"Explanations?"
Poirot smiled. He was sitting opposite the millionaire at a luncheon
table in the latter's private suite at the Negresco. Facing him was a
relieved but very puzzled man. Poirot leant back in his chair, lit one
of his tiny cigarettes, and stared reflectively at the ceiling.
"Yes, I will give you explanations. It began with the one point that
puzzled me. You know what that point was? _The disfigured face._ It is
not an uncommon thing to find when investigating a crime and it rouses
an immediate question, the question of identity. That naturally was
the first thing that occurred to me. Was the dead woman really Mrs.
Kettering? But that line led me nowhere, for Miss Grey's evidence was
positive and very reliable, so I put that idea aside. The dead woman
_was_ Ruth Kettering."
"When did you first begin to suspect the maid?"
"Not for some time, but one peculiar little point drew my attention to
her. The cigarette case found in the railway carriage and which she
told us was one which Mrs. Kettering had given to her husband. Now that
was, on the face of it, most improbable, seeing the terms that they
were on. It awakened a doubt in my mind as to the general veracity of
Ada Mason's statements. There was the rather suspicious fact to be
taken into consideration, that she had only been with her mistress for
two months. Certainly it did not seem as if she could have had anything
to do with the crime since she had been left behind in Paris and Mrs.
Kettering had been seen alive by several people afterwards, but--"
Poirot leant forward. He raised an emphatic forefinger and wagged it
with intense emphasis at Van Aldin.
"But I am a good detective. I suspect. There is nobody and nothing that
I do not suspect. I believe nothing that I am told. I say to myself:
how do we know that Ada Mason was left behind in Paris? And at first
the answer to that question seemed completely satisfactory. There was
the evidence of your secretary, Major Knighton, a complete outsider
whose testimony might be supposed to be entirely impartial, and there
was the dead woman's own words to the conductor on the train. But I put
the latter point aside for the moment, because a very curious idea--an
idea perhaps fantastic and impossible--was growing up in my mind. If
by any outside chance it happened to be true, that particular piece of
testimony was worthless.
"I concentrated on the chief stumbling-block to my theory, Major
Knighton's statement that he saw Ada Mason at the Ritz after the
Blue Train had left Paris. That seemed conclusive enough, but yet,
on examining the facts carefully, I noted two things. First, that
by a curious coincidence he, too, had been exactly two months in
your service. Secondly, his initial letter was the same--'K.'
Supposing--just supposing--that it was _his_ cigarette case which had
been found in the carriage. Then, if Ada Mason and he were working
together, and she recognized it when we showed it to her, would she
not act precisely as she had done? At first, taken aback, she quickly
evolved a plausible theory that would agree with Mr. Kettering's
guilt. _Bien entendu_, that was not the original idea. The Comte de
la Roche was to be the scapegoat, though Ada Mason would not make her
recognition of him too certain, in case he should be able to prove an
alibi. Now, if you will cast your mind back to that time, you will
remember a significant thing that happened. I suggested to Ada Mason
that the man she had seen was not the Comte de la Roche, but Derek
Kettering. She seemed uncertain at the time, but after I had got back
to my hotel you rang me up and told me that she had come to you and
said that, on thinking it over, she was now quite convinced that the
man in question _was_ Mr. Kettering. I had been expecting something of
the kind. There could be but one explanation of this sudden certainty
on her part. After my leaving your hotel, she had had time to consult
with somebody, and had received instructions which she acted upon.
Who had given her these instructions? Major Knighton. And there was
another very small point, which might mean nothing or might mean a
great deal. In casual conversation Knighton had talked of a jewel
robbery in Yorkshire in a house where he was staying. Perhaps a mere
coincidence--perhaps another small link in the chain."
"But there is one thing I do not understand, Monsieur Poirot. I guess I
must be dense or I would have seen it before now. Who was the man in
the train at Paris? Derek Kettering or the Comte de la Roche?"
