The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie

me, alas! it is an old story. One moment, I pray of you both.”
    They stood against the door watching him as he went quickly round the compartment. He noted the dead woman’s clothes neatly folded on the end of the berth, the big fur coat that hung from a hook, and the little red lacquer hat tossed on the rack. Then he passed through into the adjoining compartment, that in which Katherine had seen the maid sitting. Here the berth had not been made up. Three or four rugs were piled loosely on the seat; there was a hatbox and a couple of suitcases. He turned suddenly to Katherine.
    â€œYou were in here yesterday,” he said. “Do you see anything changed, anything missing?”
    Katherine looked carefully round both compartments.
    â€œYes,” she said, “there is something missing—a scarlet morocco case. It had the initials ‘R.V.K.’ on it. It might have been a small dressing case or a big jewel case. When I saw it, the maid was holding it.”
    â€œAh!” said Poirot.
    â€œBut, surely,” said Katherine, “I—of course, I don’t know anything about such things, but surely it is plain enough, if the maid and the jewel-case are missing?”
    â€œYou mean that it was the maid who was the thief? No, Mademoiselle, there is a very good reason against that.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œThe maid was left behind in Paris.”
    He turned to Poirot. “I should like you to hear the conductor’s story yourself,” he murmured confidentially. “It is very suggestive.”
    â€œMademoiselle would doubtless like to hear it also,” said Poirot. “You do not object, Monsieur le Commissaire?”
    â€œNo,” said the Commissary, who clearly did object very much. “No, certainly, M. Poirot, if you say so. You have finished here?”
    â€œI think so. One little minute.”
    He had been turning over the rugs, and now he took one to the window and looked at it, picking something off it with his fingers.
    â€œWhat is it?” demanded M. Caux sharply.
    â€œFour auburn hairs.” He bent over the dead woman. “Yes, they are from the head of Madame.”
    â€œAnd what of it? Do you attach importance to them?”
    Poirot let the rug drop back on the seat.
    â€œWhat is important? What is not? One cannot say at this stage. But we must note each little fact carefully.”
    They went back again into the first compartment, and in a minute or two the conductor of the carriage arrived to be questioned.
    â€œYour name is Pierre Michel?” said the Commissary.
    â€œYes, Monsieur le Commissaire.”
    â€œI should like you to repeat to this gentleman”—he indicated Poirot—“the story that you told me as to what happened in Paris.”
    â€œVery good, Monsieur le Commissaire. It was after we had left the Gare de Lyon I came along to make the beds, thinking that Madame would be at dinner, but she had a dinner basket in her compartment. She said to me that she had been obliged to leave her maid behind in Paris, so that I only need make up one berth. She took her dinner basket into the adjoining compartment, and sat there while I made up the bed; then she told me that she did not wish to be wakened early in the morning, that she liked to sleep on. I told her I quite understood, and she wished me ‘goodnight.’ ”
    â€œYou yourself did not go into the adjoining compartment?”
    â€œNo, Monsieur.”
    â€œThen you did not happen to notice if a scarlet morocco case was amongst the luggage there?”
    â€œNo, Monsieur, I did not.”
    â€œWould it have been possible for a man to have been concealed in the adjoining compartment?”
    The conductor reflected.
    â€œThe door was half open,” he said. “If a man had stood behind the door I should not have been able to see him, but he would, of course, have been perfectly visible to Madame when she went in