Murder on the Orient Express (aka Murder in the Calais Coach) by Agatha Christie.
Title: Murder on the Orient Express (aka Murder in the Calais Coach).
Author: Agatha Christie.
Genre: Fiction, detective fiction, mystery, crime.
Country: U.K.
Language: English.
Publication Date: 1934.
Summary: Detective extraordinaire Hercule Poirot never refused an interesting case-but his services were certainly not for sale. When Mr. Ratchett approached him in the dining-car, he spurned the American's generous offer. But when Ratchett was found dead the next morning, Poirot responded with alacrity. Mysterious clues clouded the crime, but one fact was abundantly clear-with the train trapped in a heavy Balkan snowdrift, the killer could not escape, though neither could his next potential victims!
My rating: 8.5/10.
My review:
♥ "Some little success I have had, perhaps." Hercule Poirot tried to look modest but failed signally.
M. Bouc laughed.
"We will meet later," he said.
Hercule Poirot addressed himself to the task of keeping his moustaches out of the soup.
That difficult task accomplished, he glanced round him whilst waiting for the next course.
♥ "What do you think of those two?"
"They are Americans. I meant what did you think of their personalities?"
"The young man seemed quite agreeable."
"And the other?"
"To tell you the truth, my friend, I did not care for him. He produced on me an unpleasant impression. And you?"
Hercule Poirot was a moment in replying.
"When he passed me in the restaurant," he said at last, "I had a curious impression. It was as though a wild animal-an animal savage, but savage! you understand-had passed me by."
"And yet he looked altogether of the most respectable."
"Précisément! The body-the cage-is everything of the most respectable-but through the bars, the wild animal looks out."
♥ There was a sudden jerk. Both men swung round to the window, looking out at the long lighted platform as it slid slowly past them.
The Orient Express had started on its three-day journey across Europe.
♥ "Ah!" he sighed. "If I had but the pen of a Balzac! I would depict this scene." He waved a hand.
"It is an idea, that," said Poirot.
"Ah, you agree? It has not been done, I think? And yet-it lends itself to romance, my friend. All around us are people, of all classes, of all nationalities, of all ages. For three days these people, these strangers to one another, are brought together. They sleep under one roof, they cannot get away from each other. At the end of three days they part, they go their several ways, never perhaps to see each other again."
"And yet," said Poirot, "suppose an accident-"
"Ah, no, my friend-"
"From your point of view it would be regrettable, I agree. But nevertheless let us just for one moment support it. Then, perhaps, all these here are linked together-by death."
♥ At a small table, sitting very upright, was one of the ugliest old ladies he had never seen. It was an ugliness of distinction-it fascinated rather than repelled. She sat very upright. Round her neck was a collar of very large pearls which, improbably though it seemed, were real. Her hands were covered with rings. Her sable coat was pushed back on her shoulders. A very small and expensive black toque was hideously unbecoming to the yellow, toad-like face beneath it.
♥ "Mr. Poirot, I am a rich man-a very rich man. Men in that position have enemies. I have an enemy."
"Only one enemy?"
"Just what do you mean by that question?" asked Ratchett sharply.
"Monsieur, in my experience when a man is in a position to have, as you say, enemies, then it does not usually resolve itself into one enemy only."
♥ The other looked at him shrewdly. "Name your figure, then," he said.
Poirot shook his head.
"You do not understand, Monsieur. I have been very fortunate in my profession. I have made enough money to satisfy both my needs and my caprices. I take now only such cases as-interest me."
"You've got a pretty good nerve," said Ratchett. "Will twenty thousand dollars tempt you?"
"It will not."
"If you're holding out for more, you won't get it. I know what a thing's worth to me."
"I, also, M. Ratchett."
"What's wrong with my proposition?"
Poirot rose. "If you will forgive me for being personal-I do not like your face, M. Ratchett," he said.
And with that he left the restaurant car.
♥ "You are the only patient one, Mademoiselle," said Poirot to Miss Debenham.
She shrugged her shoulders slightly. "What can one do?"
"You are a philosopher, Mademoiselle."
"That implies a detached attitude. I think my attitude is more selfish. I have learned to save myself useless emotion."
♥ "It is as though somebody had shut his eyes and then in a frenzy struck blindly again and again."
"C'est une femme," said the chef de train again. "Women are like that. When they are enraged they have great strength." He nodded so sagely that everyone suspected a personal experience of his own.
♥ "Then it seems," said Poirot slowly, "as though we must look for our murderer in the Istanbul-Calais coach." He turned to the doctor. "That is what you were hinting, I think?"
The Greek nodded. "At half an hour after midnight we ran into the snowdrift. No one can have left the train since then."
M. Bouc said solemnly, "The murderer is with us-on the train now..."
♥ "See you, my dear doctor, me, I am not one to rely upon the expert procedure. It is the psychology I seek, not the fingerprint or the cigarette ash. But in this case I would welcome a little scientific assistance."
♥ "Ah! quel animal!" Mr. Bouc's tone was redolent of heart-felt disgust. I cannot regret that he us dead-not at all!"
"I agree with you."
"Tout de même, it is not necessary that he should be killed on the Orient Express. There are other places."
Poirot smiled a little. He realised that M. Bouc was biased in the matter.
♥ Triumphantly, she hauled a large handbag into view and proceeded to burrow in its interior.
She took out in turn two large clean handkerchiefs, a pair of horn-rimmed glasses, a bottle of aspirin, a packet of Glauber's Salts, a celluloid tube of bright green peppermints, a bunch of keys, a pair of scissors, a book of American Express cheques, a snapshot of an extraordinarily plain-looking child, some letters, five strings of pseudo-Oriental beads, and a small metal object-a button.
♥ "Are you really a detective, then?"
"At your service, Madame."
"I thought there were no detectives on the train when it passed through Jugo-Slavia-not until one got to Italy."
"I am not a Jugo-Slavian detective, Madame. I am an international detective."
"You belong to the League of Nations?"
"I belong to the world, Madame," said Poirot dramatically.
♥ "Do you know if he left the carriage at all during the night?"
"I do not think so. That, I should hear. The light from the corridor-one wakes up automatically thinking it is the customs examination at some frontier."
♥ Poirot looked at her keenly.
"You are, I think, a little bit contemptuous of the way I prosecute my inquiries," he said with a twinkle. "Not so, you think, would an English inquiry be conducted. There everything would be cut and dried-it would be all kept to the facts-a well-ordered business. But I, Mademoiselle, have my little originalities. I look first at my witness, I sum up his or her character, and I frame my questions accordingly. Just a little minute ago I am asking questions of a gentleman who wants to tell me all his ideas on every subject. Well, him I keep strictly to the point. I want him to answer yes or no. This or that. And then you come. I see at once that you will be orderly and methodical. You will confine yourself to the matter in hand. Your answers will be brief and to the point. And because, Mademoiselle, human nature is perverse, I ask of you quite different questions. I ask what you feel, what you think."
♥ "My head, it whirls. Say something, then, my friend, I implore you. Show me how the impossible can be possible!"
"It is a good phrase that," said Poirot. "The impossible cannot have happened, therefore the impossible must be possible in spite of appearances."
♥ "Well, I guess that would be rather stupid of her."
"Madame, the most kind, the most amiable, are not always the cleverest."
♥ "It is true that America is the country of progress," agreed Poirot. "There is much that I admire about Americans. Only-I am perhaps old-fashioned-but me, I find the American women less charming than my own country women. The French or the Belgian girl, coquettish, charming-I think there is no one to touch her."
Hardman turned away to peer out at the snow for a minute.
"Perhaps you're right, M. Poirot," he said. "But I guess every nation likes its own girls best."
♥ "But yes. You think, do you not, that I should have a smart Frenchwoman to attend to my toilet?"
"It would be perhaps more usual, Madame." She shook her head. "Schmidt is devoted to me." Her voice dwelt lingeringly on the words. "Devotion-c'est impayable."
♥ She looked at him with a sudden impetuosity. "You do not say anything, M. Poirot. What is it that you are thinking, I wonder?"
He looked at her with a very direct glance. "I think, Madame, that your strength is in your will-not in your arm."
She glanced down at her thin, black-clad arms ending in those claw-like yellow hands with the rings on the fingers.
"It is true," she said. "I have no strength in these-none. I do not know whether I am sorry or glad."
♥ "You wanted to get me alone. Wasn't that it?"
"You are putting words into my mouth, Mademoiselle."
