Murder on the Orient Express

Agatha Christie 
™
 MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS 
70
“Ah! but I am referring to—let us say, the last hour and a half of your conversation. You got 
out at Vincovci, didn’t you?” 
“Yes, but only for about a minute. There was a blizzard on. The cold was something frightful. 
Made one quite thankful to get back to the fug, though as a rule I think the way these trains are 
overheated is something scandalous.” 
M. Bouc sighed. “It is very difficult to please everybody,” he said. “The English they open 
everything—then others they come along and shut everything. It is very difficult.” 
Neither Poirot nor Colonel Arbuthnot paid any attention to him. 
“Now, Monsieur, cast your mind back,” said Poirot encouragingly. “It was cold outside. You 
have returned to the train. You sit down again, you smoke—perhaps a cigarette—perhaps a 
pipe—” 
He paused for the fraction of a second. 
“A pipe for me. MacQueen smoked cigarettes.” 
“The train starts again. You smoke your pipe. You discuss the state of Europe—of the world. 
It is late now. Most people have retired for the night. Does anyone pass the door? Think.” 
Arbuthnot frowned in the effort of remembrance. 
“Difficult to say,” he said. “You see I wasn’t paying any attention.” 
“But you have the soldier’s observation for detail. You notice without noticing, so to speak.” 
The Colonel thought again, but shook his head. 
“I couldn’t say. I don’t remember anyone passing except the conductor. Wait a minute—and 
there was a woman, I think.” 
“You saw her? Was she old—young?” 
“Didn’t see her. Wasn’t looking that way. just a rustle and a sort of smell of scent.” 
“Scent? A 
good
scent?” 
“Well, rather fruity, if you know what I mean. I mean you’d smell it a hundred yards away. 
But mind you,” the Colonel went on hastily, “this may have been earlier in the evening. You see, 
as you said just now, it was just one of those things you notice without noticing, so to speak. 
Some time that evening I said to myself—‘Woman—scent—got it on pretty thick.’ But 
when
it 
was I can’t be sure, except that—why, yes, it must have been after Vincovci.” 
“Why?” 
“Because I remember—sniffing, you know—just when I was talking about the utter washout 
Stalin’s Five Year Plan was turning out. I know the idea 
woman
brought the idea of the position 
of women in Russia into my mind. And I know we hadn’t got on to Russia until pretty near the 
end of our talk.” 
“You can’t pin it down more definitely than that?” 
“N-no. It must have been roughly within the last half-hour.” 
“It was after the train had stopped?” 
The other nodded. “Yes, I’m almost sure it was.” 
“Well, we will pass from that. Have you ever been in America, Colonel Arbuthnot?” 
“Never. Don’t want to go.” 
“Did you ever know a Colonel Armstrong?” 
“Armstrong—Armstrong—I’ve known two or three Armstrongs. There was Tommy 
Armstrong in the 60th—you don’t mean him? And Selby Armstrong—he was killed on the 
Somme.” 
“I mean the Colonel Armstrong who married an American wife and whose only child was 
kidnapped and killed.” 

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