© Берестова А. И., адаптация, сокращение, словарь, 2023

© ООО «Издательство «Антология», 2023

Part I
The Facts

Chapter I
An Important Passenger on the Taurus Express

Hercule Poirot had spent a week in Syria helping his friend, a general in the French Army, to solve a very serious crisis. His mission had been successfully completed.

Now, at about five o'clock in the morning, he was standing on the platform at Aleppo by the step leading up into the sleeping-car of the famous Taurus Express. The train consisted of a kitchen and dining-car, a sleeping-car and two local carriages.

It was a very cold winter morning. Hercule Poirot, muffled up to the ears, was talking with a young French lieutenant, who was seeing him off.

Lieutenant Dubosc had no idea what this small man's mission had been about, but to him had been delegated the duty of seeing off M. Poirot by the Taurus Express, and he was carrying it out with all the enthusiasm of a young officer with a promising career ahead of him.

“Today is Sunday,” said Lieutenant Dubosc. “Tomorrow, Monday evening, you will be in Stamboul.”

“That is so,” agreed M. Poirot.

“And you intend to remain there a few days, I think?”

“I have never visited Stamboul. It would be a pity just to pass through it. Yes, I shall remain there as a tourist for a few days.”

A cold wind blew down the platform. Both men shivered. Lieutenant Dubosc discreetly looked at his watch. Five minutes to five – only five minutes more!

Thinking that the other man had noticed it, 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?”

“Yes, it has happened. Not this year, as yet.”

“Let us hope, then,” said M. Poirot. “The weather reports from Europe are bad.”

“Very bad. In the Balkans there is much snow.”

“In Germany, too, I have heard.”

Above their heads the blinds of one of the sleeping-car compartments were pushed aside and a young woman looked out. Her name was Mary Debenham. She felt restless and couldn't sleep in her overheated compartment; she got up and looked out of the carriage window.

Two men below her window were talking French. One was a French officer, the other was a little man with enormous moustaches, heavily muffled up. It must be very cold outside. That was why they heated the train so terribly.

The sleeping-car conductor had come up to the two men. It was departure time for the train, and he advised the muffled up man to get aboard. The little man took off his hat. He had an egg-shaped head. He looked so ridiculous that Mary Debenham smiled in spite of her anxious thoughts. He was the sort of little man one could never take seriously.

Lieutenant Dubosc and Hercule Poirot exchanged beautiful parting speeches. M. Poirot climbed aboard the train. The conductor climbed after him. M. Poirot waved his hand. Lieutenant Dubosc came to the salute. The train moved slowly forward.

“At last!” murmured M. Hercule Poirot.

“Brrrrrrrr,” said Lieutenant Dubosc, feeling how cold he was.

With a wide theatrical gesture, the conductor showed Poirot the beauty of his sleeping compartment. “I have put the little valise of Monsieur here.” Hercule Poirot put a folded note in his hinting hand.

“Merci, Monsieur.” The conductor became business-like. “I have the tickets of Monsieur. I will also take the passport, please. As I understand, Monsieur breaks his journey in Stamboul?”

M. Poirot agreed. “There are not many people on the train, I suppose?” he said.

“No, Monsieur. There are only two other passengers in my carriage – both English. A Colonel from India and a young English lady from Baghdad.”

When the conductor left, M. Poirot fell asleep.

At half-past nine he awoke and went to the restaurant car for hot coffee.

He saw only one person in the restaurant car, obviously the young English lady mentioned by the conductor. She was tall, slim and dark – perhaps twenty-eight years of age. She wore a dark-coloured travelling dress of some thin material suitable for the heated atmosphere of the train.

Hercule Poirot amused himself by studying her discreetly.

He decided this young woman could take care of herselfwith perfect ease wherever she went. She had self-possession and efficiency. He liked her appearance: the regular features and the delicate pallor of her face, the neat waves of her dark hair, and her cool grey eyes. But, in his opinion, she was just a little too efficient to be called beautiful.

A tall man entered the restaurant car. His age was between forty and fifty; he was lean; his skin was brown; his hair was slightly grey round the temples.

“The Colonel from India,” Poirot decided.

The man bowed slightly to the girl. “Morning, Miss Debenham.”