"That is the simplicity of the whole thing. _There was no man._
Ah--_mille tonnerres!_--do you not see the cleverness of it all? Whose
word have we for it that there ever was a man there? Only Ada Mason's.
And we believe in Ada Mason because of Knighton's evidence that she was
left behind in Paris."
"But Ruth herself told the conductor that she had left her maid behind
there," demurred Van Aldin.
"Ah! I am coming to that. We have Mrs. Kettering's own evidence there,
but, on the other hand, we have not really got her evidence, because,
Monsieur Van Aldin, a dead woman cannot give evidence. It is not _her_
evidence, but the evidence of the conductor of the train--a very
different affair altogether."
"So you think the man was lying?"
"No, no, not at all. He spoke what he thought to be the truth. But the
woman who told him that she had left her maid in Paris was not Mrs.
Kettering."
Van Aldin stared at him.
"Monsieur Van Aldin, Ruth Kettering was dead before the train arrived
at the Gare de Lyon. It was Ada Mason, dressed in her mistress's very
distinctive clothing, who purchased a dinner basket and who made that
very necessary statement to the conductor."
"Impossible!"
"No, no, Monsieur Van Aldin; not impossible. _Les femmes_, they look
so much alike nowadays that one identifies them more by their clothing
than by their faces. Ada Mason was the same height as your daughter.
Dressed in that very sumptuous fur coat and the little red lacquer hat
jammed down over her eyes, with just a bunch of auburn curls showing
over each ear, it was no wonder that the conductor was deceived. He
had not previously spoken to Mrs. Kettering, you remember. True, he
had seen the maid just for a moment when she handed him the tickets,
but his impression had been merely that of a gaunt, black-clad female.
If he had been an unusually intelligent man, he might have gone so far
as to say that mistress and maid were not unlike, but it is extremely
unlikely that he would even think that. And remember, Ada Mason, or
Kitty Kidd, was an actress, able to change her appearance and tone
of voice at a moment's notice. No, no; there was no danger of his
recognizing the maid in the mistress's clothing, but there _was_ the
danger that when he came to discover the body he might realize it was
not the woman he had talked to the night before. And now we see the
reason for the disfigured face. The chief danger that Ada Mason ran was
that Katherine Grey might visit her compartment after the train left
Paris, and she provided against that difficulty by ordering a dinner
basket and by locking herself in her compartment."
"But who killed Ruth--and when?"
"First, bear it in mind that the crime was planned and undertaken by
the two of them--Knighton and Ada Mason, working together. Knighton
was in Paris that day on your business. He boarded the train somewhere
on its way round the _ceinture_. Mrs. Kettering would be surprised,
but she would be quite unsuspicious. Perhaps he draws her attention to
something out the window, and as she turns to look he slips the cord
round her neck--and the whole thing is over in a second or two. The
door of the compartment is locked, and he and Ada Mason set to work.
They strip off the dead woman's outer clothes. Mason and Knighton
roll the body up in a rug and put it on the seat in the adjoining
compartment amongst the bags and suit-cases. Knighton drops off the
train, taking the jewel-case containing the rubies with him. Since the
crime is not supposed to have been committed until nearly twelve hours
later he is perfectly safe, and his evidence and the supposed Mrs.
Kettering's words to the conductor will provide a perfect alibi for his
accomplice.
"At the Gare de Lyon Ada Mason gets a dinner basket, and shutting
herself into the toilet compartment she quickly changes into her
mistress's clothes, adjusts two false bunches of auburn curls, and
generally makes up to resemble her as closely as possible. When the
conductor comes to make up the bed, she tells him the prepared story
about having left her maid behind in Paris; and whilst he is making up
the berth, she stands looking out of the window, so that her back is
towards the corridor and people passing along there. That was a wise
precaution, because, as we know, Miss Grey was one of those passing,
and she, among others, was willing to swear that Mrs. Kettering was
still alive at that hour."
