Free The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie Page A

she carried her point.
    “I will tell you if you like, but you must not think me impertinent. I thought that for some reason you were in great distress of mind, and I was sorry for you.”
    “You are right. You are quite right. I am in terrible trouble. I - I should like to tell you something about it, if I may.”
    “Oh, dear,” Katherine thought to herself, “how extraordinarily alike the world seems to be everywhere! People were always telling me things in St Mary Mead, and it is just the same thing here, and I don't really want to hear anybody's troubles!”
    She replied politely:
    “Do tell me.”
    They were just finishing their lunch. Ruth gulped down her coffee, rose from her seat, and quite oblivious of the fact that Katherine had not begun to sip her coffee, said: “Come to my compartment with me.”
    They were two single compartments with a communicating door between them. In the second of them a thin maid, whom Katherine had noticed at Victoria, was sitting very upright on the seat, clutching a big scarlet morocco case with the initials R.V.K. on it. Mrs Kettering pulled the communicating door to and sank down on the seat. Katherine sat down beside her.
    “I am in trouble and I don't know what to do. There is a man whom I am fond of - very fond of indeed. We cared for each other when we were young, and we were thrust apart most brutally and unjustly. Now we have come together again.”
    “Yes?”
    “I - I am going to meet him now. Oh! I dare say you think it is all wrong, but you don't know the circumstances. My husband is impossible. He has treated me disgracefully.”
    “Yes,” said Katherine again.
    “What I feel so badly about is this. I have deceived my father - it was he who came to see me off at Victoria today. He wishes me to divorce my husband, and, of course, he has no idea - that I am going to meet this other man. He would think it extraordinarily foolish.”
    “Well, don't you think it is?”
    “I suppose it is.”
    Ruth Kettering looked down at her hands; they were shaking violently.
    “But I can't draw back now.”
    “Why not?”
    “I - it is all arranged, and it would break his heart.”
    “Don't you believe it,” said Katherine robustly, “hearts are pretty tough.”
    “He will think I have no courage, no strength of purpose.”
    “It seems to me an awfully silly thing that you are going to do,” said Katherine. “I think you realize that yourself.”
    Ruth Kettering buried her face in her hands. “I don't know - I don't know. Ever since I left Victoria I have had a horrible feeling of something - something that is coming to me very soon - that I can't escape.”
    She clutched convulsively at Katherine's hand.
    “You must think I am mad talking to you like this, but I tell you I know something horrible is going to happen.”
    “Don't think it,” said Katherine, “try to pull yourself together. You could send your father a wire from Paris, if you like, and he would come to you at once.”
    The other brightened.
    “Yes, I could do that. Dear old Dad. It is queer - but I never knew until today how terribly fond of him I am.” She sat up and dried her eyes with a handkerchief. “I have been very foolish. Thank you so much for letting me talk to you. I don't know why I got into such a queer, hysterical state.”
    She got up. “I am quite all right now. I suppose, really, I just needed someone to talk to. I can't think now why I have been making such an absolute fool of myself.”
    Katherine got up too.
    “I am so glad you feel better,” she said, trying to make her voice sound as conventional as possible. She was only too well aware that the aftermath of confidences is embarrassment. She added tactfully:
    “I must be going back to my own compartment.”
    She emerged into the corridor at the same time as the maid was also coming out from the next door. The latter looked towards Katherine, over her shoulder, and an expression of intense surprise showed itself on her