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‘Yes. It was my business to attend to his correspondence. The first letter came a fortnight ago.’
‘Were these letters destroyed?’
‘No, I think I’ve got a couple still in my files—one I know Ratchett tore up in a rage. Shall I get them for you?’
‘If you would be so good.’
MacQueen left the compartment. He returned a few minutes later and laid down two sheets of rather dirty notepaper before Poirot.
The first letter ran as follows:
‘Thought you’d doublecross us and get away with it, did you? Not on your life. We’re out to GET you, Ratchett, and we WILL get you!’
There was no signature.
With no comment beyond raised eyebrows, Poirot picked up the second letter.
‘We’re going to take you for a ride, Ratchett. Some time soon. We’re going to GET you, see?’
Poirot laid the letter down.
‘The style is monotonous!’ he said. ‘More so than the handwriting.’
MacQueen stared at him.
‘You would not observe,’ said Poirot pleasantly. ‘It requires the eye of one used to such things. This letter was not written by one person, M. MacQueen. Two or more persons wrote it—each writing a letter of a word at a time. Also, the letters are printed. That makes the task of identifying the handwriting much more difficult.’
He paused, then said:
‘Did you know that M. Ratchett had applied for help to me?’
‘To you?’
MacQueen’s astonished tone told Poirot quite certainly that the young man had not known of it. He nodded.
‘Yes. He was alarmed. Tell me, how did he act when he received the first letter?’
MacQueen hesitated.
‘It’s difficult to say. He—he—passed it off with a laugh in that quiet way of his. But somehow’—he gave a slight shiver—‘I felt that there was a good deal going on underneath the quietness.’
Poirot nodded. Then he asked an unexpected question.
‘Mr MacQueen, will you tell me, quite honestly, exactly how you regarded your employer? Did you like him?’
Hector MacQueen took a moment or two before replying.
‘No,’ he said at last. ‘I did not.’
‘Why?’
‘I can’t exactly say. He was always quite pleasant in his manner.’ He paused, then said, ‘I’ll tell you the truth, Mr Poirot. I disliked and distrusted him. He was, I am sure, a cruel and a dangerous man. I must admit, though, that I have no reasons to advance for my opinion.’
‘Thank you, M. MacQueen. One further question—when did you last see M. Ratchett alive?’
‘Last evening about’—he thought for a minute—‘ten o’clock, I should say. I went into his compartment to take down some memoranda from him.’
‘On what subject?’
‘Some tiles and antique pottery that he bought in Persia. What was delivered was not what he had purchased. There has been a long, vexatious correspondence on the subject.’
‘And that was the last time M. Ratchett was seen alive?’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’
‘Do you know when M. Ratchett received the last threatening letter?’
‘On the morning of the day we left Constantinople.’
‘There is one more question I must ask you, M. MacQueen: were you on good terms with your employer?’
The young man’s eyes twinkled suddenly.
‘This is where I’m supposed to go all goosefleshy down the back. In the words of a best seller, “You’ve nothing on me.” Ratchett and I were on perfectly good terms.’
‘Perhaps, M. MacQueen, you will give me your full name and your address in America.’
MacQueen gave his name—Hector Willard MacQueen, and an address in New York.
Poirot leaned back against the cushions.
‘That is all for the present, M. MacQueen,’ he said. ‘I should be obliged if you would keep the matter of M. Ratchett’s death to yourself for a little time.’
‘His valet, Masterman, will have to know.’
‘He probably knows already,’ said Poirot dryly. ‘If so try to get him to hold his tongue.’
‘That oughtn’t to be difficult. He’s a Britisher, and does what he calls “Keeps himself to himself.” He’s a low opinion of Americans and no opinion at all of any other nationality.’
‘Thank you, M. MacQueen.’
The American left the carriage.
‘Well?’ demanded M. Bouc. ‘You believe what he says, this young man?’
‘He seems honest and straightforward. He did not pretend to any affection for his employer as he probably would have done had he been involved in any way. It is true M. Ratchett did not tell him that he had tried to enlist my services and failed, but I do not think that is really a suspicious circumstance. I fancy M. Ratchett was a gentleman who kept his own counsel on every possible occasion.’
‘So you pronounce one person at least innocent of the crime,’ said M. Bouc jovially.
Poirot cast on him a look of reproach.
‘Me, I suspect everybody till the last minute,’ he said. ‘All the same, I must admit that I cannot see this sober, long-headed MacQueen losing his head and stabbing his victim twelve or fourteen times. It is not in accord with his psychology—not at all.’
‘No,’ said Mr Bouc thoughtfully. ‘That is the act of a man driven almost crazy with a frenzied hate—it suggests more the Latin temperament. Or else it suggests, as our friend the chef de train insisted, a woman.’
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