Hector MacQueens story

Hector MacQueen was going to go on a trip with his employer, Mr Ratchett. Hector was a good looking man about thirty years old. He was Mr Ratchett’s secretary because he had to help Mr Ratchett with all kinds of languages. But Mr Ratchett had gotten threatening letters. He started to get them a few weeks earlier. Some one or some people wanted to murder him. It said ”We will get you” so Hector assumed that it was more then one person. An other thing was that he thought that Mr Ratchett traveled under a false name. He assumed it was to get away from the people who wanted him dead.

Then the day came when they were going to leave Constaniople. Ratchett got his last threatening letter there. When they went aboard the train Hector MacQueen went to his cabin to get some rest because he had to get up early to catch the train. His cabin was quite ugly. Later on, when he woke up and went to get something to eat. There, there was a detective asking all the passengers onboard the train questions. The questions were stuff like, why they were on the train, who they were and where they were going.

The train was quite big. He just noticed it. There were a few empty cabinets. The one next to Hector MacQueen was empty. 

But Hector MacQueen didn’t know that Mr Ratchett would get murdered onboard the train. The night before the attack he read after dinner he read a book. It was his favorite book that he had owned ever since his childhood. Then a little later he went and talked with a young English lady that lived in compartment number ten. He later, about ten o’clock wrote notes for Mr Ratchett. The notes were about tiles and pottery that Mr Ratchett bought in Persia. He wanted it for a letter he was going to send. That was the last that Hector MacQueen saw of Mr Ratchett before he was murdered. After writing the notes he discussed world politics, the government of India and the Wall Street crisis with the Englishman Colonel Arthur. Hector MacQueen usually thinks that Britishers are stiff-necked, but he liked Colonel Arthur. They talked until two o’clock. He then called the conductor to make up his bed. When the conductor had made up his bed, he went to bed. He and Colonel only left the compartment once, too stretch there legs. They did it when the train had stopped. But when they were going to open the door to there sleeping-car the door was locked. It was cold and snowing hard so we went back to my compartment. He saw the conductor pass by twice during our talk, once he was coming from the dining-car and the other time towards the dining-car.

He thought for a while, but after many hours I decided that it could be a conductor, Mrs Hubbard and somebody else. He wanted to be careful about picking as close as possible. This is why he thought it was them: Press here!

He decided that he wanted to find out more and be sure. So he spied a little on the conductors and Mrs Hubbard and he discretely tried to find out about more information about them. But did it so nobody would expect that he suspected them. But after a couple of weeks he gave up on his search because he didn't get anywhere on it. He decided to leave the mystery for the detective and went to sleep the whole trip without coming out from his compartment.          

                                                                                                The End