he was before the passport examiner; the passport picture shows a clean-shaven face. But when he was taken to the morgue after the murder, he was bearded. The attendant doctor discovered that the beard was false. It had been hurriedly put on with spirit-gum between the time he left the passport examiner and the time he entered the train. Why?”
After a lengthy silence Sir John observed, “He might have been intending to meet somebody in Paris—” Then he stopped, and began drumming on the chairarms.
Villon went to the desk and leafed through some papers.
“Here are our reports. We had six people on that train, aside from yourselves. Four of them we may eliminate as having no probable connection with this affair. They are useful only as corroborating the evidence. With M. Canard I am personally acquainted; in fact, I may say that I am one of his closest friends. He had never before set eyes on this man Mercier, nor had his petite amie, Mademoiselle Lulu. M. Villefranche and Mr. Woodcock, the American salesman, you yourself have eliminated, Monsieur Landervorne. As you will see by the records, they occupied compartments where they were under your eye the whole journey until the time of the murder—and we shall be forced to accept you as a reputable witness. Besides, thorough inquiry nets no possible connection between either of them and Mercier, or our agents would have discovered it. But, by a curious coincidence, both Mr. Septimus Depping, the Englishman, and Miss Brunhilde Mertz, the American lady, had seen Mercier before; they must have seen him. All three of them travelled to England on the Majestic two weeks before.” He picked up two typewritten sheets. “Here are their records. With your permission, I will read:
