Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

Murder on the Orient Express

Review of the novel Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie.

Published by HarperCollins on 1^st January 1934.

Cost: [3’6 1965, £7.99 2015]

ISBN 978-0-00-711931-8 (Paperback Edition - 192 pages)

I recently purchased ‘The Agatha Christie Crossword Puzzle book’ (compiled by Randall Toye and Judith Hawkins Gaffney – 1981) and the first puzzle was based on The Murder on The Orient Express. So, to solve the clues I had to re-read the novel.

At the start of the story, we find Hercule Poirot about to board the Taurus Express train at Aleppo in Syria, on his way to Stamboul. On board the train there are only two other passengers; a colonel and a young governess - while they ignore Poirot, he studies them, their mannerisms and conversation.

Arriving at his hotel in Stamboul, Poirot receives a telegram requesting his urgent return to England, so he finds himself seeking a compartment on the Simplon Orient Express: Istanbul Trieste Calais. However, in the winter months there are normally few travellers, but on this one particular night the sleeping compartments are fully booked. But when a passenger fails to turn up, Poirot is able to share a second-class sleeping compartment. The train pulls out of the station at 9 p.m. and so begins the most famous journey of Hercule Poirot’s career.

Travelling with M. Bouc, the director of the Compagnie International des Wagon-Lits, they meet for lunch on the second of the three-day journey, where M. Bouc describes their fellow passengers:

“All round 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 and eat under one roof, they cannot get away from each other. At the end of the three days they part, they go their separate ways, never, perhaps, to see each other again.”

Christie allows Poirot to reply:

“And yet,” said Poirot, “suppose an accident –“… “Just for one moment suppose it. Then, perhaps, all these here are linked together – by death.”

Christie has set the scene and given the reader the plot. Like Poirot we are allowed to study the individuals, also eating in the restaurant car; Poirot locks his thoughts away in his memory.

Later that evening, when the train arrives in Belgrade at 9.15 p.m., additional carriages are added to the Calais Express and Poirot is able to move into a first-class sleeping compartment.

M. Bouc reflects:

“There has not been so much snow for years. Let’s hope we shall not get held up. I am not too happy about it.”

That night the corridor of the sleeping compartment coach experiences some activities that disturb Poirot. His only activity is to ask the conductor why the train has stopped – a heavy snowdrift. The following morning Poirot is asked to investigate the unexpected death of Mr Ratchett, in the compartment next his own.

Christie has woven an incredible crime, a man has been stabbed twelve times, the wounds suggesting more than one perpetrator. The door to Ratchett's compartment was locked and chained; one of the windows is open. Some of the stab wounds are very deep, at least three are lethal, and some are glancing blows. Furthermore, some of the wounds appear to have been inflicted by a right-handed person and some by a left-handed person. The untrodden snow around the train proved that the murderer was still on board. It is a closed room scenario. The murderer must be one of the passengers assigned to the sleeping compartments.

All twelve individuals have an alibi for the time of the murder and no apparent link to the dead man. Christie uses M. Bouc to miss-directs the reader. The solution provided by M. Bouc and the Doctor travelling with Bouc are very plausible. However, Poirot recalls his observations of the passengers and realises the only way to get to the truth is to challenge the statements of the suspects by using the statement from each passenger to test the facts provided by another passenger. He is aided by two clues found in Ratchett’s room; an initialled handkerchief and a pipe cleaner. Against his logic Poirot puts together an impossible resolution, it's just not possible. Christie has challenged her reader with the facts and only the astute will have picked up on the truth: an American that only speaks English, replies to the conductor in French; a pocket watch stopped at a time to fool everyone.

In this, Poirot’s 9^th outing, he calls all the suspects together in the restaurant-car, as we might expect. He taunts and challenges everyone, suggesting their guilt and link with the crime. Revealing the guilty party, he offers an alternative solution to the crime of murdering Mr Ratchett. The decision is left with M. Bouc.

I love the way in which Christie develops her characters; we are accustomed to Poirot’s mannerisms and language, but in this story we are given the idiosyncrasies of an American, a Swede, a German, Italian and an English woman. The characterisation is enjoyable to read and adds to the pleasure of the story. As we might expect there are clues placed throughout the story, they only need to be identified by the reader. Although there is no Hastings, M. Bouc replaces him well, misunderstanding the clues and statements from the passengers. It is the boldness and the motivation of the suspects, driven by the miss-carriage of justice that add strength to Christie’s plot. A must read. Rating: 5 stars

Dr James Sheppard

31 August 2015