“What time was this, Mrs. Hubbard?”
“Well, I’m sure I can’t tell you. I never looked to see. I was so upset.”
“And what is your theory now?”
“Why, I should say it was just as plain as plain could be. The man in my compartment was the murderer. Who else could he be?”
“And you think he went back into the adjoining compartment?”
“How do I know where he went? I had my eyes tight shut.”
“He might have slipped out through the door into the corridor.”
“Well, I couldn’t say. You see, I had my eyes tight shut.”
Mrs. Hubbard sighed convulsively.
“Mercy, I was scared! If my daughter only knew—”
“You do not think, Madame, that what you heard was the noise of someone moving about next door—in the murdered man’s compartment?”
“No, I do not, Mr.—what is it?—Poirot. The man was right there in the same compartment with me. And what’s more I’ve got proof of it.”
Triumphantly, she hauled a large handbag into view and proceeded to burrow in its interior.
She took out in turn two large clean handkerchiefs, a pair of horn-rimmed glasses, a bottle of aspirin, a packet of Glauber’s Salts, a celluloid tube of bright green peppermints, a bunch of keys, a pair of scissors, a book of American Express cheques, a snapshot of an extraordinarily plain-looking child, some letters, five strings of pseudo-Oriental beads, and a small metal object—a button.
“You see this button? Well, it’s not one of my buttons. It’s not off anything I’ve got. I found it this morning when I got up.”
As she placed it on the table, M. Bouc. leaned forward and gave an exclamation. “But this is a button from the tunic of a Wagon Lit attendant!”
“There way be a natural explanation for that,” said Poirot.
He turned gently to the lady.
“This button, Madame, may have dropped from the conductor’s uniform, either when he searched your cabin or when he was making the bed up last night.”
“I just don’t know what’s the matter with all you people. Seems as though you don’t want to do anything but make objections. Now listen here. I was reading a magazine last night before I went to sleep. Before I turned the light out, I placed that magazine on a little case that was standing on the floor near the window. Have you got that?”
They assured her that they had.
“Very well then. The conductor looked under the seat from near the door, and then he came in and bolted the door between me and the next compartment, but he never went near the window. Well, this morning that button was lying right on top of the magazine. What do you call that, I should like to know?”
“That, Madame, I call evidence,” said Poirot.
The answer seemed to appease the lady.
“It makes me madder than a hornet to be disbelieved,” she explained.
“You have given us most interesting and valuable evidence,” said Poirot soothingly. “Now may I ask you a few questions?”
“Why, certainly.”
“How was it, since you were nervous of this man Ratchett, that you hadn’t already bolted the door between the compartments?”
“I had,” returned Mrs. Hubbard promptly.
“Oh, you had?”
“Well, as a matter of fact I asked that Swedish creature—a pleasant soul—if it was bolted, and she said it was.”
“How was it you couldn’t see for yourself?”
“Because I was in bed and my spongebag was hanging on the door-handle.”
“What time was it when you asked her to do this for you?”
“Now let me think. It must have- been round about half-past ten or a quarter to eleven. She’d come along to see if I had an aspirin. I told her where to find it and she got it out of my grip.”
“You yourself were in bed?”
“Yes.”
Suddenly she laughed. “Poor soul—she was so upset! You see, she’d opened the door of the next compartment by mistake.”
“Mr. Ratchett’s?”
“Yes. You know how difficult it is as you come along the train and all the doors are shut. She opened his by mistake. She was very distressed about it. He’d laughed, it seemed, and I guess he said something not quite nice. Poor thing, she certainly was upset. ‘Oh! I make mistake,’ she said. ‘I ashamed make mistake. Not nice man,’ she said. ‘He say, “You too old.” ’ ”