Anastasia extinguished all the gas lights in the lounge car, save for one small lamp on their table. The flickering kerosene flame cast ghostly shadows which danced eerily upon their faces. 

“Why are you turning off the lights?” Rasputina asked in surprise, glancing around at the darkened interior. 

“It’s important to add a sense of mystique to the atmosphere.” She sat down nonchalantly next to her. “Helps to set the stage for an interrogation, you see.”

“Oh really…” She pursed her lips and shifted her gaze onto the Wagon Lit conductor, concentrating on his tense expression. 

Catching her stare, Machel averted his eyes and leaned uneasily against his chair. His pressed brown uniform had become a disaster of wrinkles and sweat stains; rivulets of perspiration dripped from under his hat brim. He looked overall uncomfortable, as though he wanted to be anywhere else but sitting in front of her. 

“Relax, we aren’t accusing you of anything.” She flashed him a smile. “Yet.”  

He started. “Y-Your Grace, please don’t play with my heart like t-this…” 

“Sorry, sorry.” She looked down at the file labelled ‘Rapport du Conducteur’, which he had surrendered. “Machel, are you sure that this is everything you have?” 

“Yes, Your Grace.” He bobbed his head up and down hastily. “Every information that each passenger has provided the Company with is kept in this file for the Conductor’s perusal. H-have a look yourself, s’il vous plaît.” 

“Don’t mind if I do.” She opened the folio-sized booklet on the table between her and Anastasia, who immediately began writing on a sheet of laid paper with her quill. “…hmm?” 

Anastasia paused and tilted her head at her. “Rasputina, what’s wrong? Did you find something?” 

“No, I was just wondering…” She leaned in and whispered into her ear softly, “since when do you know how to write?” 

“E-eh? I…” Anastasia’s delicate brows pulled together. “I don’t know, it just came naturally to me…” 

She cranked her neck to peer at Anastasia’s notepaper; written on it was a beautifully-calligraphed sentence that read ‘mouvement des Voyageurs’. 

“Your handwriting is wonderful,” she remarked, impressed. “I’m leaving the task of making a copy of this file to you, alright?” 

Anastasia blushed and nodded her head eagerly. “Leave it to me!”

Rasputina turned back to Machel. “For the record, can you please describe how you found the body from the beginning?”

Hesitating, his eyes flitted to the side, then came back to her. “I was in the lounge car having a drink with Monsieur Burdett when Mademoiselle Schmidt, Madame Dragomirecki’s maidservant, approached me with a request to help her retrieve her reticule from her compartment. I naturally complied, and when I entered the wagon-lit, that was when I-I…” 

Scribbling down the names ‘Burdett’, ‘Schmidt’ and ‘Dragomirecki’ on her notepad, Rasputina asked, “did you see anyone entering or leaving the wagon-lit during the time prior to you entering?” 

“I…I can’t say for sure because I wasn’t paying attention to the connecting door, but I don’t think so.” 

“Do you, by any chance, know which of the passengers ordered champagne during the dinner service?” 

“I’m afraid I can’t help you with that, Your Grace…maybe the kitchen and bar staff would know.”

She nodded her head, then flipped through the file again and cleared her throat lightly. “Machel, I can’t help but notice that three of the four pages have the conductors’ names crossed out. What does that mean?” 

“Well, about that…” His eyes flitted away from hers again, nervously glancing around in different directions while biting down on the corner of his mouth. “According to the Wagon Lit policy, there should be one conductor for each wagon-lit on the Orient Express. However, there was a last-minute rescheduling of a different train and they needed conductors, so the other three conductors were reassigned onto that train instead.” 

“Oh?” she murmured. “Pray tell, which train was rescheduled?” 

Machel raised his brows ever so slightly. “Why, the local train to Canterbury via Lancashire, Your Grace. It was supposed to depart at dawn on the 10th, but because a passenger reported a suspicious luggage left on board, the train did not leave Cetheri station until late morning.”

Rasputina suddenly sat bolt upright in her seat. “Machel, do you know who that passenger is? A description, name, anything? What about the suspicious luggage? What was inside it?”

“I—huh—pardon?” He flinched and blinked. “S-s-sorry, Your Grace, I r-really, honestly don’t know about that…” 

She clicked her tongue in annoyance. “What time would that train have reached Canterbury?” 

“T-time?” 

“Just an estimate will do.” 

“Um, an estimate…” he said hesitantly. “Should we assume that the train ran smoothly after the delay, it would have reached Lancashire at around noon and arrived in Canterbury just before sundown.” 

“Are there any trains from Canterbury back to Lancashire at that time?” she demanded. 

“T-the train is a return service, so it would have gone back after the crew handover is completed, Your Grace.” 

“And how long does that usually take?” 

Machel swallowed hard and said, “not more than twenty minutes, I’m certain.” 

She leaned in. “So—hypothetically speaking—is it possible for someone to go from Cetheri station to Canterbury, hop onto the train back to Lancashire and catch the Orient Express from there?”

“Uh, what?”

“Answer me, Machel. Yes, or no?” 

He stammered, “I-I-I guess…that’s p-possible…”

Rasputina tightly knitted her brows together in a troubled frown. Then, she sighed and tossed the file back to him. “That’s all for now. Thank you for your time, Machel. We’ll call for you if there is anything else that we need to clarify with you.” 

After Machel had left through the connecting door, Anastasia turned to Rasputina with a quizzical look on her face. “What was that for?”

“Someone intentionally caused the Orient Express to stall at Canterbury station this morning,” she explained. “I’m merely testing out possibilities at this stage, so I can’t say anything for certain yet.”

Anastasia moved her lips as if she wanted to inquire further, then bit her lower lip. After a long time, she pushed her notepaper towards Rasputina and nodded at it. “This is the passenger list I copied from Machel’s file. Some of the names are quite…interesting, I would say.” 

“Oh?” She studied the handwritten list curiously. 

The click of the connecting door opening interrupted them. Theo, followed by Alphand, Parthenope and Nightingale, entered the lounge car. Their faces wore grim looks, which alarmed Rasputina a little. 

“Something’s off about this murder, bratukha,” Theo spoke before she could ask what the matter was. “It’s more than likely that the killer staged the body for Machel to discover.” 

“What do you mean…?” She took the notepad that Parthenope presented and read it aloud for Anastasia to hear. 

“So the mystery deepens,” Anastasia commented with an enigmatic smile. “Well then, we should split up into three pairs to do our interrogation more effectively. Anastasia will be with me, of course.” 

“I’ll go with Fedya,” Nightingale chimed in, cozying up to Theo in an instant. Rasputina shot her a glare, but she didn’t seem to have noticed it. 

“Madame Verney, s’il vous plaît.” Alphand exchanged a hesitant look with Parthenope. She nodded her head curtly. 

“Rasputina and I will go to the first-class wagon-lits,” Anastasia continued. “Theo’s pair can interrogate the waiter who had interacted with our fake Nightingale, as well as the rest of the crew if need be. In the meantime, Alphand’s team can go straight to the second-class wagon-lit.”

“Wait, before that, let me make copies of Anastasia’s and Parthenope’s notes for everyone.” Rasputina swiftly produced her notepad, made two more copies of each note and passed Theo and Alphand a copy each. “Try to write down a transcript of each interview too. We’ll meet up in the lounge car again after everyone is finished.”