The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie.
Title: The Mystery of the Blue Train.
Author: Agatha Christie.
Genre: Fiction, detective fiction, crime, mystery.
Country: England.
Language: English.
Publication Date: 1928.
Summary: Robbery and brutal murder aboard a luxury transport ensnares the ever-attentive Hercule Poirot in this mystery. When the luxurious Blue Train arrives at Nice, a guard attempts to wake serene Ruth Kettering from her slumbers. But she will never wake again-for a heavy blow has killed her, disfiguring her features almost beyond recognition. What is more, her precious rubies are missing. The prime suspect is Ruth's estranged husband, Derek. Yet Hercule Poirot is not convinced, so he stages an eerie reenactment of the journey, complete with the murderer on board.
My rating: 7.5/10
My review:
♥ In spite of the handsome fur coat which garbed his meagre form, there was something essentially weak and paltry about him.
A little man with a face like a rat. A man, one would say, who could never play a conspicuous part, or rise to prominence in any sphere. And yet, in leaping to such a conclusion, an onlooker would have been wrong. For this man, negligible and inconspicuous as he seemed, played a prominent part in the destiny of the world. In an Empire where rats ruled, he was the king of the rats.
♥ There was indeed nothing crude about M. Papopolous nor about the goods he handled. He was well known in most European courts, and kings called him Demetrius in a friendly manner. He had the reputation for the most exquisite discretion. That, together with the nobility of his aspect, had carried him through several very questionable transactions.
♥ “I have great confidence in your-er-reputation,” said the antique dealer.
M. le Marquis smiled gently.
“I think I may say,” he murmured, “that your confidence will not be misplaced.”
“You have unique opportunities,” said the other, with a note of envy in his voice.
“I make them,” said M. le Marquis.
♥ “It is annoying,” she continued vexedly, “that one cannot see through a keyhole and hear through it at the same time.”
“It has often annoyed me,” said M. Papopolous, with great simplicity.
♥ “It's a hard thing, Knighton,” he said, “how little one can do for those one loves. I can buy a good portion of the earth for Ruth, if it would be any use to her, but it isn't. I can hang these things round her neck and give her a moment or two's pleasure, maybe, but-”
He shook his head.
“When a woman is not happy in her home-”
He left the sentence unfinished.
♥ “Can't you do anything, Dad?” urged Ruth, after a minute or two.
“I might,” said the millionaire. He waited a second reflectively, and then went on.
“There are several things I might do, but there's only one that will be any real good. How much pluck have you got, Ruthie?”
She stared at him. He nodded back at her.
“I mean just what I say. Have you got the grit to admit to all the world that you've made a mistake? There's only one way out of this mess, Ruthie. Cut your losses and start afresh.”
“You mean-”
“Divorce.”
“Divorce!”
Van Aldin smiled drily.
“You say that word, Ruth, as though you'd never heard it before. And yet your friends are doing it all round you every day.”
“Oh! I know that. But-”
She stopped, biting her lip. Her father nodded comprehendingly.
“I know, Ruth. You're like me, you can't bear to let go. But I've learnt, and you've got to learn, that there are times when it's the only way. I might find ways of whistling Derek back to you, but it would all come to the same in the end.”
♥ She had taken the stones from the case and was holding them against her breast.
The millionaire watched her. He was thinking of the series of women who had worn the jewels. The heartaches, the despairs, the jealousies. 'Heart of Fire,' like all famous stones, had left behind it a trail of tragedy and violence. Held in Ruth Kettering's assured hand, it seemed to lose its potency of evil. With her cool, equable poise, this woman of the western world seemed a negation to tragedy or heart-burnings.
♥ Mrs Harfield, having written so far fluently, came to a dead stop, held up by what has proved an insuperable difficulty to many other people-namely, the difficulty of expressing oneself fluently in the third person.
♥ It was generally recognized that old Mrs Harfield was “difficult.” Companions came and went with startling rapidity. They arrived full of hope and they usually left in tears. But from the moment Katherine Grey set foot in Little Crampton, ten years ago, perfect peace had reigned. No one knows how these things come about. Snake-charmers, they say, are born, not made. Katherine Grey was born with the power of managing old ladies, dogs and small boys, and she did it without any apparent sense of strain.
♥ “That girl's a saint.”
The doctor made a wry face.
“Saints I always imagine must have been difficult people. Katherine Grey is too human for a saint.”
♥ Desperate ills need desperate remedies.
♥ Coincidence - a strange coincidence. He remembered his own half-whimsical words to Mirelle, “Portrait of a lady with grey eyes. I don't suppose I shall ever see her again.” But he had seen her again, and, what was more, she proposed to travel to the Riviera on the same day as he did.
