‘That is so,’ agreed M. Poirot.
‘And you intend to remain there a few days, I think?’
‘Mais oui. Stamboul, it is a city I have never visited. It would be a pity to pass through—comme ça.’ He snapped his fingers descriptively. ‘Nothing presses—I shall remain there as a tourist for a few days.’
‘La Sainte Sophie, it is very fine,’ said Lieutenant Dubosc, who had never seen it.
A cold wind came whistling down the platform. Both men shivered. Lieutenant Dubosc managed to cast a surreptitious glance at his watch. Five minutes to five—only five minutes more!
Fancying that the other man had noticed his surreptitious glance, he hastened once more into speech.
‘There are few people travelling this time of year,’ he said, glancing up at the windows of the sleeping-car above them.
‘That is so,’ agreed M. Poirot.
‘Let us hope you will not be snowed up in the Taurus!’
‘That happens?’
‘It has occurred, yes. Not this year, as yet.’
‘Let us hope, then,’ said M. Poirot. ‘The weather reports from Europe, they are bad.’
‘Very bad. In the Balkans there is much snow.’
‘In Germany too, I have heard.’
‘Eh bien,’ said Lieutenant Dubosc hastily as another pause seemed to be about to occur. ‘Tomorrow evening at seven-forty you will be in Constantinople.’
‘Yes,’ said M. Poirot, and went on desperately, ‘La Sainte Sophie, I have heard it is very fine.’
‘Magnificent, I believe.’
Above their heads the blind of one of the sleeping car compartments was pushed aside and a young woman looked out.
Mary Debenham had had little sleep since she left Baghdad on the preceding Thursday. Neither in the train to Kirkuk, nor in the Rest House at Mosul, nor last night on the train had she slept properly. Now, weary of lying wakeful in the hot stuffiness of her overheated compartment, she got up and peered out.
This must be Aleppo. Nothing to see, of course. Just a long, poor-lighted platform with loud furious altercations in Arabic going on somewhere. Two men below her window were talking French. One was a French officer, the other was a little man with enormous moustaches. She smiled faintly. She had never seen anyone quite so heavily muffled up. It must be very cold outside. That was why they heated the train so terribly. She tried to force the window down lower, but it would not go.
The Wagon Lit conductor had come up to the two men. The train was about to depart, he said. Monsieur had better mount. The little man removed his hat. What an egg-shaped head he had. In spite of her preoccupations Mary Debenham smiled. A ridiculous-looking little man. The sort of little man one could never take seriously.
Lieutenant Dubosc was saying his parting speech. He had thought it out beforehand and had kept it till the last minute. It was a very beautiful, polished speech.
Not to be outdone, M. Poirot replied in kind.
‘En voiture, Monsieur,’ said the Wagon Lit conductor.
With an air of infinite reluctance M. Poirot climbed aboard the train. The conductor climbed after him. M. Poirot waved his hand. Lieutenant Dubosc came to the salute. The train, with a terrific jerk, moved slowly forward.
‘Enfin! ’murmured M. Hercule Poirot.
‘Brrrrr,’ said Lieutenant Dubosc, realizing to the full how cold he was…
II
‘Voila, Monsieur.’ The conductor displayed to Poirot with a dramatic gesture the beauty of his sleeping compartment and the neat arrangement of his luggage. ‘The little valise of Monsieur, I have placed it here.’
His outstretched hand was suggestive. Hercule Poirot placed in it a folded note.
‘Merci, Monsieur.’ The conductor became brisk and businesslike. ‘I have the tickets of Monsieur. I will also take the passport, please. Monsieur breaks his journey in Stamboul, I understand?’
M. Poirot assented.
‘There are not many people travelling, I imagine?’ he said.
‘No, Monsieur. I have only two other passengers—both English. A Colonel from India, and a young English lady from Baghdad. Monsieur requires anything?’
Monsieur demanded a small bottle of Perrier.
Five o’clock in the morning is an awkward time to board a train. There was still two hours before dawn. Conscious of an inadequate night’s sleep, and of a delicate mission successfully accomplished, M. Poirot curled up in a corner and fell asleep.
When he awoke it was half-past nine, and he sallied forth to the restaurant-car in search of hot coffee.
There was only one occupant at the moment, obviously the young English lady referred to by the conductor. She was tall, slim and dark—perhaps twenty-eight years of age. There was a kind of cool efficiency in the way she was eating her breakfast and in the way she called to the attendant to bring her more coffee, which bespoke a knowledge of the world and of travelling. She wore a dark-coloured travelling dress of some thin material eminently suitable for the heated atmosphere of the train.
M. Hercule Poirot, having nothing better to do, amused himself by studying her without appearing to do so.
She was, he judged, the kind of young woman who could take care of herself with perfect ease wherever she went. She had poise and efficiency. He rather liked the severe regularity of her features and the delicate pallor of her skin. He liked the burnished black head with its neat waves of hair, and her eyes, cool, impersonal and grey. But she was, he decided, just a little too efficient to be what he called ‘jolie femme.’
Presently another person entered the restaurant-car. This was a tall man of between forty and fifty, lean of figure, brown of skin, with hair slightly grizzled round the temples.
‘The colonel from India,’ said Poirot to himself.
The newcomer gave a little bow to the girl.
‘Morning, Miss Debenham.’
‘Good-morning, Colonel Arbuthnot.’
The Colonel was standing with a hand on the chair opposite her.
‘Any objection?’ he asked.
‘Of course not. Sit down.’
‘Well, you know, breakfast isn’t always a chatty meal.’
‘I should hope not. But I don’t bite.’
The Colonel sat down.
‘Boy,’ he called in peremptory fashion.
He gave an order for eggs and coffee.
His eyes rested for a moment on Hercule Poirot, but they passed on indifferently. Poirot, reading the English mind correctly, knew that he had said to himself, ‘Only some damned foreigner.’
True to their nationality, the two English people were not chatty. They exchanged a few brief remarks, and presently the girl rose and went back to her compartment.
At lunch time the other two again shared a table and again they both completely ignored the third passenger. Their conversation was more animated than at breakfast. Colonel Arbuthnot talked of the Punjab, and occasionally asked the girl a few questions about Baghdad where it became clear that she had been in a post as governess. In the course of conversation they discovered some mutual