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"Did you go into Mr. Ratchett's compartment at any time?"

"Yes."

"Can you tell us, Colonel Arbuthnot, how it is likely to have got there?"

"In that case it probably is one of mine."

"Do you know where it was found?"

"To begin with, you see this pipe cleaner?"

"Well?"

Colonel Arbuthnot was clearly annoyed at being summoned to the dining car for a second interview. His face wore a most forbidding expression as he sat down and said:

"Is it one of yours?"

"Are you aware, Colonel Arbuthnot, that you are the only man amongst the passengers in the Stamboul-Calais carriage who smokes a pipe?"

"Don't know. I don't put a private mark on them, you know."

"If you mean did I drop it there myself, no, I didn't."

"It was found by the body of the murdered man."

"Not the least idea."

Colonel Arbuthnot raised his eyebrows.

"Indeed? I hardly think so."

"All my apologies for troubling you a second time," said Poirot. "But there is still some information that I think you might be able to give us."

"I never even spoke to the man."

"You never spoke to him and you did not murder him?"

Arbuthnot stared at him.

"Pourquoi?"

"If I had, I should hardly be likely to acquaint you with the fact. As a matter of fact I didn't murder the fellow."

"Ah, well," murmured Poirot. "It is of no consequence."

"What I really wished to see you about was quite another matter," went on Poirot. "Miss Debenham may have told you, perhaps, that I overheard some words spoken to you at the station of Konya?"

"Oh!" Arbuthnot looked taken aback. He eyed Poirot uneasily.

The Colonel said stiffly: "I suggest that you should ask Miss Debenham herself for the meaning of those words."

Arbuthnot did not reply.

The Colonel's eyebrows went up again sardonically.

"I said that it was of no consequence."

"She said, 'Not now. When it's all over. When it's behind us.' Do you know to what those words referred?"

"Because, you see," continued the little man, "the pipe cleaner, it is of no importance. I can myself think of eleven other excellent explanations of its presence."

"I am sorry, M. Poirot, but I must refuse to answer that question."

"I beg your pardon?"

"I am making no mistake. Why did Miss Debenham lie to me?"

"Then I should think it would have been perfectly plain -- even to you -- that my lips are sealed."

"You will not give away a lady's secret?"

There was a minute's dead silence.

"Then why not accept her word for it?"

"Not the fact that Miss Debenham was companion governess in the Armstrong household at the time of the kidnapping of little Daisy Armstrong?"

"Miss Debenham told me that they referred to a private matter of her own."

"It is not nonsense."

"I have done so."

"And she refused to tell you?"

"Because, Colonel Arbuthnot, Miss Debenham is what one might call a highly suspicious character."

"Yes."

"You have nothing whatever against her."

"You can put it that way, if you like."

"You see," he said, "we know more than you think. If Miss Debenham is innocent, why did she conceal that fact? Why did she tell me that she had never been in America?"

The Colonel cleared his throat. "Aren't you possibly making a mistake?"

Poirot nodded his head gently.

"Nonsense," said the Colonel with warmth.

Colonel Arbuthnot shrugged his shoulders.

"Bien, Monsieur."

"You had better ask her. I still think that you are wrong."

The man departed. The four men sat in silence. Colonel Arbuthnot's face looked as though it were carved out of wood, it was rigid and impassive.

Poirot raised his voice and called. One of the restaurant attendants came from the far end of the car.

The man returned.

"Thank you."

"Go and ask the English lady in No. 11 if she will be good enough to come here."

"The lady is coming, sir."

A minute or two later Mary Debenham entered the dining car.