“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 everyone. 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.”
M. Carrège nodded.
“Now then, Mason, what was the first you heard of your stopping in Paris?”
“It was at the place they call the Gare de Lyon, sir. My mistress was thinking of getting out and walking up and down the platform. She was just going out into the corridor when she gave a sudden exclamation, and came back into her compartment with a gentleman. She shut the door between her carriage and mine, so that I didn’t see or hear anything, till she suddenly opened it again and told me that she had changed her plans. She gave me some money and told me to get out and go to the Ritz. They knew her well there, she said, and would give me a room. I was to wait there until I heard from her; she would wire me what she wanted me to do. I had just time to get my things together and jump out of the train before it started off. It was a rush.”
“While Mrs. Kettering was telling you this, where was the gentleman?”
“He was standing in the other compartment, sir, looking out of the window.”
“Can you describe him to us?”
“Well, you see, sir, I hardly saw him. He had his back to me most of the time. He was a tall gentleman and dark; that’s all I can say. He was dressed very like another gentleman in a dark blue overcoat and a grey hat.”
“Was he one of the passengers on the train?”
“I don’t think so, sir; I took it that he had come to the station to see Mrs. Kettering in passing through. Of course he might have been one of the passengers; I never thought of that.”
Mason seemed a little flurried by the suggestion.
“Ah!” M. Carrège passed lightly to another subject. “Your mistress later requested the conductor not to rouse her early in the morning. Was that a likely thing for her to do, do you think?”
“Oh yes, sir. The mistress never ate any breakfast and she didn’t sleep well at nights, so that she liked sleeping on in the morning.”
Again M. Carrège passed to another subject.
“Amongst the luggage there was a scarlet morocco case, was there not?” he asked. “Your mistress’s jewel-case?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you take that case to the Ritz?”
“Me take the mistress’s jewel-case to the Ritz! Oh no, indeed, sir.” Mason’s tones were horrified.
“You left it behind you in the carriage?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Had your mistress many jewels with her, do you know?”
“A fair amount, sir; made me a bit uneasy sometimes, I can tell you, with those nasty tales you hear of being robbed in foreign countries. They were insured, I know, but all the same it seemed a frightful risk. Why, the rubies alone, the mistress told me, were worth several hundred thousand pounds.”
“The rubies!
