Murder on the Orient Express

Agatha Christie 
™
 MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS 
123
7 
THE IDENTITY OF MARY DEBENHAM 
She wore no hat. Her head was thrown back as though in defiance. “The sweep of her hair back 
from her face, the curve of her nostril suggested the figure-head of a ship plunging gallantly into 
a rough sea. In that moment she was beautiful. 
Her eyes went to Arbuthnot for a minute—just a minute. She said to Poirot, “You wished to 
see me?” 
“I wished to ask you, Mademoiselle, why you lied to us this morning?” 
“Lied to you? I don’t know what you mean.” 
“You concealed the fact that at the time of the Armstrong tragedy you were actually living in 
the house. You told me that you had never been in America.” 
He saw her flinch for a moment and then recover herself. 
“Yes,” she said. “That is true.” 
“No, Mademoiselle, it was false.” 
“You misunderstood me. I mean that it is true that I lied to you.” 
“Ah, you admit it?” 
Her lips curved into a smile. “Certainly, since you have found me out.” 
“You are at least frank, Mademoiselle.” 
“There does not seem anything else for me to be.” 
“Well, of course, that is true. And now, Mademoiselle, may I ask you the reason for these 
evasions?” 
“I should have thought the reason leapt to the eye, M. Poirot.” 
“It does not leap to mine, Mademoiselle.” 
She said in a quiet even voice with a trace of hardness in it, “I have my living to get.” 
“You mean—?” 
She raised her eyes and looked him full in the face. “How much do you know, M. Poirot, of 
the fight to get and keep decent employment? Do you think that a girl who had been detained in 
connection with a murder case, whose name and perhaps photograph were reproduced in the 
English papers—do you think that any nice ordinary middle-class woman would want to engage 
that girl as governess to her daughters?” 
“I do not see why not—if no blame attached to you.” 
“Oh, blame—it is not 
blame
—it is the publicity! So far, M. Poirot, I have succeeded in life. I 
have had well-paid, pleasant posts. I was not going to risk the position I had attained when no 
good end could have been served.” 
“I will venture to suggest, Mademoiselle, that I would have been the best judge of that, not 
you.” 
She shrugged her shoulders. 
“For instance, you could have helped me in the matter of identification.” 
“What do you mean?” 
“Is it possible, Mademoiselle, that you did not recognise in the Countess Andrenyi, Mrs. 
Armstrong’s young sister whom you taught in New York?” 

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