"And ideas into your head? No, I don't think so. The ideas are already there. That is right, isn't it?"
"Mademoiselle, we have a proverb-"
"Qui s'excuse s'accuse-is that what you were going to say? You must give me credit for a certain amount of observation and common sense. For some reason or other you have got it into your head that I know something about this sordid business-this murder of a man I never saw before."
"You are imagining things, Mademoiselle."
"No, I am not imagining things at all. But it seems to me that a lot of time is wasted by not speaking the truth-by beating about the bush instead of coming straight out with things."
♥ "Was that wise, my friend?" asked M. Bouc. "You have put her on her guard-through her you have put the Colonel on his guard also."
"Mon ami, if you wish to catch a rabbit you put a ferret into the hole, and if the rabbit is there-he runs. That is all I have done."
♥ The other two waited respectfully while M. Bouc struggled in mental agony.
"I have it," he said at last. "It was not the Wagon Lit Murderer who tampered with the watch! It was the person we have called the Second Murderer-in the scarlet kimono. She arrives later and moves back the hands of the watch in order to make an alibi for herself."
"Bravo," said Dr. Constantine. "It is well imagined, that."
"In fact," said Poirot, "she stabbed him in the dark, not realising that he was dead already, but somehow deduced that he had a watch in his pyjama pocket, took it out, put back the hands blindly, and gave it the requisite dent."
M. Bouc looked at him coldly.
♥ "As you yourself have said, what other explanation can there be?"
Poirot stared straight ahead of him. "That is what I ask myself," he said. "That is what I never cease to ask myself."
He leaned back in his seat.
"From now on, it is all here." He tapped himself on the forehead. "We have thrashed it all out. The facts are all in front of us-neatly arranged with order and method. The passengers have sat here, one by one, giving their evidence. We know all that can be known-from outside..."
He gave M. Bouc an affectionate smile.
"It has been a little joke between us, has it not-this business of sitting back and thinking out the truth? Well, I am about to put my theory into practice-here before your eyes. You two must do the same. Let us all three close our eyes and think...
"One or more of those passengers killed Ratchett. Which one of them?"
♥ They had endeavoured to see through a maze of conflicting particulars to a clear and outstanding solution.
M. Bouc's thoughts had run something as follows:
"Assuredly I must think. But as far as that goes I have already thought....Poirot obviously thinks that this English girl is mixed up in the matter. I cannot help feeling that that is most unlikely....The English are extremely cold. Probably it is because they have no figures....But that is not the point. It seems that the Italian could not have done it-a pity. I suppose the English valet is not lying when he said the other never left the compartment? But why should he? It is not easy to bribe the English; they are so unapproachable. The whole thing is most unfortunate. I wonder when we shall get out of this. There must be some rescue work in progress. They are so slow in these countries....It is hours before anyone thinks of doing anything. And the police of these countries, they will be most trying to deal with-puffed up with importance, touchy, on their dignity. They will make a grand affair of all this. It is not often that such a chance comes their way. It will be in all the newspapers...."
And from there on, M. Bouc's thoughts went along a well-worn course which they had already traversed some hundred times.
Dr. Constantine's thoughts ran thus:
"He is queer, this little man. A genius? Or a crank? Will he solve this mystery? Impossible-I can see no way out of it. It is all too confusing....Everyone is lying, perhaps....But even then, that does not help one. If they all are lying, it is just as confusing as if they were speaking the truth. Odd about those wounds. I cannot understand it....It would be easier to understand if he had been shot-after all, the term 'gunman' must mean that they shoot with a gun. A curious country, America. I should like to go there. It is so progressive. When I get home I must get hold of Demetrius Zagone-he has been to America, he has all the modern ideas....I wonder what Zia is doing at this moment. If my wife ever finds out-"
His thoughts went on to entirely private matters....
♥ "I, too, have reflected with great earnestness," said the doctor, unblushingly recalling his thoughts from certain pornographic details. "I have thought of many possible theories, but not one that really satisfies me."
♥ Even the loquacious Mrs. Hubbard was unnaturally quiet. She murmured as she sat.
"I don't feel as though I had the heart to eat anything," and then partook of everything offered her, encouraged by the Swedish lady who seemed to regard her as a special charge.
♥ "In fact you deliberately lied to us in the matter."
