The Evidence of the American Lady

Mrs. Hubbard is so breathlessly excited when she arrives for her interview that she can hardly speak a complete sentence. Once she is settled, she announces that the murderer was in her compartment last night. Just after she had fallen asleep, Hubbard suddenly woke up and knew there was a man in her room. For a moment she was too scared to move or scream; then she began ringing the bell for the conductor. Though she pressed it many times, no one arrived. The train was stopped and silent, and for a moment Hubbard thought perhaps everyone on the train had been murdered; however, she kept pressing the bell until she heard the conductor arrive.

She turned on the lights and then screamed at him to come in, but the conductor found no interloper in her compartment. He searched every possible hiding spot in the compartment and finally assumed Hubbard must have been dreaming. He tried to soothe her, but Hubbard was convinced that a man had been there. (She now admits that at the time she had assumed it was the man next door to her, Ratchett.) Before leaving, the conductor locked the door between the two compartments (it had been unlocked) and she put her suitcase against the door to assure her safety.

Poirot asks Hubbard about the time of this occurrence, but she is not sure; what she is sure of is that the man in her compartment must have been the murderer. Poirot wonders if what she heard could have been someone moving about in the compartment next door, but she is adamant about her story and produces a compelling piece of evidence from the bottom of her large (and full) handbag: it is a button which she found lying on top of a magazine she had placed near the window. It is the button from a Wagon Lit employee uniform, but the conductor had not gone anywhere near the window when searching for an intruder. This is a useful clue, according to Poirot.

The Swedish woman came to Hubbard’s compartment for an aspirin last night after opening Ratchett’s door by mistake (he laughed at her and called her old); when the Swedish woman left at about ten forty-five, Hubbard asked her to make sure the connecting door was locked. The only other sound Hubbard heard was Ratchett’s horrible snoring, which had kept her awake the night before, as well. The snoring stopped after the intruder left her compartment.

Poirot tells her about Ratchett’s true identity; Hubbard is outraged by that crime and is shocked at the news. Poirot learns that her full name is Caroline Martha Hubbard and all her handkerchiefs are monogrammed with CMH; the one Poirot discovered at the murder scene could not be hers, then. She has no scarlet silk gown, but she did hear a woman’s voice in Ratchett’s compartment last night, though she could not say when. Hubbard thus marches off triumphantly.