arms would not be long enough to do this through the window. Discount the testimony for an instant, says imagination, and see whether this would have been possible at any time. Yes, before the train started. Did anybody speak with Mercier after this time, or see him move? Nobody except the train guard. Yet this sole witness first says that the man’s back was turned when he took his ticket; later he announces that Mercier was wearing no beard. How did he see that, if the man’s back were turned and the lights were so dim that you who examined the body face to face could hardly distinguish the features? Then see whether the guard did take the ticket. If not, he lied, and the evidence of the only person who spoke to Mercier after the train started is discounted. I found the ticket.”
“Well, then. Who fits all our specifications for the guilty man? We know him to be a confederate of Mercier; it seems likely that he is also the murderer. Who else? Two others on the train had been associated with Mercier. On the boat from New York he had made arrangements with Mr. Depping to sell Depping his diamonds (I also was on that liner, and it was I who threatened Depping with the law if he did not pay Mercier in marked money). Moreover, Miss Mertz had bought one of the diamonds. Both these people were on the train. Neither had reason to kill Mercier, so far as I knew, and it was physically impossible for either to have killed him. Depping was too small to have reached that window; Miss Mertz had not the strength.”
Bencolin paused, and smiled. “Voila! I’m getting as verbose as a detective in fiction,” he said. “I dragged you over here to Paris, and I don’t mean to talk shop all the time. Suppose we go somewhere and have a drink. Taxi!”
