Murder on the Orient Express

Agatha Christie 
™
 MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS 
110
Poirot nodded amiably. His nod seemed to say: 
“Quite right. That is the proper thing to say. You have given me the cue I expected.” 
He sat very upright, threw out his chest, caressed his moustache and spoke in the manner of a 
practised speaker addressing a public meeting. 
“My friends, I have reviewed the facts in my mind, and have also gone over to myself the 
evidence of the passengers—with this result: I see, nebulously as yet, a certain explanation that 
would cover the facts as we know them. It is a very curious explanation, and I cannot be sure as 
yet that it is the true one. To find out definitely I shall have to make certain experiments. 
“I would like first to mention certain points which appear to me suggestive. Let us start with a 
remark made to me by M. Bouc in this very place on the occasion of our first lunch together on 
the train. He commented on the fact that we were surrounded by people of all classes, of all ages, 
of all nationalities. That is a fact somewhat rare at this time of year. The Athens-Paris and the 
Bucharest-Paris coaches, for instance, are almost empty. Remember also, the passenger who 
failed to turn up. He is, I think, significant. Then there are some minor points that strike me as 
suggestive—for instance, the position of Mrs. Hubbard’s sponge-bag, the name of Mrs. 
Armstrong’s mother, the detective methods of M. Hardman, the suggestion of M. MacQueen that 
Ratchett himself destroyed the charred note we found, Princess Dragomiroff’s Christian name, 
and a grease spot on a Hungarian passport.” 
The two men stared at him. 
“Do they suggest anything to you, those points?” asked Poirot. 
“Not a thing,” said M. Bouc frankly. 
“And 
M. le docteur
?” 
“I do not understand in the least what you are talking of.” 
M. Bouc, meanwhile, seizing upon the one tangible thing his friend had mentioned, was 
sorting through the passports. With a grunt he picked up that of Count and Countess Andrenyi 
and opened it. 
“Is this what you mean? This dirty mark?” 
“Yes. It is a fairly fresh grease spot. You notice where it occurs?” 
“At the beginning of the description of the Count’s wife—her Christian name, to be exact. But 
I confess that I still do not see the point.” 
“I am going to approach it from another angle. Let us go back to the handkerchief found at the 
scene of the crime. As we stated not long ago, three people are associated with the letter H: Mrs. 
Hubbard, Miss Debenham and the maid, Hildegarde Schmidt. Now let us regard that 
handkerchief from another point of view. It is, my friends, an extremely expensive 
handkerchief—an 
objet de luxe
, hand-made, embroidered in Paris. Which of the passengers, 
apart from the initial, was likely to own such a handkerchief? Not Mrs. Hubbard, a worthy 
woman with no pretensions to reckless extravagance in dress. Not Miss Debenham—that class of 
Englishwoman has a dainty linen handkerchief, not an expensive wisp of cambric costing 
perhaps two hundred francs. And certainly not the maid. But there 
are
two women on the tram 
who would be likely to own such a handkerchief. Let us see if we can connect them in any way 
with the letter H. The two women I refer to are Princess Dragomiroff—” 
“Whose Christian name is Natalia,” put in M. Bouc ironically. 
“Exactly. And her Christian name, as I said just now, is decidedly suggestive. The other 
woman is Countess Andrenyi. And at once something strikes us—” 
“
You
!” 

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