"Go on," said Van Aldin.
"Before getting to Lyons, Ada Mason arranged her mistress's body in
the bunk, folded up the dead woman's clothes neatly on the end of it,
and herself changed into a man's clothes and prepared to leave the
train. When Derek Kettering entered his wife's compartment, and, as
he thought, saw her asleep in her berth, the scene had been set, and
Ada Mason was hidden in the next compartment waiting for the moment to
leave the train unobserved. As soon as the conductor had swung himself
down on to the platform at Lyons, she follows, slouching along as
though just taking a breath of air. At a moment when she is unobserved,
she hurriedly crosses to the other platform, and takes the first train
back to Paris and the Ritz Hotel. Her name has been registered there as
taking a room the night before by one of Knighton's female accomplices.
She has nothing to do but wait there placidly for your arrival. The
jewels are not, and never have been, in her possession. No suspicion
attaches to him, and, as your secretary, he brings them to Nice
without the least fear of discovery. Their delivery there to Monsieur
Papopolous is already arranged for and they are entrusted to Mason at
the last moment to hand over to the Greek. Altogether a very neatly
planned coup, as one would expect from a master of the game such as the
Marquis."
"And you honestly mean that Richard Knighton is a well-known criminal,
who has been at this business for years?"
Poirot nodded.
"One of the chief assets of the gentleman called the Marquis was
his plausible, ingratiating manner. You fell a victim to his charm,
Monsieur Van Aldin, when you engaged him as a secretary on such a
slight acquaintanceship."
"I could have sworn that he never angled for the post," cried the
millionaire.
"It was very astutely done--so astutely done that it deceived a man
whose knowledge of other men is as great as yours is."
"I looked up his antecedents too. The fellow's record was excellent."
"Yes, yes; that was part of the game. As Richard Knighton his life
was quite free from reproach. He was well born, well connected, did
honourable service in the War, and seemed altogether above suspicion;
but when I came to glean information about the mysterious Marquis,
I found many points of similarity. Knighton spoke French like a
Frenchman, he had been in America, France, and England at much the
same time as the Marquis was operating. The Marquis was last heard
of as engineering various jewel robberies in Switzerland, and it was
in Switzerland that you had come across Major Knighton; and it was at
precisely that time that the first rumours were going round of your
being in treaty for the famous rubies."
"But why murder?" murmured Van Aldin brokenly. "Surely a clever thief
could have stolen the jewels without running his head into a noose."
Poirot shook his head. "This is not the first murder that lies to the
Marquis's charge. He is a killer by instinct; he believes, too, in
leaving no evidence behind him. Dead men and women tell no tales.
"The Marquis had an intense passion for famous and historical jewels.
He laid his plans far beforehand by installing himself as your
secretary and getting his accomplice to obtain the situation of maid
with your daughter, for whom he guessed the jewels were destined.
And, though this was his matured and carefully thought-out plan, he
did not scruple to attempt a shortcut by hiring a couple of Apaches
to waylay you in Paris on the night you bought the jewels. That plan
failed, which hardly surprised him, I think. This plan was, so he
thought, completely safe. No possible suspicion could attach to Richard
Knighton. But like all great men--and the Marquis was a great man--he
had his weaknesses. He fell genuinely in love with Miss Grey, and
suspecting her liking for Derek Kettering, he could not resist the
temptation to saddle him with the crime when the opportunity presented
itself. And now, Monsieur Van Aldin, I am going to tell you something
very curious. Miss Grey is not a fanciful woman by any means, yet she
firmly believes that she felt your daughter's presence beside her one
day in the Casino Gardens at Monte Carlo, just after she had been
having a long talk with Knighton. She was convinced, she says, that the
dead woman was urgently trying to tell her something, and it suddenly
came to her that what the dead woman was trying to say was that
Knighton was her murderer! The idea seemed so fantastic at the time
that Miss Grey spoke of it to no one. But she was so convinced of its
truth that she acted on it--wild as it seemed. She did not discourage
Knighton's advances, and she pretended to him that she was convinced of
Derek Kettering's guilt."
