The Mystery of the Blue Train - Agatha Christie [66]
“I suppose,” said Derek contemptuously, “that it was this conversation that you repeated to the Comte de la Roche.”
Mirelle laughed.
“Am I a fool? Could the police do anything with a vague story like that? See—I will give you a last chance. You shall give up this Englishwoman. You shall return to me. And then, chéri, never, never will I breathe—”
“Breathe what?”
She laughed softly. “You thought no one saw you—”
“What do you mean?”
“As I say, you thought no one saw you—but I saw you, Dereek, mon ami; I saw you coming out of the compartment of Madame your wife just before the train got into Lyons that night. And I know more than that. I know that when you came out of her compartment she was dead.”
He stared at her. Then, like a man in a dream, he turned very slowly and went out of the room, swaying slightly as he walked.
Twenty-six
A WARNING
“And so it is,” said Poirot, “that we are the good friends and have no secrets from each other.”
Katherine turned her head to look at him. There was something in his voice, some undercurrent of seriousness, which she had not heard before.
They were sitting in the gardens of Monte Carlo. Katherine had come over with her friends, and they had run into Knighton and Poirot almost immediately on arrival. Lady Tamplin had seized upon Knighton and had overwhelmed him with reminiscences, most of which Katherine had a faint suspicion were invented. They had moved away together, Lady Tamplin with her hand on the young man’s arm. Knighton had thrown a couple of glances back over his shoulder, and Poirot’s eyes twinkled a little as he saw them.
“Of course we are friends,” said Katherine.
“From the beginning we have been sympathetic to each other,” mused Poirot.
“When you told me that a ‘roman policier’ occurs in real life.”
“And I was right, was I not?” he challenged her, with an emphatic forefinger. “Here we are, plunged in the middle of one. That is natural for me—it is my métier—but for you it is different. Yes,” he added in a reflective tone, “for you it is different.”
She looked sharply at him. It was as though he were warning her, pointing out to her some menace that she had not seen.
“Why do you say that I am in the middle of it? It is true that I had that conversation with Mrs. Kettering just before she died, but now—now all that is over. I am not connected with the case any more.”
“Ah, Mademoiselle, Mademoiselle, can we ever say, ‘I have finished with this or that?’ ”
Katherine turned defiantly round to face him.
“What is it?” she asked. “You are trying to tell me something—to convey it to me rather. But I am not clever at taking hints. I would much rather that you said anything you have to say straight out.”
Poirot looked at her sadly. “Ah, mais c’est anglais ça,” he murmured, “everything in black and white, everything clear-cut and well defined. But life, it is not like that, Mademoiselle. There are the things that are not yet, but which cast their shadow before.”
He dabbed his brow with a very large silk pocket handkerchief and murmured:
“Ah, but it is that I become poetical. Let us, as you say, speak only of facts. And, speaking of facts, tell me what you think of Major Knighton.”
“I like him very much indeed,” said Katherine warmly; “he is quite delightful.”
Poirot sighed.
“What is the matter?” asked Katherine.
“You reply so heartily,” said Poirot. “If you had said in an indifferent voice, ‘Oh, quite nice,’ eh bien, do you know I should have been better pleased.”
Katherine did not answer. She felt slightly uncomfortable. Poirot went on dreamily:
“And yet, who knows? With les femmes, they have so many ways of concealing what they feel—and heartiness is perhaps as good a way as any other.”
He sighed.
“I don’t see—” began Katherine.
He interrupted her.
“You do not see why I am being so impertinent, Mademoiselle? I am an old man, and now and then—not very often—I come across someone whose