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Agatha Christie MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS
“Is it not? It is so mad, my friend, that sometimes I am haunted by the sensation that really it must be very simple. ... But that is only one of my ‘little ideas’!”
“Two murderers,” groaned M. Bouc. “And on the Orient Express—”
The thought almost made him weep.
“And now let us make the fantasy more fantastic,” said Poirot cheerfully. “Last night on the
train, there are two mysterious strangers. There is the Wagon Lit attendant answering to the description given us by M. Hardman, and seen by Hildegarde Schmidt, Colonel Arbuthnot and M. MacQueen. There is also a woman in a red kimono—a tall slim woman, seen by Pierre Michel, Miss Debenham, M. MacQueen and myself (and smelt, I may say, by Colonel Arbuthnot!). Who was she? No one on the train admits to having a scarlet kimono. She, too, has vanished. Was she one and the same with the spurious Wagon Lit attendant? Or was she some quite distinct personality? Where are they, these two? And incidentally, where are the Wagon Lit uniform and the scarlet kimono?”
“Ah! that is something definite.” M. Bouc sprang up eagerly. “We must search all the passengers’ luggage. Yes, that will be something.”
Poirot rose also. “I will make a prophecy,” he said. “You know where they are?”
“I have a little idea.”
“Where, then?”
“You will find the scarlet kimono in the baggage of one of the men, and you will find the uniform of the Wagon Lit conductor in the baggage of Hildegarde Schmidt.”
“Hildegarde Schmidt? You think—”
“Not what you are thinking. I will put it like this. If Hildegarde Schmidt is guilty, the uniform may be found in her baggage. But if she is innocent, it certainly will be.”
“But how—” began M. Bouc and stopped. “What is this noise that approaches?” he cried. “It resembles a locomotive in motion.”
The noise drew nearer. It consisted of shrill cries and protests in a woman’s voice. The door at the end of the dining-car burst open. Mrs. Hubbard burst in.
“It’s too horrible!” she cried. It’s just too horrible. In my sponge-bag. My sponge-bag! A great knife—all over blood?”
And suddenly toppling forward, she fainted heavily on M. Bouc’s shoulder.
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