The Mystery of the Blue Train - Agatha Christie [45]
“It is iniquitous!” cried the Count warmly; “the police should do something about these train bandits. Nowadays no one is safe.”
“In Madame’s handbag,” continued the Judge, “we found a letter to her from you. She had, it seemed, arranged to meet you?”
The Count shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands.
“Of what use are concealments,” he said frankly. “We are all men of the world. Privately and between ourselves, I admit the affair.”
“You met her in Paris and travelled down with her, I believe?” said M. Carrège.
“That was the original arrangement, but by Madame’s wish it was changed. I was to meet her at Hyères.”
“You did not meet her on the train at Gare de Lyon on the evening of the 14th?”
“On the contrary, I arrived in Nice on the morning of that day, so what you suggest is impossible.”
“Quite so, quite so,” said M. Carrège. “As a matter of form, you would perhaps give me an account of your movements during the evening and night of the 14th.”
The Count reflected for a minute.
“I dined in Monte Carlo at the Café de Paris. Afterwards I went to the Le Sporting. I won a few thousand francs,” he shrugged his shoulders. “I returned home at perhaps one o’clock.”
“Pardon me, Monsieur, but how did you return home?”
“In my own two-seater car.”
“No one was with you?”
“No one.”
“You could produce witnesses in support of this statement?”
“Doubtless many of my friends saw me there that evening. I dined alone.”
“Your servant admitted you on your return to your villa?”
“I let myself in with my own latchkey.”
“Ah!” murmured the Magistrate.
Again he struck the bell on the table with his hand. The door opened, and a messenger appeared.
“Bring in the maid, Mason,” said M. Carrège.
“Very good, Monsieur le Juge.”
Ada Mason was brought in.
“Will you be so good, Mademoiselle, as to look at this gentleman. To the best of your ability was it he who entered your mistress’s compartment in Paris?”
The woman looked long and searchingly at the Count, who was, Poirot fancied, rather uneasy under this scrutiny.
“I could not say, sir, I am sure,” said Mason at last. “It might be and again it might not. Seeing as how I only saw his back, it’s hard to say. I rather think it was the gentleman.”
“But you are not sure?”
“No-o,” said Mason unwillingly; “n-no, I am not sure.”
“You have seen this gentleman before in Curzon Street?”
Mason shook her head.
“I should not be likely to see any visitors that come to Curzon Street,” she explained, “unless they were staying in the house.”
“Very well, that will do,” said the Examining Magistrate sharply.
Evidently he was disappointed.
“One moment,” said Poirot. “There is a question I would like to put to Mademoiselle, if I may?”
“Certainly, M. Poirot—certainly, by all means.”
Poirot addressed himself to the maid.
“What happened to the tickets?”
“The tickets, sir?”
“Yes; the tickets from London to Nice. Did you or your mistress have them?”
“The mistress had her own Pullman ticket, sir; the others were in my charge.”
“What happened to them?”
“I gave them to the conductor on the French train, sir; he said it was usual. I hope I did right, sir?”
“Oh, quite right, quite right. A mere matter of detail.”
Both M. Caux and the Examining Magistrate looked at him curiously. Mason stood uncertainly for a minute or two, and then the magistrate gave her a brief nod of dismissal, and she went out. Poirot scribbled something on a scrap of paper and handed it across to M. Carrège. The latter read it and his brow cleared.
“Well, gentlemen,” demanded the Count haughtily, “am I to be detained further?”
“Assuredly not, assuredly not,” M. Carrège hastened to say, with a great deal of amiability. “Everything is now cleared up as regards your own position in this affair. Naturally, in view of Madame’s letter, we were bound to question you.”
The Count rose, picked up his handsome stick from the corner, and, with rather a curt bow, left the room.
“And that is that,” said M. Carrège. “You were quite right, M. Poirot—much better