Page 96 - Demo

Agatha Christie MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS
“In your case, yes.”
“And yet I knew and loved Sonia Armstrong. What do you think, then? That I would not soil my hands with killing such canaille as that man Cassetti? Well, perhaps you are right.”
She was silent a minute or two. Then she said:
“With such a man as that, do you know what I should have liked to do? I should have liked to call to my servants: ‘Flog this man to death and fling him out on the rubbish heap!’ That is the way things were done when I was young, Monsieur.”
Still he did not speak, just listened attentively.
She looked at him with a sudden impetuosity. “You do not say anything, M. Poirot. What is it that you are thinking, I wonder?”
He looked at her with a very direct glance. “I think, Madame, that your strength is in your will—not in your arm.”
She glanced down at her thin, black-clad arms ending in those claw-like yellow hands with the rings on the fingers.
“It is true,” she said. “I have no strength in these—none. I do not know whether I am sorry or glad.”
Then she turned abruptly back towards her carriage where the maid was busily packing up the cases.
The Princess cut short M. Bouc’s apologies.
“There is no need for you to apologise, Monsieur,” she said. “A murder has been committed. Certain actions have to be performed. That is all there is to it.”
“Vous êtes bien aimable, Madame.”
She inclined her head slightly as they departed.
The doors of the next two carriages were shut. M. Bouc paused and scratched his head. “Diable!” he said. “This may be awkward. These are diplomatic passports. Their luggage is
exempt.”
“From customs examination, yes. But a murder is different.”
“I know. All the same—we do not want to have complications.”
“Do not distress yourself, my friend. The Count and Countess will be reasonable. See how
amiable Princess Dragomiroff was about it.”
“She is truly grande dame. These two are also of the same position, but the Count impressed
me as a man of somewhat truculent disposition. He was not pleased when you insisted on questioning his wife. And this will annoy him still further. Suppose—eh?—we omit them. After all, they can have nothing to do with the matter. Why should I stir up needless trouble for myself?”
“I do not agree with you,” said Poirot. “I feel sure that Count Andrenyi will be reasonable. At any rate let us make the attempt.”
And before M. Bouc could reply, he rapped sharply on the door of No. 13.
A voice from within cried “Entrez!”
The Count was sitting in the corner near the door reading a newspaper. The Countess was
curled up in the opposite corner near the window. There was a pillow behind her head and she seemed to have been asleep.
“Pardon, Monsieur le Comte,” began Poirot. “pray forgive this intrusion. It is that we are making a search of all the baggage on the train. In most cases a mere formality. But it has to be done. M. Bouc suggests that, as you have a diplomatic passport, you might reasonably claim to be exempt from such a search.”
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