“Good morning, Colonel Arbuthnot.”

The Colonel asked her permission to sit at her table. She didn't object.

The expression of the Colonel's eyes when they stopped at Hercule Poirot for a moment was absolutely indifferent, and Poirot, reading the English mind correctly, knew that he had said to himself: “Only some damned foreigner.”

The two English people exchanged a few short phrases and soon the girl went back to her compartment.

At lunch time they sat together again and completely ignored Poirot. Colonel Arbuthnot talked of India and asked the girl a few questions about Baghdad where she had been in a post as governess. They became friendlier and less stiff when they discovered that they had some mutual friends. The Colonel asked whether she was stopping in Stamboul. The girl said she was going straight through to England.

“I may say I'm very glad you are going right through, because I am,” said the Colonel, flushing a little.

“He is amorous, our Colonel,” thought Hercule Poirot humourously. “The train, it is as dangerous as a sea voyage!”

The Colonel accompanied Miss Debenham back to her compartment. Later, as the train passed through the magnificent scenery of the Taurus, all three passengers stood in the corridor admiring the view. Poirot was standing near the two English and heard the girl sigh and murmur:

“It's so beautiful! I wish – I wish —”

“Yes?”

“I wish I could enjoy it!”

“I wish to Heaven you were out of all this,” Colonel Arbuthnot said.

“Hush, please! Hush!” said Miss Debebham.

The Colonel shot a slightly annoyed glance in Poirot's direction and said, “But I don't like the idea of your being a governess – running errands for tyrannical mothers and their tiresome brats.”

“Oh! I can assure you that it's the parents who are afraid of being bullied by me,” she laughed.

“Quite an odd little comedy that I watch here,” said Poirot to himself thoughtfully.

Later he remembered that thought of his.

At about half-past eleven that night the train stopped at Konya. The two English travellers got out and walked up and down the snowy platform.

At first, M. Poirot stayed inside, watching the life of the station through a window. Ten minutes later, however, he decided to have some fresh air, too. He walked down the platform.

There were two figures standing in the shadow of a traffic van. He recognized the voices. Arbuthnot was speaking.

“Mary —”

The girl interrupted him.

“Not now. When it's all over. When it's behind us – then – ” Discreetly M. Poirot turned away.

“Curious,” he said to himself.

The next day, at about half-past two in the afternoon the train stopped. Something had caught fire under the dining-car. It was soon put out, and the damage was repaired. Mary Debenham got very nervous not because of the fire, but because of the possible delay.

“If there is an hour or two of delay, we won't be able to cross the Bosphorus in time to catch the Orient Express on the other side at nine o'clock,” she exclaimed anxiously.

Fortunately, ten minutes later the train started again and arrived at Hayda-passar only five minutes late.

The Bosphorus was stormy, and M. Poirot did not enjoy the crossing. On the boat, he and his travelling companions were separated, and he did not see them again.

On arrival at the Galata Bridge he drove straight to the Tokatlian Hotel.

Chapter II
The Tokatlian Hotel

At the hotel there were three letters waiting for him and a telegram. The telegram was quite unexpected. He was asked to return to London immediately.

Poirot asked the receptionist to reserve a sleeping-car accommodation in the Orient Express for him. Then he glanced at the clock. It was ten minutes to eight. “I have time to dine?”

“But of course, Monsieur.”

The little Belgian nodded. He cancelled his room order and crossed the hall to the restaurant.

As he was giving his order to the waiter, a hand was placed on his shoulder.

“What an unexpected pleasure!” said a voice behind him.

The speaker was a short stout elderly man. He was smiling delightedly.

Poiret stood up.

“M. Bouc!”

“M. Poirot!”

M. Bouc was a Belgian, a director of the Sleeping-cars International Company, and his acquaintance with the former star of the Belgian police force dated back many years.

“So far from home, my dear,” said M. Bouc.

“A little affair in Syria.”

“Ah! And you return home – when?”

“To-night.”

“Splendid! I, too. You travel on the Simplon Orient, I understand?”

“Yes. I wanted to stay here some days, but I have received a telegram recalling me to England on important business.”

“Ah!” sighed M. Bouc. “Affaires, affaires! But you, you are at the top of the tree nowadays, old man!”

