Page 122 - Demo

Agatha Christie MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS
The Colonel said stiffly, “I suggest that you ask Miss Debenham herself for the meaning of those words.”
“I have done so.”
“And she refused to tell you?”
“Y es.”
“Then I should think it would have been perfectly plain—even to you—that my lips are
sealed.”
“You will not give away a lady’s secret?”
“You can put it that way, if you like.”
“Miss Debenham told me that they referred to a private matter of her own.”
“Then why not accept her word for it?”
“Because, Colonel Arbuthnot, Miss Debenham is what one might call a highly suspicious
character.”
“Nonsense,” said the Colonel with warmth.
“It is not nonsense.”
“You have nothing whatever against her.”
“Not the fact that Miss Debenham was companion governess; in the Armstrong household at
the time of the kidnapping of little Daisy Armstrong?”
There was a minute’s dead silence.
Poirot nodded his head gently.
“You see,” he said. “We know more than you think. If Miss Debenham is innocent, why did
she conceal that fact? Why did she tell me that she had never been in America?”
The Colonel cleared his throat. “Aren’t you possibly making a mistake?”
“I am making no mistake. Why did Miss Debenham lie to me?”
Colonel Arbuthnot shrugged his shoulders. “You had better ask her. I still think that you are
wrong.”
Poirot raised his voice and called. One of the restaurant attendants came from the far end of
the car.
“Go and ask the English lady in No. 11 if she will be good enough to come here.”
“Bien, Monsieur.”
The man departed. The four men sat in silence. Colonel Arbuthnot’s face looked as though it
were carved out of wood, rigid and impassive. The man returned.
“The lady is just coming, Monsieur.” “Thank you.”
A minute or two later Mary Debenham entered the dining-car.
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