Just for a moment a shiver passed over him; in some ways he was superstitious. He had said, half-laughingly, that this woman might bring him bad luck. Suppose - suppose that should prove to be true. From the doorway he looked back at her as she stood talking to the clerk. For once his memory had not played him false. A lady - a lady in every sense of the word. Not very young, not singularly beautiful. But with something - grey eyes that might perhaps see too much. He knew as he went out of the door that in some way he was afraid of this woman. He had a sense of fatality.
♥ Knighton also rose. He spoke more reluctantly than before.
“In the event of your refusing this proposition,” he said, “Mr Van Aldin wished me to tell you in plain words that he proposes to break you. Just that.”
♥ “Oh, father!”
He turned back sharply. There had been something in Ruth's voice, something so entirely foreign to her usual manner, that he was startled. It was almost a cry of despair. She had made an impulsive movement towards him, but in another minute she was mistress of herself once more.
“Till next month,” she said cheerfully.
Two minutes later the train started. Ruth sat very still, biting her under lip and trying hard to keep the unaccustomed tears from her eyes. She felt a sudden sense of horrible desolation. There was a wild longing upon her to jump out of the train and to go back before it was too late. She, so calm, so self-assured, for the first time in her life felt like a leaf swept by the wind. If her father knew - what would he say?
Madness! Yes, just that, madness! For the first time in her life she was swept away by emotion, swept away to the point of doing a thing which even she knew to be incredibly foolish and reckless. She was enough Van Aldin's daughter to realize her own folly, and level-headed enough to condemn her own action. But she was his daughter in another sense also. She had that same iron determination that would have what it wanted and once it had made up its mind would not be balked. From her cradle she had been self-willed; the very circumstances of her life had developed that self-will in her. It drove her now remorselessly. Well, the die was cast. She must go through with it now.
♥ What a fool she had been! What a fool she was! Like all cool and self-sufficient people, when she did lose her self-control she lost it thoroughly - it was too late... Was it too late?
♥ “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.”
♥ “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.
..“Oh, well - I don't suppose I shall ever see her again. She certainly won't want to see me again. That is the worst of letting people tell you things. They never do.”
♥ “I see, Madame, that you have a Roman Policier. You are fond of such things?”
“They amuse me,” Katherine admitted.
The little man nodded with the air of complete understanding.
“They have a good sale always, so I am told. Now why is that, eh, Mademoiselle? I ask it of you as a student of human nature - why should that be?”
Katherine felt more and more amused.
“Perhaps they give one the illusion of living an exciting life,” she suggested.
He nodded gravely.
“Yes, there is something in that.”
“Of course, one knows that such things don't really happen,” Katherine was continuing, but he interrupted her sharply.
“Sometimes, Mademoiselle! Sometimes! I who speak to you - they have happened to me.”
She threw him a quick, interested glance.
“Some day, who knows, you might be in the thick of things,” he went on. “It is all chance.”
“I don't think it is likely,” said Katherine, “Nothing of that kind ever happens to me.”
He leaned forward.
“Would you like it to?”
The question startled her, and she drew in her breath sharply.
“It is my fancy, perhaps,” said the little man, as he dexterously polished one of the forks, “but I think that you have a yearning in you for interesting happenings. Eh bien, Mademoiselle, all through my life I have observed one thing - 'All one wants one gets!' Who knows?” His face screwed itself up comically. “You may get more than you bargain for.”
“Is that a prophecy?” asked Katherine, smiling as she rose from the table.
The little man shook his head.
“I never prophesy,” he declared pompously. “It is true that I have the habit of being always right - but I do not boast of it. Good-night, Mademoiselle, and may you sleep well.”
♥ “So like the French,” murmured Mr Evans. He was one of those staunch patriotic Britons who, having made a portion of a foreign country their own, strongly resent the original inhabitants of it.
♥ He reflected for a moment or two on the curious combination of chance. How should it have occurred to Ruth, except as the wildest coincidence, that the first person that the maid should run across in Paris should be her father's secretary? Ah, but that was the way things happened. That was the way things got found out.
♥ “But at such times, you understand, a man is not master of himself. He does not reason calmly. Mon Dieu!” he added, with feeling, “if our criminals kept their heads and acted with intelligence, how should we capture them?”
Poirot smiled to himself.
♥ “If - you say if?”
“Yes, Monsieur le Juge, I say if.”
The other looked at him sharply. “You are right,” he said at last, “we go too fast. It is possible that the Comte may have an alibi. Then we should look foolish.”