“Some little success I have had, perhaps.” Hercule Poirot tried to look modest but failed remarkably.

M. Bouc laughed.

“We will meet later,” he said.

Hercule Poirot ate his soup trying to keep his famous moustache out of it. While waiting for the next course, he glanced round him. There were few people in the restaurant, and of those few only two interested Hercule Poirot.

They sat at a table not far away. The younger was a pleasant – looking young man of thirty, clearly an American. But the little detective's attention was attracted by his companion.

That man was much older – between sixty and seventy. His face with his smiling mouth might produce an impression of kindness, but his eyes, small and deep-set, were cunning. When he looked at Poirot for a second, there was a strange malice, an unnatural tension in his glance. His voice, when he addressed his young companion, had a strange, soft, dangerous quality.

When Poirot joined his friend in the lounge, those two men were just leaving the hotel. Poirot watched them, and after they went out, he asked M. Bouc, “What do you think of those two?”

“They are Americans,” his friend said.

“Surely they are Americans. What do you think of their personalities?”

“The young man seemed quite pleasant.”

“And the other?”

“To tell you the truth, my friend, I did not like him. He produced on me an unpleasant impression. And you?”

Hercule Poirot was silent for a moment.

“When he passed me in the restaurant,” he said at last, “I had a curious impression. It was as if a wild animal had passed me by.”

“And yet he looked altogether most respectable.”

“Exactly! The body – the cage – is everything of the most respectable – but through the bars, the wild animal looks out. I had the impression that evil had passed me by very close.”

“That respectable American gentleman?”

“That respectable American gentleman.”

“Well,” said M. Bouc cheerfully, “it may be so. There is much evil in the world.”

At that moment the receptionist came up to them. He brought unexpected and unpleasant news to Hercule Poirot: there was not one first-class sleeping berth to be had on the train.

M. Bouc was very much surpised, but he promised to help.

“There is always one compartment, the No. 16, which the conductor keeps vacant!” He smiled; then glanced up at the clock. “Come,” he said, “it is time to go.”

But when they arrived at the station, the sleeping-car conductor informed M. Bouc that the No. 16 had been already taken.

“But what's the matter?” asked M. Bouc angrily. “There is a conference somewhere? It is a party?”

“No, Monsieur. It is only chance. It just happens that many people have decided to travel to-night.”

“So annoying,” said M. Bouc.

“Don't worry, my friend,” said Poirot. “I must travel in an ordinary carriage.”

“Has everyone arrived?” M. Bouc turned once more to the conductor.

“There is one passenger,” said the man slowly, with hesitation, “who has not yet arrived.”

“What compartment?”

“No. 7 berth, a second class.”

“Who is it?”

“An Englishman,” the conductor consulted his list. “A Mr. Harris.”

“It's a good omen,” said Poirot merrily, “like the made-up Missis Harris from a novel by Dickens. Mr. Harris, he will not arrive.”

M. Bouc told the conductor to put Poirot's luggage in No. 7.

“If this M. Harris arrives, we will settle the matter one way or another.”

When Poirot reached the compartment indicated, he found the tall young American of the Tokatlian there.

He frowned as Poirot entered.

“Excuse me,” he said. “I think you've made a mistake.”

“You are Mr. Harris?” asked Poirot.

“No, my name is MacQueen. I —”

“There is no other berth on the train, Monsieur. The gentleman has to come in here,” said the sleeping-car conductor apologetically.

Poirot noticed the apology in his tone with some amusement. No doubt, the man had been promised a good tip if he could keep the compartment for the exclusive use of the other traveller.

However, even the most generous of tips lose their effect when a Director of the Company is on board and gives his orders.

“The train's remarkably full,” said the young man. He had evidently got over his annoyance and decided to take the matter philosophically.

The No. 7 was the upper berth.

“I say, Sir,” said MacQueen. “If you'd rather have the lower berth – easier and all that – well, that's all right by me.”

A likeable young fellow.

“No, no,” protested Poirot. “It is for one night only. At Belgrade —”

“Oh! I see. You're getting out at Belgrade —”

“Not exactly. You see —”

There was a sudden jerk, and then the long lighted platform glided slowly past them.

The Orient Express had begun its journey across Europe.