“Never. Don’t want to go.”
“Did you ever know a Colonel Armstrong?”
“Armstrong—Armstrong—I’ve known two or three Armstrongs. There was Tommy Armstrong in the 60th—you don’t mean him? And Selby Armstrong—he was killed on the Somme.”
“I mean the Colonel Armstrong who married an American wife and whose only child was kidnapped and killed.”
“Ah, yes, I remember reading about that—shocking affair. I don’t think I actually ever came across the fellow, though of course I knew of him. Toby Armstrong. Nice fellow. Everybody liked him. He had a very distinguished career. Got the V.C.”
“The man who was killed last night was the man responsible for the murder of Colonel Armstrong’s child.”
Arbuthnot’s face grew rather grim. “Then in my opinion the swine deserved what he got. Though I would have preferred to see him properly hanged—or electrocuted, I suppose, over there.”
“In fact, Colonel Arbuthnot, you prefer law and order to private vengeance?”
“Well, you can’t go about having blood feuds and stabbing each other like Corsicans or the Mafia,” said the Colonel. “Say what you like, trial by jury is a sound system.”
Poirot looked at him thoughtfully for a minute or two.
“Yes,” he said. I am sure that would be your view. Well, Colonel Arbuthnot, I do not think there is anything more I have to ask you. There is nothing you yourself can recall last night that in any way snuck you—or shall we say strikes you now, looking back—as suspicious?”
Arbuthnot considered for a moment or two.
“No,” he said. “Nothing at all. Unless—” he hesitated.
“But yes, continue, I pray of you.”
“Well, it’s nothing really,” said the Colonel slowly. “But you said anything.”
“Yes, yes. Go on.”
“Oh! it’s nothing. A mere detail. But as I got back to my compartment I noticed that the door of the one beyond mine—the end one, you know—”
“Yes, No. 16.”
“Well, the door of it was not quite closed. And the fellow inside peered out in a furtive sort of way. Then he pulled the door to quickly. Of course I know there’s nothing in that—but it just struck me as a bit odd. I mean, it’s quite usual to open a door and stick your head out if you want to see anything. But it was the furtive way he did it that caught my attention.”
“Ye-es,” said Poirot doubtfully.
“I told you there was nothing to it,” said Arbuthnot, apologetically. “But you know what it is—early hours of the morning—everything very still. The thing had a sinister look—like a detective story. All nonsense really.”
He rose. “Well, if you don’t want me any more—”
“Thank you, Colonel Arbuthnot, there is nothing else.”
The soldier hesitated for a minute. His first natural distaste for being questioned by “foreigners” had evaporated.
“About Miss Debenham,” he said rather awkwardly. “You can take it from me that she’s all right. She’s a pukka sahib.”
Flushing a little, he withdrew.
“What,” asked Dr. Constantine with interest, “does a pukka sahib mean?”
“It means,” said Poirot, “that Miss Debenham’s father and brothers were at the same kind of school as Colonel Arbuthnot was.”
“Oh! said Dr. Constantine, disappointed. “Then it has nothing to do with the crime at all.”
“Exactly,”, said, Poirot.
He fell into a reverie, beating a light tattoo on the table. Then he looked up.
“Colonel Arbuthnot smokes a pipe,” he said. “In the compartment of Mr. Ratchett I found a pipe-cleaner. Mr. Ratchett smoked only cigars.”
“You think—?”
“He is the only man so far who admits to smoking a pipe. And he knew of Colonel Armstrong—perhaps actually did know him, though he won’t admit it.”
“So you think it possible—?”
Poirot shook his head violently.
“That is just it—it is impossible—quite impossible—that an honourable, slightly stupid, upright Englishman should stab an enemy twelve times with a knife! Do you not feel, my friends, how impossible it is?”
“That is the psychology,” said M. Bouc.
“And one must respect the psychology. This crime has a signature, and it is certainly not the signature of Colonel Arbuthnot. But now to our next interview.”
This time M. Bouc did not mention the Italian. But he thought of him.