"Certainly. I would do the same again. Her mother was my friend. I believe, Messieurs, in loyalty-to one's friends and one's family and one's caste."
♥ "Such duplicity is terrible," said M. Bouc. "But it seems to please you," he added reproachfully.
"It has this advantage," said Poirot. "If you confront anyone who has lied with the truth, he will usually admit it-often out of sheer surprise. It is only necessary to guess right to produce your effect.
"That is the only way to conduct this case. I select each passenger in turn, consider his or her evidence, and say to myself, 'If so and so is lying, on what point is he lying, and what is the reason for the lie?' And I answer, 'If he is lying-if, you mark-it could only be for such a reason and on such a point.' We have done that once very successfully with Countess Andrenyi. We shall now proceed to try the same method on several other persons."
"And supposing, my friend, that your guess happens to be wrong?"
"The one person, at any rate, will be completely freed from suspicion."
♥ "I like to see an angry Englishman," said Poirot. "They are very amusing. The more emotional they feel the less command they have of language."
But M. Bouc was not interested in the emotional reactions of Englishmen. He was overcome by admiration of his friend.
♥ "As to who killed him-"
He paused, looking at his audience. He could not complain of any lack of attention. Every eye was fixed upon him. In the stillness you could have heard a pin drop.
He went on slowly:
"I was particularly struck by the extraordinary difficulty of proving a case against any one person on the train, and by the rather curious coincidence that in each case the testimony giving an alibi came from what I might describe as an 'unlikely' person. Thus, Mr. MacQueen and Colonel Arbuthnot provided alibis for each other-two persons between whom it seemed most unlikely there should have been any prior acquaintanceship. The same thing happened with the English valet and the Italian, and with the Swedish lady and the English girl. I said to myself: This is extraordinary-they cannot all be in it!
"And then, Messieurs, I saw light. They were all in it. For so many people connected with the Armstrong case to be travelling by the same train through coincidence was not only unlikely: it was impossible. It must be not chance, but design. I remembered a remark of Colonel Arbuthnot's about trial by jury. A jury is composed of twelve people-there were twelve passengers-Ratchett was stabbed twelve times. And the thing that had worried me all along the extraordinary crowd travelling in the Stamboul-Calais coach at a slack time of year-this was explained.
"Ratchett has escaped justice in America. There was no question as to his guilt. I visualised a self-appointed jury of twelve people who had condemned him to death and who by the exigencies of the case had themselves been forced to be his executioners. And immediately, on that assumption, the whole case fell into beautiful shining order.
"I saw it as a perfect mosaic, each person playing his or her allotted part. It was so arranged that, if suspicion should fall on any one person, the evidence of one or more of the others would clear the accused person and confuse the issue. Hardman's evidence was necessary in case some outsider should be suspected of the crime and be unable to prove an alibi. The passengers in the Stamboul carriage were in no danger. Every minute detail of their evidence was worked out beforehand. The whole thing was a very cleverly planned jigsaw puzzle, so arranged that every fresh piece of knowledge that came to light made the solution of the whole more difficult. As my friend M. Bouc remarked, the case seemed fantastically impossible! That was exactly the impression intended to be conveyed.
"Did this solution explain everything? Yes, it did. The nature of the wounds-each inflicted by a different person. The artificial threatening letters-artificial since they were unreal, written only to be produced as evidence. (Doubtless there were real letters, warning Ratchett of his fate, which MacQueen destroyed, substituting for them these others.) Then Hardman's story of being called in by Ratchett-a lie, of course, from beginning to end. The description of the mythical 'small dark man with a womanish voice'-a convenient description since it had the merit of not incriminating any of the actual Wagon Lit conductors and would apply equally well to a man or a woman.
"The idea of stabbing is at first sight a curious one, but on reflection nothing else would fit the circumstances so well. As dagger was a weapon that could be used by everyone-strong and weak-and it made no noise. I fancy, though I may be wrong, that each person in turn entered Ratchett's darkened compartment through that of Mrs. Hubbard-and struck! They themselves would never know which blow actually killed him.
"The final letter which Ratchett had probably found on his pillow was carefully burnt. With no clue pointing to the Armstrong case there would be absolutely no reason for suspecting any of the passengers on the train. It would be put down as an outside job.."