"I cannot repeat to you often enough, Monsieur, our horror, our
consternation, and the deep sympathy we feel for you."
Thus M. Carrège, the Juge d'Instruction, addressed Van Aldin. M.
Caux, the Commissary, made sympathetic noises in his throat. Van
Aldin brushed away horror, consternation, and sympathy with an abrupt
gesture. The scene was the Examining Magistrate's room at Nice. Besides
M. Carrège, the Commissary, and Van Aldin, there was a further person
in the room. It was that person who now spoke.
"M. Van Aldin," he said, "desires action--swift action."
"Ah!" cried the Commissary, "I have not yet presented you. M. Van
Aldin, this is M. Hercule Poirot; you have doubtless heard of him.
Although he has retired from his profession for some years now,
his name is still a household word as one of the greatest living
detectives."
"Pleased to meet you, M. Poirot," said Van Aldin, falling back
mechanically on a formula that he had discarded some years ago. "You
have retired from your profession?"
"That is so, Monsieur. Now I enjoy the world."
The little man made a grandiloquent gesture.
"M. Poirot happened to be travelling on the Blue Train," explained the
Commissary, "and he has been so kind as to assist us out of his vast
experience."
The millionaire looked at Poirot keenly. Then he said unexpectedly:
"I am a very rich man, M. Poirot. It is usually said that a rich man
labours under the belief that he can buy everything and every one. That
is not true. I am a big man in my way, and one big man can ask a favour
from another big man."
Poirot nodded a quick appreciation.
"That is very well said, M. Van Aldin. I place myself entirely at your
service."
"Thank you," said Van Aldin. "I can only say call upon me at any time,
and you will not find me ungrateful. And now, gentlemen, to business."
"I propose," said M. Carrège, "to interrogate the maid, Ada Mason. You
have her here, I understand?"
"Yes," said Van Aldin. "We picked her up in Paris in passing through.
She was very upset to hear of her mistress's death, but she tells her
story coherently enough."
"We will have her in, then," said M. Carrège.
He rang the bell on his desk, and in a few minutes Ada Mason entered
the room.
She was very neatly dressed in black, and the tip of her nose was red.
She had exchanged her grey travelling gloves for a pair of black suède
ones. She cast a look round the Examining Magistrate's office in some
trepidation, and seemed relieved at the presence of her mistress's
father. The Examining Magistrate prided himself on his geniality of
manner, and did his best to put her at her ease. He was helped in this
by Poirot, who acted as interpreter, and whose friendly manner was
reassuring to the Englishwoman.
"Your name is Ada Mason; is that right?"
"Ada Beatrice I was christened, sir," said Mason primly.
"Just so. And we can understand, Mason, that this has all been very
distressing."
"Oh, indeed it has, sir. I have been with many ladies and always given
satisfaction, I hope, and I never dreamt of anything of this kind
happening in any situation where I was."
"No, no," said M. Carrège.
"Naturally I have read of such things, of course, in the Sunday papers.
And then I always have understood that those foreign trains--" She
suddenly checked her flow, remembering that the gentlemen who were
speaking to her were of the same nationality as the trains.
"Now let us talk this affair over," said M. Carrège. "There was, I
understand, no question of your staying in Paris when you started from
London?"
"Oh no, sir. We were to go straight through to Nice."
"Have you ever been abroad with your mistress before?"
"No, sir. I had only been with her two months, you see."
"Did she seem quite as usual when starting on this journey?"
"She was worried like and a bit upset, and she was rather irritable and
difficult to please."