When he awoke the train was still at a standstill. He raised a blind and looked out. Heavy banks of snow surrounded the train.

He glanced at his watch and saw that it was past nine o’clock.

At a quarter to ten, neat, spruce and dandified as ever, he made his way to the restaurant car, where a chorus of woe was going on.

Any barriers there might have been between the passengers had now quite broken down. All were united by a common misfortune. Mrs. Hubbard was loudest in her lamentations.

“My daughter said it would be the easiest way in the world. Just sit in the train until I got to Parrus. And now we may be here for days and days,” she wailed. “And my boat sails day after to-morrow. How am I going to catch it now? Why, I can’t even wire to cancel my passage. I’m just too mad to talk about it!”

The Italian said that he had urgent business himself in Milan. The large American said that that was “too bad, Ma’am,” and soothingly expressed a hope that the train might make up time.

“My sister-her children wait me,” said the Swedish lady, and wept. “I get no word to them. What they think? They will say bad things have happen to me.”

“How long shall we be here?” demanded Mary Debenham. “Doesn’t anybodyknow?”

Her voice sounded impatient, but Poirot noted that there were no signs of that almost feverish anxiety which she had displayed during the check to the Taurus Express.

Mrs. Hubbard was off again.

“There isn’t anybody knows a thing on this train. And nobody’s trying todo anything. Just a pack of useless foreigners. Why, if this were at home, there’d be someone at leasttrying to do something!”

Arbuthnot turned to Poirot and spoke in careful British French.

“Vousetes un directeur de la ligne, je crois, Monsieur.Vous pouvez nous dire-”

Smiling, Poirot corrected him.

“No, no,” he said in English. “It is not I. You confound me with my friend, M. Bouc.”