“Ah, ça par exemple,” replied Poirot, “that is of no importance whatever. Naturally, if he committed the crime he will have an alibi. A man with the Comte's experience does not neglect to take precautions. No, I said if for a very different reason.”
“And what was that?”
Poirot wagged an emphatic forefinger.
“The psychology.”
“Eh?” said the Commissary.
“The psychology is at fault. The Comte is a scoundrel - yes. The Comte is a swindler - yes. The Comte preys upon women - yes. He proposes to steal Madame's jewels - again yes. Is he the kind of man to commit murder? I say no! A man of the type of the Comte is always a coward; he takes no risks. He plays the safe, the mean, what the English call the lowdown game; but murder, a hundred times no!” He shook his head in a dissatisfied manner.
♥ “I take it, M. Poirot, that you no longer exercise your profession?”
“That is so, Monsieur. I enjoy the world.”
“Yet you are assisting the police in this affair?”
“Monsieur, if a doctor walks along the street and an accident happens, does he say, 'I have retired from my profession, I will continue my walk,' when there is someone bleeding to death at his feet? If I had been already in Nice, and the police had sent to me and asked me to assist them, I should have refused. But this affair, the good God thrust it upon me.”
♥ “You have been to the Riviera before, Georges?” said Poirot to his valet the following morning.
George was an intensely English, rather wooden-faced individual.
“Yes, sir. I was here two years ago when I was in the service of Lord Edward Frampton.”
“And today,” murmured his master, “you are here with Hercule Poirot. How one mounts in the world!”
The valet made no reply to this observation.
♥ What do you mean, and who are you?”
Poirot gently uncrossed his knees, withdrew his gaze from the ceiling, and looked the young man full in the face.
“My name is Hercule Poirot,” he said quietly, “and I am probably the greatest detective in the world.”
♥ Behind the gallantry of his manner he was observing her narrowly. There were very few things that the Comte did not know about women. True, his experience had not lain much in ladies of Mirelle's class, who were themselves predatory. He and the dancer were, in a sense, birds of a feather. His arts, the Comte knew, would be thrown away on Mirelle. She was a Parisienne, and a shrewd one. Nevertheless, there was one thing that the Comte could recognize infallibly when he saw it. He knew at once that he was in the presence of a very angry woman, and an angry woman, as the Comte was well aware, always says more than is prudent, and is occasionally a source of profit to a level-headed gentleman who keeps cool.
♥ “Yes, yes. You comprehend me - I have friends everywhere. The Prefect himself-”
She left the sentence unfinished, with an eloquent shrug of the shoulders.
“Who is not indiscreet where a beautiful woman is concerned?” murmured the Count politely.
♥ “I saw it the night he came here,” she said thoughtfully. “The way he looked at you; and you are not his usual type - just the opposite. Well, I suppose it is like religion - you get it at a certain age.”
♥ Poirot nodded his head several times. “It is like this, you see,” he confided, “the Comte de la Roche has an alibi. An alibi, it is a very pestilential thing, and always open to the gravest suspicion.”
♥ The quiet simplicity of the millionaire's manner appealed to Katherine strongly. She felt herself in the presence of a very genuine grief, the more real for its absence of outward sign.
♥ “Do you think that real life is like that?” asked Katherine, smiling.
“Why not? Fiction is founded on fact.”
“But is rather superior to it,” suggested Katherine.
♥ They were met on arrival by Poirot. As the day was warm he was attired in a white duck suit, with a white camellia in his buttonhole.
“Bonjour, Mademoiselle,” said Poirot. “I look very English, do I not?”
“You look wonderful,” said Katherine tactfully.
“You mock yourself at me,” said Poirot genially, “but no matter. Papa Poirot, he always laughs the last.”
♥ “Because, you see, Messieurs, the best way of hiding a thing is by sending it away by the post.”
♥ “The Comte's alibi is still unshaken.”
“But that is nonsense.”
“Yes,” said Poirot, “I rather think it is nonsense, but unfortunately we have to prove it so.”
♥ “Seventeen years is a long time,” said Poirot thoughtfully, “but I believe that I am right in saying, Monsieur, that your race does not forget.”
“A Greek?” murmured Papopolous, with an ironical smile.
“It was not as a Greek I meant,” said Poirot.
There was a silence, and then the old man drew himself up proudly.
“You are right, M. Poirot,” he said quietly. “I am a Jew. And, as you say, our race does not forget.”
♥ He leaned back in his chair and watched the suggestion slowly take effect. No one knew better than Hercule Poirot that the class to which Mason belongs cannot be hurried.
He must give her time to get rid of her own preconceived ideas.
