Murder on the Orient Express

Agatha Christie 
™
 MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS 
127
“It is a conspiracy. You are going to frame me? All for a pig of a man who should have gone 
to the chair! It was an infamy that he did not. If it had been me—if I had been arrested—” 
“But it was not you. You had nothing to do with the kidnapping of the child.” 
“What is that you are saying? Why, that little one—she was the delight of the house. Tonio, 
she called me. And she would sit in the car and pretend to hold the wheel. All the household 
worshipped her! Even the police came to understand that. Ah, the beautiful little one!” 
His voice had softened. The tears came into his eyes. Then he wheeled round abruptly on his 
heel and strode out of the dining-car. 
“Pietro,” called Poirot. 
The dining-car attendant came at a run. 
“The No. 10—the Swedish lady.” 
“
Bien, Monsieur
.” 
“Another?” cried M. Bouc. “Ah, no—it is not possible. I tell you it is not possible.” 
“
Mon cher
—we have to 
know
. Even if in the end everybody on the train proves to have had a 
motive for killing Ratchett, we have to know. Once we know, we can settle once for all where 
the guilt lies.” 
“My head is spinning,” groaned M. Bouc. 
Greta Ohlsson was ushered in sympathetically by the attendant. She was weeping bitterly. 
She collapsed on the seat facing Poirot and wept steadily into a large handkerchief. 
“Now do not distress yourself, Mademoiselle. Do not distress yourself,” Poirot patted her on 
the shoulder. “Just a few little words of truth, that is all. You were the nurse who was in charge 
of little Daisy Armstrong?” 
“It is true—it is true,” wept the wretched woman. “Ah, she was an angel—a little sweet 
trustful angel. She knew nothing but kindness and love—and she was taken away by that wicked 
man—cruelly treated—and her poor mother—and the other little one who never lived at all. You 
cannot understand—you cannot know—if you had been there as I was—if you had seen the 
whole terrible tragedy! I ought to have told you the truth about myself this morning. But I was 
afraid—afraid. I did so rejoice that that evil man was dead—that he could not any more kill or 
torture little children. Ah! I cannot speak—I have no words. ...” 
She wept with more vehemence than ever. 
Poirot continued to pat her gently on the shoulder. “There—there—I comprehend—I 
comprehend everything—everything, I tell you. I will ask you no more questions. It is enough 
that you have admitted what I know to be the truth. I understand, I tell you.” 
By now inarticulate with sobs, Greta Ohlsson rose and groped her way towards the door. As 
she reached it she collided with a man coming in. 
It was the valet—Masterman. 
He came straight up to Poirot and spoke in his usual quiet, unemotional voice’. 
“I hope I’m not intruding, sir. I thought it best to come along at once, sir, and tell you the 
truth. I was Colonel Armstrong’s batman in the War, sir, and afterwards I was his valet in New 
York. I’m afraid I concealed that fact this morning. It was very wrong of me, sir, and I thought 
I’d better come and make a clean breast of it. But I hope, sir, that you’re not suspecting Tonio in 
any way. Old Tonio, sir, wouldn’t hurt a fly. And I can swear positively that he never left the 
carriage all last night. So, you see, sir, he couldn’t have done it. Tonio may be a foreigner, sir, 
but he’s a very gentle creature. Not like those nasty murdering Italians one reads about.” 
He stopped. 
Poirot looked steadily at him. “Is that all you have to say?” 

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