Murder on the Orient Express

Agatha Christie 
™
 MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS 
38
“We will go into all that presently. Let us first make sure that we have seen all there is to be 
seen here.” 
Quickly and deftly he went once more through the pockets of the dead man’s clothes but 
found nothing there of interest. He tried the communicating door which led through to the next 
compartment, but it was bolted on the other side. 
“There is one thing that I do not understand,” said Dr. Constantine. “If the murderer did not 
escape through the window, and if this communicating door was bolted on the other side, and if 
the door into the corridor was not only locked on the inside but chained, how then did the 
murderer leave the compartment?” 
“That is what the audience says when a person bound hand and foot is shut into a cabinet—
and disappears.” 
“You mean—?” 
“I mean,” explained Poirot, “that if the murderer intended us to believe that he had escaped by 
way of the window, he would naturally make it appear that the other two exits were impossible. 
Like the ‘disappearing person’ in the cabinet, it is a trick. It is our business to find out how the 
trick is done. 
He locked the communicating door on their side—“in case,” he said, “the excellent Mrs. 
Hubbard should take it into her head to acquire first-hand details of the crime to write to her 
daughter.” 
He looked round once more. 
“There is nothing more to do here, I think. Let us rejoin M. Bouc.” 

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