JDJacqueline de Bellefort
You were surprised to find me here.
I am more sorry than surprised. You have chosen a path that is most dangerous, mademoiselle. I doubt that you would turn back now, even if you could.
JDJacqueline de Bellefort
Oh, well. One must follow one's star.
JDJacqueline de Bellefort
Oh, but it is. It is. You must know that, Monsieur Poirot. Surely, you understand.
[after a long silence] It is terrible, mademoiselle, all that I have missed in life.
Ah, Monsieur Allerton, I would like very much to have a little word with you.
TATim Allerton
What can I do for you?
There's nothing you can do for me, monsieur, but to sit and to listen.
TATim Allerton
Right, well, I'm very good at that. You can rely on me to say, "Ooh, ah" at all the right moments.
"Ooh, ah" will do very nicely. Thank you. [time transition, Poirot, Race, and Allerton seated at a table as a servant places a teapot before them] Merci. [to Allerton] So, to begin, your friendship with your cousin, Joanna Southwood. For the past three years, Scotland Yard has been preoccupied with a number of jewel robberies. And, you know, the method has been always exactly the same. Oui. The substitution of the original with an imitation. Attention soon focused on Mademoiselle Southwood. You see, every one of the victims had been either a friend or an acquaintance. It also became clear that she did not make the substitution herself. No, no, no. She would have a jeweler make her a copy, and then the substitution would be made by someone else. But the identity of this person has remained a mystery.
Oui. But over the past few days, certain facts have emerged that have been most helpful. Your attendance at the house party when one such robbery occurred, your obvious resentment of my presence here, and the discovery that the pearls belonging to Linnet Doyle were missing. But what do I find? I find that the pearls that were stolen and returned were imitation, previously substituted for the real thing. It would have been easy for Mademoiselle Southwood to have found an opportunity of examining the pearls of her friend and to have made a copy. And it was then just a question of waiting for the right moment for you to make the substitution. Eh bien, you learned that Linnet Doyle was to honeymoon in Egypt, so, oh, parfait, hein? Mademoiselle Southwood sends to you the imitation, concealed, I suggest, in a parcel of books. You then bide your time. Finally, you make the substitution, return to your cabin, and conceal them by gluing them into a rosary. Unfortunately for you, the night you chose to do the deed was the same night that Linnet Doyle was murdered. But even more unfortunately was the fact that someone saw you leave her cabin. "Ooh, ah," would you not say, Monsieur Allerton?
Aren't you an artist, too, Monsieur Poirot?
On the whole, I would say no. Oh, I have known crimes that were artistic, supreme exercises of the imagination, but the solving of them, no. No, the creative power is not what is needed. What is required is a passion for the truth.
GGudgeon
If you see me with a pistol in my hand, Simmons, the proper thing to do is to come to me and say, "Mr. Gudgeon, would you be so kind as to give me an explanation?"
SSimmons
Yes, Mr. Gudgeon.
GGudgeon
The improper thing to do is to go babbling to the police. That is common. Now where would her ladyship be if we all ran around doing things like that, hmm?
May Poirot sit, signora? He wishes to tell to you a little story.
MMMirelle Milesi
I despise fiction.
Ah. But this little story, it is true. It is about Monsieur Rufus Van Aldin, a man of authority accustomed to acquiring whatever he wants whenever he wants it. But he is not able to secure the divorce of his daughter, Ruth, without the evidence of the adultery of his son-in-law, Monsieur Derek Kettering. Alors, he learns that his son-in-law plans to join his daughter, Ruth, on the Blue Train.
MMMirelle Milesi
I don't know any of these people.
And, you know, he does a thing most extraordinary. He sends his lover on the train, also, to offer herself to Monsieur Derek Kettering. Et quel cauchemar. The plan, it fails, no? Monsieur Kettering proves immune to her powerful charms because he has a secret that nobody else knows.
MMMirelle Milesi
He loves his wife.
C'est ça. Why did you enter the compartment of Madame Kettering?
MMMirelle Milesi
That was weakness. I wanted to see her things.
But while you were in there, you found and kept the page of a letter concerning the wife of Monsieur Van Aldin. And reading it at dinner, it naturally upset you. But you resolved to see the woman for yourself.
MMMirelle Milesi
I was curious to see what would be my fate should I ever marry Rufus. She was convinced that I was her daughter. Color-blind as well as mad. However, it seemed cruel to disabuse her. Her life has been sufficiently unfortunate.
MMMirelle Milesi
I've spent most of my life being kind, monsieur. Mostly to men of about your age. And look where it has got me. Whoring for no pay. Life. Grossly overrated, I find.
Is it off-season for the criminals or is our little gallery about to be robbed?
Oh, alas, monsieur, non. Non. I am here purely in my private capacity. But I see that you yourself have lent a few pieces.
Oh, one picks up trifles here and there. I have a few interesting objects I could show you. I daresay I could even produce one or two things in your line, Poirot.
Ah. So you have, then, your private Black Museum?
Oh, no, no, no. I don't collect the artifacts of crime. The murderer's hammer, the poisoner's cup. I collect only the finest objects of their kind.
And what do you consider to be the finest objects, artistically speaking, in crime?
Why, the human beings who commit them, monsieur.
RDr. Roberts
Good to see you, Shaitana. I'm not late, am I? An elderly patient called me out. She thought she had a tumor. I thought she was depressed.
And what did you prescribe?
RDr. Roberts
Champagne and oysters at Wilton's. She'll be right as rain by tomorrow.
[sotto voce, to Poirot] Remind me never to go to him if I'm poorly.
MDMajor Despard
I had every motive for disliking Shaitana. For disliking him, not killing him.
And what were your motives for disliking him, Major?
MDMajor Despard
He dressed like a ... Well, you know. And the perfume.
SWSuperintendent Wheeler
And yet you accepted his invitation to dinner.
MDMajor Despard
Were I only to dine in houses where I approved of my host, I wouldn't eat out much, I'm afraid.
Don't you like London society?
MDMajor Despard
What we call civilization? Only for very short periods. To come back from abroad to well-lit rooms, beautiful women in beautiful clothes ... Yes, it's pleasant for a time. But after a while, it palls. The insincerity sickens me, and I want to be off again.
[after Poirot reveals Shaitana's killer] But why did Shaitana drug himself?
He is tired of life. He has a madness in his soul. He is searching for a thrill that would be for him the ultimate. And in order to achieve this, he invites four people to his house whom he believe have killed, and then he goads them.
[flashback, the night of the murder] There's always an accident. A shooting accident, for example. Or a domestic accident. One of the little tragedies that never gets reported.
And then he takes the sleeping draught so that when it happens he will feel no pain. And it does happen. And as an extra twist, he tries to throw the blame on one of us. He makes us to believe that the crime that is opportunistic is made to look as though it was planned most carefully. And we start ... Oh, pardon, even Hercule Poirot, he starts to believe it. When all the time the plan was to allow a crime that was opportunistic to happen.
As a plot, that is distinctly odd.
The plots, madame, they are all the same. It is only the psychology that is different.
DHDavid Hunter
You must marry Rowley Cloade. And do it quickly. Forget about me. I shall make it my business to forget about you.
LMLynn Marchmont
I don't believe you.
DHDavid Hunter
You and I, we'd tear each other to pieces, destroy each other.
LMLynn Marchmont
You're lying to me. Why? Why are you lying to me?
DHDavid Hunter
I'd certainly destroy you. It's in my nature, Lynn, to desecrate the things I cherish. And I love you too much for that.
