He went out of the compartment and returned a few moments later with a small spirit stove and a pair of curling-tongs.
“I use them for the moustaches,” he said, referring to the latter.
The doctor watched him with great interest. Poirot flattened out the two humps of wire, and with great care wriggled the charred scrap of paper on to one of them. He clapped the other on top of it and then, holding both pieces together with the tongs, held the whole thing over the flame of the spirit-lamp.
“It is a very makeshift affair, this,” he said over his shoulder. “Let us hope that it will answer our purpose.”
The doctor watched the proceedings attentively. The metal began to glow. Suddenly he saw faint indications of letters. Words formed themselves slowly-words of fire.
It was a very tiny scrap. Only three words and part of another showed.
—member little Daisy Armstrong
“Ah!” Poirot gave a sharp exclamation.
“It tells you something?” asked the doctor.
Poirot’s eyes were shining. He laid down the tongs carefully.
“Yes,” he said. “I know the dead man’s real name. I know why he had to leave America.”
“What was his name?”
“Cassetti.”
“Cassetti?” Constantine knitted his brows. “It brings back to me something. Some years ago. I cannot remember. … It was a case in America, was it not?”
“Yes,” said Poirot. “A case in America.”
Further than that Poirot was not disposed to be communicative. He looked round him as he went on:
“We will go into all that presently. Let us first make sure that we have seen all there is to be seen here.”
Quickly and deftly he went once more through the pockets of the dead man’s clothes but found nothing there of interest. He tried the communicating door which led through to the next compartment, but it was bolted on the other side.
“There is one thing that I do not understand,” said Dr. Constantine. “If the murderer did not escape through the window, and if this communicating door was bolted on the other side, and if the door into the corridor was not only locked on the inside but chained, how then did the murderer leave the compartment?”
“That is what the audience says when a person bound hand and foot is shut into a cabinet—and disappears.”
“You mean—?”
“I mean,” explained Poirot, “that if the murderer intended us to believe that he had escaped by way of the window, he would naturally make it appear that the other two exits were impossible. Like the ‘disappearing person’ in the cabinet, it is a trick. It is our business to find out how the trick is done.
He locked the communicating door on their side—“in case,” he said, “the excellent Mrs. Hubbard should take it into her head to acquire first-hand details of the crime to write to her daughter.”
He looked round once more.
“There is nothing more to do here, I think. Let us rejoin M. Bouc.”
8
THE ARMSTRONG KIDNAPPING CASE
They found M. Bouc finishing an omelet.
“I thought it best to have lunch served immediately in the restaurant car,” he said. “Afterwards it will be cleared and M. Poirot can conduct his examination of the passengers there. In the meantime I have ordered them to bring us three some food here.”
“An excellent idea,” said Poirot.
None of the three men was hungry, and the meal was soon eaten; but not till they were sipping their coffee did M. Bouc mention the subject that was occupying all their minds.
“Eh bien?” he asked.
“Eh bien, I have discovered the identity of the victim. I know why it was imperative he should leave America.”
“Who was he?”
“Do you remember reading of the Armstrong baby? This is the man who murdered little Daisy Armstrong. Cassetti.”
“I recall it now. A shocking affair—though I cannot remember the details.”
“Colonel Armstrong was an Englishman—a V.C. He was half American, his mother having been a daughter of W. K. Van der Halt, the Wall Street millionaire. He married the daughter of Linda Arden, the most famous tragic American actress of her day. They lived in America and had one child—a girl whom they idolized. When she was three years old she was kidnapped, and an impossibly high sum demanded as the price of her return. I will not weary you with all the intricacies that followed. I will come to the moment when, after the parents had paid over the enormous sum of two hundred thousand dollars, the child’s dead body was discovered; it had been dead for at least a fortnight. Public indignation rose to fever point. And there was worse to follow. Mrs. Armstrong was expecting another baby. Following the shock of the discovery, she gave birth prematurely to a dead child, and herself died. Her broken-hearted husband shot himself.”