Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie Page B

a knock on the door! ‘Come in,’ I screamed, and I switched on the lights at the same time. And would you believe it, there wasn’t asoul there!”
    This seemed to Mrs. Hubbard to be a dramatic climax rather than an anticlimax.
    “And what happened next, Madame?”
    “Why, I told the man what had happened and he didn’t seem to believe me. Seemed to imagine I’d dreamed the whole thing. I made him look under the seat, though he said there wasn’t room for a man to squeeze himself in there. It was plain enough that the man had got away-but therehad been a man there, and it just made me mad the way the conductor tried to soothe me down! I’m not one to imagine things, Mr.-I don’t think I know your name?”
    “Poirot, Madame; and this is M. Bouc, a director of the company, and Dr. Constantine.”
    Mrs. Hubbard murmured, “Pleased to meet you, I’m sure,” to all three of them in an abstracted manner and then plunged once more into her recital.
    “Now I’m just not going to pretend I was as bright as I might have been. I got it into my head that it was the man from next door-the poor fellow who’s been killed. I told the conductor to look at the door between the compartments, and sure enough it wasn’t bolted. Well, I soon saw to that. I told him to bolt it then and there, and after he’d gone out I got up and put a suitcase against it to make sure.”
    “What time was this, Mrs. Hubbard?”
    “Well, I’m sure I can’t tell you. I never looked to see. I was so upset.”
    “And what is your theory now?”
    “Why, I should say it was just as plain as plain could be. The man in my compartment was the murderer. Who else could he be?”
    “And you think he went back into the adjoining compartment?”
    “How do I know where he went? I had my eyes tight shut.”
    “He might have slipped out through the door into the corridor.”
    “Well, I couldn’t say. You see, I had my eyes tight shut.”
    Mrs. Hubbard sighed convulsively.
    “Mercy, I was scared! If my daughter only knew-“
    “You do not think, Madame, that what you heard was the noise of someone moving about next door-in the murdered man’s compartment?”
    “No, I do not, Mr.-what is it?-Poirot. The man wasright there in the same compartment with me . And what’s more I’ve got proof of it.”
    Triumphantly, she hauled a large handbag into view and proceeded to burrow in its interior.
    She took out in turn two large clean handkerchiefs, a pair of horn-rimmed glasses, a bottle of aspirin, a packet of Glauber’s Salts, a celluloid tube of bright green peppermints, a bunch of keys, a pair of scissors, a book of American Express cheques, a snapshot of an extraordinarily plain-looking child, some letters, five strings of pseudo-Oriental beads, and a small metal object-a button.
    “You see this button? Well, it’s not one ofmy buttons. It’s not off anything I’ve got. I found it this morning when I got up.”
    As she placed it on the table, M. Bouc. leaned forward and gave an exclamation. “But this is a button from the tunic of a Wagon Lit attendant!”
    “There way be a natural explanation for that,” said Poirot.
    He turned gently to the lady.
    “This button, Madame, may have dropped from the conductor’s uniform, either when he searched your cabin or when he was making the bed up last night.”
    “I just don’t know what’s the matter with all you people. Seems as though you don’t want to do anything but make objections. Now listen here. I was reading a magazine last night before I went to sleep. Before I turned the light out, I placed that magazine on a little case that was standing on the floor near the window. Have you got that?”
    They assured her that they had.
    “Very well then. The conductor looked under the seat from near the door, and then he came in and bolted the door between me and the next compartment, but he never went near the window. Well, this morning that button was lying right on top of the magazine. What do