Murder on the Orient Express

Agatha Christie 
™
 MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS 
112
“That the note was destroyed so carefully can mean only one thing. 
There must be on the train 
someone so intimately connected with the Armstrong family that the finding of that note would 
immediately direct suspicion upon that person.
“Now we come to the other two clues that we found. I pass over the pipe-cleaner. We have 
already said a good deal about that. Let us pass on to the handkerchief. Taken at its simplest it is 
a clue which directly incriminates someone whose initial is H, and it was dropped there 
unwittingly by that person.” 
“Exactly,” said Dr. Constantine. “She finds out that she has dropped the handkerchief and 
immediately takes steps to conceal her Christian name.” 
“How fast you go! You arrive at a conclusion much sooner than I would permit myself to do.” 
“Is there any other alternative?” 
‘Certainly there is. Suppose, for instance, that you have committed a crime and wish to cast 
the blame for it on someone else. Well, there is on the train a certain person connected intimately 
with the Armstrong family—a woman. Suppose, then, that you leave there a handkerchief 
belonging to that woman. She will be questioned, her connection with the Armstrong family will 
be brought out—
et voilà
: motive—
and
an incriminating article of evidence.” 
“But in such a case,” objected the doctor, “the person indicated, being innocent, would not 
take steps to conceal her identity.” 
“Ah, really? That is what you think? That is, truly, the opinion of the police court. But I know 
human nature, my friend, and I tell you that, suddenly confronted with the possibility of being 
tried for murder, the most innocent person will lose his head and do the most absurd things. No, 
no, the grease spot and the changed label do not prove guilt—they only prove that the Countess 
Andrenyi is anxious for some reason to conceal her identity.” 
“What do you think her connection with the Armstrong family can be? She has never been in 
America, she says.” 
“Exactly, and she speaks English with a foreign accent, and she has a very foreign appearance 
which she exaggerates. But it should not be difficult to guess who she is. I mentioned just now 
the name of Mrs. Armstrong’s mother. It was ‘Linda Arden,’ and she was a very celebrated 
actress—among other things a Shakespearean actress. Think of 
As You Like It
, with the Forest of 
Arden and Rosalind. It was there she got the inspiration for her acting name. ‘Linda Arden,’ the 
name by which she was known all over the world, was not her real name. It may have been 
Goldenberg; it is quite likely that she had Central European blood in her veins—a strain of 
Jewish, perhaps. Many nationalities drift to America. I suggest to you, gentlemen, that that 
young sister of Mrs. Armstrong’s, little more than a child at the time of the tragedy, was Helena 
Goldenberg, the younger daughter of Linda Arden, and that she married Count Andrenyi when 
he was an attaché in Washington.” 
“But Princess Dragomiroff says that the girl married an Englishman.” 
“Whose name she cannot remember! I ask you, my friends, is that really likely? Princess 
Dragomiroff loved Linda Arden as great ladies do love great artists. She was godmother to one 
of the actress’s daughters. Would she forget so quickly the married name of the other daughter? 
It is not likely. No, I think we can safely say that Princess Dragomiroff was lying. She knew 
Helena was on the train, she had seen her. She realised at once, as soon as she heard who 
Ratchett really was, that Helena would be suspected. And so, when we question her as to the 
sister, she promptly lies—is vague, cannot remember, but ‘thinks Helena married an 
Englishman’—a suggestion as far away from the truth as possible.” 

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