He held up the tunic.
A button, the third down, was missing.
Poirot slipped his hand into the pocket and took out a conductor’s pass-key, used to unlock the doors of the compartments.
“Here is the explanation of how one man was able to pass through locked doors,” said M. Bouc. “Your questions to Mrs. Hubbard were unnecessary. Locked or not locked, the man could easily get through the communicating door.
After all, if a Wagon Lit uniform, why not a Wagon Lit key?”
“Why not indeed?” returned Poirot.
“We might have known it, really.
You remember that Michel said that the door into the corridor of Mrs. Hubbard’s compartment was locked when he came in answer to her bell.”
“That is so, Monsieur,” said the conductor. “That is why I thought the lady must have been dreaming.”
“But now it is easy,” continued M. Bouc. “Doubtless he meant to relock the communicating door, also, but perhaps he heard some movement from the bed and it startled him.”
“We have now,” said Poirot, “only to find the scarlet kimono.”
“True.
And these last two compartments are occupied by men.”
“We will search all the same.”
“Oh! assuredly.
Besides, I remember what you said.”
Hector MacQueen acquiesced willingly in the search.
“I’d just as soon you did,” he said with a rueful smile. “I feel I’m definitely the most suspicious character on the train.
You’ve only got to find a will in which the old man left me all his money, and that’ll just about fix things.”
M. Bouc bent a suspicious glance upon him.
“That’s only my fun,” added MacQueen hastily. “He’d never have left me a cent, really.
I was just useful to him – languages and so on.
You’re likely to be out of luck, you know, if you don’t speak anything but good American.
I’m no linguist myself, but I know what I call Shopping and Hotel – snappy bits in French and German and Italian.”
His voice was a little louder than usual.
It was as though he were slightly uneasy over the search in spite of his expressed willingness.
Poirot emerged.
“Nothing,” he said. “Not even a compromising bequest!”
MacQueen sighed.
“Well, that’s a load off my mind,” he said humorously.
They moved on to the last compartment.
The examination of the luggage of the big Italian and of the valet yielded no result.
The three men stood at the end of the coach looking at each other.
“What next?” said M. Bouc.
“We will go back to the dining-car,” said Poirot. “We know now all that we can know.
We have the evidence of the passengers, the evidence of their baggage, the evidence of our eyes… We can expect no further help.
It must be our part now to use our brains.”
He felt in his pocket for his cigarette case.
It was empty.
“I will join you in a moment,” he said. “I shall need the cigarettes.
This is a very difficult, a very curious, affair.
Who wore that scarlet kimono?
Where is it now? I wish I knew.
There is something in this case – some factor – that escapes me!
It is difficult because it has been made difficult.
But we will discuss it.
Pardon me a moment.”
He went hurriedly along the corridor to his own compartment.
He had, he knew, a further supply of cigarettes in one of his valises.
He got it down and snapped back the lock.