"Extraordinary," said Van Aldin.
"Yes, it is very strange. One cannot explain these things. Oh, by the
way, there is one little point that baffled me considerably. Your
secretary has a decided limp--the result of a wound that he received
in the War. Now the Marquis most decidedly did not limp. That was a
stumbling-block. But Miss Lenox Tamplin happened to mention one day
that Knighton's limp had been a surprise to the surgeons who had
been in charge of the case in her mother's hospital. That suggested
camouflage. When I was in London I went to the surgeon in question, and
I got several technical details from him which confirmed me in that
belief. I mentioned the name of that surgeon in Knighton's hearing the
day before yesterday. The natural thing would have been for Knighton to
mention that he had been attended by him during the War, but he said
nothing--and that little point, if nothing else, gave me the last final
assurance that my theory of the crime was correct. Miss Grey, too,
provided me with a cutting, showing that there had been a robbery at
Lady Tamplin's hospital during the time that Knighton had been there.
She realized that I was on the same track as herself when I wrote to
her from the Ritz in Paris.
"I had some trouble in my inquiries there, but I got what I
wanted--evidence that Ada Mason arrived on the morning after the crime
and not on the evening of the day before."
There was a long silence, then the millionaire stretched out a hand to
Poirot across the table.
"I guess you know what this means to me, Monsieur Poirot," he said
huskily. "I am sending you round a cheque in the morning, but no cheque
in the world will express what I feel about what you have done for me.
You are the goods, Monsieur Poirot. Every time, you are the goods."
Poirot rose to his feet; his chest swelled.
"I am only Hercule Poirot," he said modestly, "yet, as you say, in my
own way I am a big man, even as you also are a big man. I am glad and
happy to have been of service to you. Now I go to repair the damages
caused by travel. Alas! my excellent Georges is not with me."
In the lounge of the hotel he encountered a friend--the venerable
Monsieur Papopolous, his daughter Zia beside him.
"I thought you had left Nice, Monsieur Poirot," murmured the Greek as
he took the detective's affectionately proffered hand.
"Business compelled me to return, my dear Monsieur Papopolous."
"Business?"
"Yes, business. And talking of business, I hope your health is better,
my dear friend?"
"Much better. In fact, we are returning to Paris to-morrow."
"I am enchanted to hear such good news. You have not completely ruined
the Greek ex-Minister, I hope."
"I?"
"I understand you sold him a very wonderful ruby which--strictly _entre
nous_--is being worn by Mademoiselle Mirelle, the dancer?"
"Yes," murmured Monsieur Papopolous; "yes, that is so."
"A ruby not unlike the famous 'Heart of Fire'."
"It has points of resemblance, certainly," said the Greek casually.
"You have a wonderful hand with jewels, Monsieur Papopolous. I
congratulate you. Mademoiselle Zia, I am desolate that you are
returning to Paris so speedily. I had hoped to see some more of you now
that my business is accomplished."
"Would one be indiscreet if one asked what that business was?" asked
Monsieur Papopolous.
"Not at all, not at all. I have just succeeded in laying the Marquis by
the heels."
A far-away look came over Monsieur Papopolous' noble countenance.
"The Marquis?" he murmured; "now why does that seem familiar to me?
No--I cannot recall it."
"You would not, I am sure," said Poirot. "I refer to a very notable
criminal and jewel robber. He has just been arrested for the murder of
the English lady, Madame Kettering."
"Indeed? How interesting these things are!"
A polite exchange of farewells followed, and when Poirot was out of
earshot, Monsieur Papopolous turned to his daughter.
"Zia," he said, with feeling, "that man is the devil!"
"I like him."
"I like him myself," admitted Monsieur Papopolous. "But he is the
devil, all the same."