Murder on the Orient Express

Agatha Christie 
™
 MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS 
92
“Yes, Monsieur. The same one as this—the No. 3?” 
“No,” said Poirot before his friend could reply. “I think it would be better for Madame to have 
a different number altogether. The No. 12, for instance.” 
“
Bien, Monsieur
.” 
The conductor seized the luggage. Mrs. Hubbard turned gratefully to Poirot. 
“That’s very kind and delicate of you. I appreciate it, I assure you.” 
“Do not mention it, Madame. We will come with you and see you comfortably installed.” 
Mrs. Hubbard was escorted by the three men to her new home. She looked round her happily. 
“This is fine.” 
“It suits you, Madame? It is, you see, exactly like the compartment you have left.” 
“That’s so—only it faces the other way. But that doesn’t matter, for these trains go first one 
way and then the other. I said to my daughter, ‘I want a carriage facing the engine.’ and she said, 
‘Why, Mamma, that’ll be no good to you, for if you go to sleep one way, when you wake up, the 
train’s going the other!’ And it was quite true what she said. Why, last evening we went into 
Belgrade one way and out the other.” 
“At any rate, Madame, you are quite happy and contented now?” 
“Well, no, I wouldn’t say that. Here we are stuck in a snowdrift and nobody doing anything 
about it, and my boat sailing the day after to-morrow.” 
“Madame,” said M. Bouc, “we are all in the same case—every one of us.” 
“Well, that’s true,” admitted Mrs. Hubbard. “But nobody else has had a murderer walking 
right through her compartment in the middle of the night. 
“What still puzzles me, Madame,” said Poirot, “is how the man got into your compartment if 
the communicating door was bolted as you say. You are sure that it 
was
bolted?” 
“Why, the Swedish lady tried it before my eyes.” 
“Let us just reconstruct that little scene. You were lying in your bunk—so—and you could not 
see for yourself, you say?” 
“No, because of the sponge-bag. Oh! my, I shall have to get a new sponge-bag. It makes me 
feel sick at my stomach to look at this one.” 
Poirot picked up the sponge-bag and hung it on the handle of the communicating door into the 
next carriage. 
“
Précisément
. I see,” he said. “The bolt is just underneath the handle—the sponge-bag masks 
it. You could not see from where you were lying whether the bolt was turned or not.” 
“Why, that’s just what I’ve been telling you!” 
“And the Swedish lady, Miss Ohlsson, stood so, between you and the door. She tried it and 
told you it was bolted.” 
“That’s so.” 
“All the same, Madame, she may have made an error. You see what I mean.” Poirot seemed 
anxious to explain. “The bolt is just a projection of metal—so. When it is turned to the right, the 
door is locked. When it is left straight, the door is unlocked. Possibly she merely tried the door, 
and as it was locked on the other side she may have assumed that it was locked on your side.” 
“Well, I guess that would be rather stupid of her.” 
“Madame, the most kind, the most amiable, are not always the cleverest.” 
“That’s so, of course.” 
“By the way, Madame, did you travel out to Smyrna this way?” 
“No. I sailed right to Stamboul, and a friend of my daughter’s, Mr. Johnson (a perfectly lovely 
man, I’d like to have you know him), met me and showed me all round Stamboul. But it was a 

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