“Your name is Pierre Michel?” said the Commissary.

“Yes, Monsieur le Commissaire.”

“I should like you to repeat to this gentleman”⁠—he indicated Poirot⁠—“the story that you told me as to what happened in Paris.”

“Very good, Monsieur le Commissaire. It was after we had left the Gare de Lyon I came along to make the beds, thinking that Madame would be at dinner, but she had a dinner-basket in her compartment. She said to me that she had been obliged to leave her maid behind in Paris, so that I only need make up one berth. She took her dinner basket into the adjoining compartment, and sat there while I made up the bed; then she told me that she did not wish to be wakened early in the morning, that she liked to sleep on. I told her I quite understood, and she wished me ‘good night.’ ”

“You yourself did not go into the adjoining compartment?”

“No, Monsieur.”