Murder on the Orient Express

Agatha Christie 
™
 MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS 
133
and could not therefore be masked by the sponge-bag in the least. I was forced to the conclusion 
that Mrs. Hubbard was inventing an incident that had never occurred. 
“And here let me say just a word or two about 
times
. To my mind the really interesting point 
about the dented watch, is the place where it was found—in Ratchett’s pyjama pocket, a 
singularly uncomfortable and unlikely place to keep one’s watch, especially as there is a watch 
‘hook’ provided just by the head of the bed. I felt sure, therefore, that the watch had been 
deliberately placed in the pocket—faked. The crime, then, was not committed at a quarter past 
one. 
“Was it then committed earlier? To be exact, at twenty-three minutes to one? My friend M. 
Bouc advanced as an argument in favour of it the loud cry which awoke me from sleep. But if 
Ratchett had been heavily drugged, 
he could not have cried out
. If he had been capable of crying 
out, he would have been capable of making some kind of struggle to defend himself, and there 
were no signs of any such struggle. 
“I remembered that MacQueen had called attention, not once but twice (and the second time 
in a very blatant manner), to the fact that Ratchett could speak no French. I came to the 
conclusion that the whole business at twenty-three minutes to one was a comedy played for my 
benefit! Anyone might see through the watch business—it is a common enough device in 
detective stories. They assumed that I 
should
see through it and that, pluming myself on my own 
cleverness, I would go on to assume that since Ratchett spoke no French, the voice I heard at 
twenty-three minutes to one could not have been his, and that Ratchett must have been already 
dead. But I am convinced that at twenty-three minutes to one Ratchett was still lying in his 
drugged sleep. 
“But the device has succeeded! I have opened my door and looked out. I have actually heard 
the French phrase used. If I am so unbelievably dense as not to realise the significance of that 
phrase, it must be brought to my attention. If necessary, MacQueen can come right out in the 
open. He can say, ‘Excuse me, M. Poirot, 
that can’t have been Mr. Ratchett speaking
. He 
couldn’t speak French.’ 
“Now, what was the real time of the crime? And who killed him? 
“In my opinion—and this is only an opinion—Ratchett was killed at some time very close 
upon two o’clock, the latest hour the doctor gives us as possible. 
“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—

---