♥ “I have broken with her utterly, and she knows it,” cried Derek angrily.
“You have broken with her, yes, but has she broken with you?”
♥ “You will say that I have no earthly chance of marrying Katherine.”
“No,” said Poirot, “I would not say that. Your reputation is bad, yes, but with women - never does that deter them. If you were a man of excellent character, of strict morality who had done nothing that he should not do, and - possibly everything that he should do - eh bien! then I should have grave doubts of your success. Moral worth, you understand, it is not romantic. It is appreciated, however, by widows.”
♥ “The personality of a criminal, Georges, is an interesting matter. Many murderers are men of great personal charm.”
“I always heard, sir, that Dr Crippen was a pleasant-spoken gentleman. And yet he cut up his wife like so much mincemeat.”
♥ “Ah, Mademoiselle, Mademoiselle, can we ever say, 'I have finished with this or that'?”
♥ Poirot looked at her sadly. “Ah, mais c'est anglais ça,” he murmured, “everything in black and white, everything clear cut and well defined. But life, it is not like that, Mademoiselle. There are the things that are not yet, but which cast their shadow before.”
♥ “I like him very much indeed,” said Katherine warmly; “he is quite delightful.”
Poirot sighed.
“What is the matter?” asked Katherine.
“You reply so heartily,” said Poirot. “If you had said in an indifferent voice, 'Oh, quite nice,' eh bien, do you know I should have been better pleased.”
Katharine did not answer. She felt slightly uncomfortable. Poirot went on dreamily: “And yet, who knows? With les femmes, they have so many ways of concealing what they feel - and heartiness is perhaps as good a way as any other.”
&hearts “Perhaps you are right, Mademoiselle. See you, I who speak to you have seen much of the world, and I know that there are two things which are true. A good man may be ruined by his love for a bad woman - but the other way holds good also. A bad man may equally be ruined by his love for a good woman.”
“When you say ruined -”
“I mean from his point of view. One must be wholehearted in crime as in everything else.”
♥ “..no, please don't answer now. I know what your answer would be. But in case I went away suddenly I just wanted you to know - that I care.”
♥ “M. Van Aldin is an obstinate man,” said Poirot drily. “I do not argue with obstinate men. I act in spite of them.”
♥ “Me? But not the least in the world, Monsieur. Not for a moment did I take that statement seriously. Ah no, indeed! I know men, Monsieur; they say many wild things. It would be an odd state of affairs if one were to take all they said au pied de la lettre.”
♥ “The squirrel, my good Georges, collects nuts. He stores them up in the autumn so that they may be of advantage to him later. To make a success of humanity, Georges, we must profit by the lessons of those below us in the animal kingdom. I have always done so. I have been the cat, watching at the mouse hole. I have been the good dog following up the scent, and not taking my nose from the trail. And also, my good Georges, I have been the squirrel. I have stored away the little fact here, the little fact there. I go now to my store and I take out one particular nut, a nut that I stored away - let me see, seventeen years ago. You follow me, Georges?”
“I should hardly have thought, sir,” said George, “that nuts would have kept so long as that, though I know one can do wonders with preserving bottles.”
Poirot looked at him and smiled.
♥ “This is where the suicides take place,” said Zia.
Poirot shrugged his shoulders. “So it is said. Men are foolish, are they not, Mademoiselle? To eat, to drink, to breathe the good air, it is a very pleasant thing, Mademoiselle. One is foolish to leave all that simply because one has no money - or because the heart aches. L'amour, it causes many fatalities, does it not?”
Zia laughed.
“You should not laugh at love, Mademoiselle,” said Poirot, shaking an energetic forefinger at her. “You who are young and beautiful.”
♥ Katherine read this characteristic epistle through twice, then she laid it down and stared out of her bedroom window across the blue waters of the Mediterranean. She felt a curious lump in her throat. A sudden wave of longing for St Mary Mead swept over her. So full of familiar, everyday, stupid little things - and yet - home. She felt very inclined to lay her head down on her arms and indulge in a real good cry.
♥ “No one told me,” he said quietly. “I guessed. It was a good guess, was it not, Mademoiselle? You see, unless you are good at guessing, it is not much use being a detective.”
♥ “They take their course,” he said.
“And you are just letting them take their course?”
He looked at Lenox a little sadly.
“You are young, Mademoiselle, but there are three things that cannot be hurried - le bon Dieu, Nature, and old people.”
♥ “A thousand thanks for your hospitality, Mesdemoiselles,” he cried, “it has been a most charming luncheon. Ma foi, I needed it!” He swelled out his chest and thumped it. “I am now a lion - a giant. Ah, Mademoiselle Katherine, you have not seen me as I can be. You have seen the gentle, the calm Hercule Poirot; but there is another Hercule Poirot. I go now to bully, to threaten, to strike terror into the hearts of those who listen to me.”
