“Not everything. You exaggerate. There is, certainly, a fair amount of evidence to support that view.”
“I am glad you admit that at least.”
Poirot went on calmly, unperturbed by the interruption. “We have before us three possibilities.
“(1)—that the crime was committed, as you say, at a quarter past one. This is supported by the evidence of the watch, by the evidence of Mrs. Hubbard, and by the evidence of the German woman, Hildegarde Schmidt. It agrees with the evidence of Dr. Constantine.
“(2)—that the crime was committed later, and that the evidence of the watch was deliberately faked in order to mislead.
“(3)—that the crime was committed earlier, and the evidence faked for the same reason as above.
“Now if we accept possibility (1) as the most likely to have occurred, and the one supported by most evidence, we must also accept certain facts arising from it. If the crime was committed at a quarter past one, the murderer cannot have left the train, and the questions arise: Where is he? And who is he?
“To begin with, let us examine the evidence carefully. We first hear of the existence of this man—the small dark man with a womanish voice—from the man Hardman. He says that Ratchett told him of this person and employed him to watch out for the man. There is no evidence to support this; we have only Hardman’s word for it. Let us next examine the question: Is Hardman the person he pretends to be an operative of a New York detective agency?
“What to my mind is so interesting in this case is that we have none of the facilities afforded to the police. We cannot investigate the bona fides of any of these people. We have to rely solely on deduction. That, to me, makes the matter very much more interesting. There is no routine work. It is all a matter of the intellect. I ask myself: Can we accept Hardman’s account of himself? I make my decision and I answer ‘Yes.’ I am of the opinion that we can accept Hardman’s account of himself.”
“You rely on the intuition? What the Americans call ‘the hunch’?” asked Dr. Constantine.
“Not at all. I regard the probabilities. Hardman is travelling with a false passport—that will at once make him an object of suspicion. The first thing that the police will do when they do arrive upon the scene is to detain Hardman and cable as to whether his account of himself is true. In the case of many of the passengers, to establish their bona fides will be difficult; in most cases it will probably not be attempted, especially since there seems nothing in the way of suspicion attaching to them. But in Hardman’s case it is simple. Either he is the person he represents himself to be, or he is not. Therefore I say that all will prove to be in order.”
“You acquit him of suspicion?”
“Not at all. You misunderstand me. For all I know, any American detective might have his own private reasons for wishing to murder Ratchett. No, what I am saying is that I think we can accept Hardman’s own account of himself. This story, then, that he tells of Ratchett’s seeking him out and employing him is not unlikely, and is most probably—though not of course certainly—true. If we are going to accept it as true, we must see if there is any confirmation of it. We find it in rather an unlikely place—in the evidence of Hildegarde Schmidt. Her description of the man she saw in Wagon Lit uniform tallies exactly. Is there any further confirmation of these two stories? There is. There is the button that Mrs. Hubbard found in her compartment. And there is also another corroborating statement which you may not have noticed.”
“What is that?”
“The fact that both Colonel Arbuthnot and Hector MacQueen mention that the conductor passed their carriage. They attached no importance to the fact, but, Messieurs, Pierre Michel has declared that he did not leave his seat except on certain specified occasions—none of which would take him down to the far end of the coach past the compartment in which Arbuthnot and MacQueen were sitting.