty-three minutes to one could not have been his, and that Ratchett must have been already dead.
But I am convinced that at twenty-three minutes to one Ratchett was still lying in his drugged sleep.
“But the device has succeeded!
I have opened my door and looked out.
I have actually heard the French phrase used.
If I am so unbelievably dense as not to realise the significance of that phrase, it must be brought to my attention.
If necessary, MacQueen can come right out in the open. He can say,
‘Excuse me, M. Poirot, that can’t have been Mr. Ratchett speaking.
He couldn’t speak French.’
“Now, what was the real time of the crime?
And who killed him?
“In my opinion – and this is only an opinion – Ratchett was killed at some time very close upon two o’clock, the latest hour the doctor gives us as possible.
“As to who killed him–”
He paused, looking at his audience.