He looked at them in a self-satisfied way, and they both appeared to be duly impressed, though Lenox was biting her under lip, and the corners of Katherine's mouth had a suspicious twitch.
“And I shall do it,” he said gravely. “Oh yes, I shall succeed.”
♥ “Yes, yes, it is as I say. You tell your lies and you think nobody knows. But there are two people who know. Yes - two people. One is le bon Dieu -”
He raised a hand to heaven, and then settling himself back in his chair and shutting his eyelids, he murmured comfortably:
“And the other is Hercule Poirot.”
♥ “You can't see much of the child's face, can you? But I dare say that is just as well. Things go by contraries in this world and beautiful mothers have hideous children. I dare say the photographer realized that to take the back of the child's head was the best thing he could do for her.”
♥ “I was wrong about that young man of yours. A man when he is making up to anybody can be cordial and gallant and full of little attentions and altogether charming. But when a man is really in love he can't help looking like a sheep. Now, whenever that young man looked at you he looked like a sheep. I take back all I said this morning. It is genuine.”
♥ “Nonsense,” said Katherine lightly.
“Never does Hercule Poirot talk nonsense. It is as I say.”
♥ “I went there to get certain information. I saw a particular personage and I threatened him - yes, Mademoiselle, I, Hercule Poirot, threatened him.”
“With the police?”
“No,” said Poirot drily, “with the Press - a much more deadly weapon.”
♥ “I am not clever like you, Monsieur Poirot. Half the things that you have been telling me don't seem to me to point anywhere at all. The ideas that came to me came from such an entirely different angle -”
“Ah, but that is always so,” said Poirot quietly. “A mirror shows the truth, but everyone stands in a different place for looking into the mirror. ..As I told you, Mademoiselle, one stands at a different angle for looking into the mirror, but it is the same mirror and the same things are reflected there.”
♥ “Are you mad, Monsieur Poirot?”
It was Van Aldin who spoke.
“No,” said Poirot, “I am not mad. I am eccentric, perhaps - at least certain people say so; but as regards my profession, I am very much, as one says, 'all there.'”
♥ “Monsieur Van Aldin, Ruth Kettering was dead before the train arrived at the Gare de Lyon. It was Ada Mason, dressed in her mistress's very distinctive clothing, who purchased a dinner basket and who made that very necessary statement to the conductor.”
“Impossible!”
“No, no, Monsieur Van Aldin; not impossible. Les femmes, they look so much alike nowadays that one identifies them more by their clothing than by their faces.”
♥ “I guess you know what this means to me, Monsieur Poirot,” he said huskily. “I am sending you round a cheque in the morning, but no cheque in the world will express what I feel about what you have done for me. You are the goods, Monsieur Poirot. Every time, you are the goods.”
Poirot rose to his feet; his chest swelled.
“I am only Hercule Poirot,” he said modestly, “yet, as you say, in my own way I am a big man, even as you also are a big man. I am glad and happy to have been of service to you. Now I go to repair the damages caused by travel.”
♥ A polite exchange of farewells followed, and when Poirot was out of earshot, Monsieur Papopolous turned to his daughter.
“Zia,” he said, with feeling, “that man is the devil!”
“I like him.”
“I like him myself,” admitted Monsieur Papopolous. “But he is the devil, all the same.”
♥ “She is very reserved. She trusts no one.”
“She might have trusted me,” said Lenox, with a shade of bitterness.
“Yes,” said Poirot gravely, “she might have trusted you. But Mademoiselle Katherine has spent a great deal of her life listening, and those who have listened do not find it easy to talk; they keep their sorrows and joys to themselves and tell no one.”
♥ “That is that damned Blue Train,” said Lenox. “Trains are relentless things, aren't they, Monsieur Poirot? People are murdered and die, but they go on just the same. I am talking nonsense, but you know what I mean.”
“Yes, yes, I know. Life is like a train, Mademoiselle. It goes on. And it is a good thing that that is so.”
“Why?”
“Because the train gets to its journey's end at last, and there is a proverb about that in your language, Mademoiselle.”
“'Journeys end in lovers meeting.'” Lenox laughed. “That is not going to be true for me.”
“Yes - yes, it is true. You are young, younger than you yourself know. Trust the train, Mademoiselle, for it is le bon Dieu who drives it.”
The whistle of the engine came again.
“Trust the train, Mademoiselle,” murmured Poirot again. “And trust Hercule Poirot. He knows.”