#19 – Murder on the Orient Express

Poirot is returning from the Middle East and faces the prospect of travelling in an ordinary carriage until M. Bouc, an old friend and director of the Orient Express, insists that he can have the second-class berth of a passenger who has not arrived.

During the journey he is asked for protection from a rich American, Samuel Ratchett, but he declines to help as he dislikes the man’s face.

The next day he wakes to find that the train is snowbound and that Ratchett’s fears were well founded – he has been stabbed to death in the night. A scrap of paper reveals his criminal past and a strong motive for murder.

Without the resources of the police to check his fellow travellers’ bona fides all that Poirot can do is interview each of them in turn and then sit back and sift the truth from the lies until he proposes two very different solutions and is up to the reader to decide which one is correct.

Due to two all-star film adaptations and the central premise, this is almost certainly Christie’s most famous novel and is still worth reading, even if you know what is going to happen.

Recurring character development

Hercule Poirot

Has just completed a case that has saved the honour of the French Army and averted much bloodshed. This was done for a General who had once saved his life.

Mary Debenham believes that his moustaches are enormous – a fact noted during discussions of Kenneth Branagh’s choice of facial hair in the 2017 film version.

Is returning to London to continue working on the Kassner Case which has developed as he had predicted.

Has made enough money to only take cases that interest him.

Needs to smoke whilst he reflects on the evidence.

Signs of the Times

Poirot begins his journey on the “Taurus Express” from Aleppo to Constantinople/Istanbul. Run by the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits, the service began in 1930 and started in Baghdad, although until 1940 the stage from Kirkuk to Nusaybin was by motor coach. It is now only an internal overnight service from Eskisehir and Adana.

The Orient Express was a luxury train service which originated in 1882 with a round trip from Paris to Vienna. The Simplon-Orient Express used by Poirot ran from Istanbul (also known by Westerners as Stamboul) to Calais via Sofia, Belgrade, Venice, Milan, the Simplon Tunnel, Lausanne, and Paris. The service declined due to the advent of high speed trains with the final service in 2009 being just Strasbourg to Vienna.

The Armstrong Kidnapping is modelled on the real-life Lindbergh Kidnapping of 1932 where the son of aviator Charles Lindbergh was abducted and murdered.

Mrs Hubbard’s handbag contains a packet of Glauber’s salts which are a type of laxative.

Princess Dragomiroff refers to Linda Arden playing Magda. That would be in Hermann Sudermann’s play “Heimat” (1893) translated into English as “Magda” (1896). The role was taken by prominent actresses of the time such as Sarah Bernhardt and Mrs Patrick Campbell.

Arbuthnot and MacQueen discuss international affairs including Stalin’s Five Year Plan. The Soviet Union ran a number of centralised economic Five Year Plans, initially to speed up the country’s industrialisation. The first plan ran from 1928-1932 and the second 1933-1937.

All the male passengers of the Istanbul-Calais coach are smokers with the possible exception of MacQueen.

Debenham & Freebody was a department store in Wigmore Street, London and was part of what is now Debenhams plc.

Hardman plans to take any remaining whisky back to America in a bottle labelled hair wash. Prohibition of alcohol was in force in the USA from January 1920 to December 1933. The novel was published in January 1934.

References to previous works

Poirot says that based on his reading of Dickens, Mr Harris will not arrive. Hastings alluded to the non-existent Mrs Harris in “Peril at End House”.

Pierre Michel was also the name of the conductor in “The Mystery of the Blue Train” but Poirot makes no reference to his presence at the scene of two murders so maybe they are not the same man.

Vintage Reading Challenge

The murder takes place on a train so fulfils “Where – on a mode of transportation”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

#19 – Murder on the Orient Express – WITH SPOILERS

Poirot is returning from the Middle East and faces the prospect of travelling in an ordinary carriage until M. Bouc, an old friend and director of the Orient Express, insists that he can have the second-class berth of a passenger who has not arrived.

During the journey he is asked for protection from a rich American, Samuel Ratchett, but he declines to help as he dislikes the man’s face.

The next day he wakes to find that the train is snowbound and that Ratchett’s fears were well founded – he has been stabbed to death in the night. A scrap of paper reveals his criminal past and a strong motive for murder.

Without the resources of the police to check his fellow travellers’ bona fides all that Poirot can do is interview each of them in turn and then sit back and sift the truth from the lies until he proposes two very different solutions and is up to the reader to decide which one is correct.

Due to two all-star film adaptations and the central premise, this is almost certainly Christie’s most famous novel and is still worth reading, even if you know what is going to happen.

Recurring character development

Hercule Poirot

Has just completed a case that has saved the honour of the French Army and averted much bloodshed. This was done for a General who had once saved his life.

Mary Debenham believes that his moustaches are enormous – a fact noted during discussions of Kenneth Branagh’s choice of facial hair in the 2017 film version.

Is returning to London to continue working on the Kassner Case which has developed as he had predicted.

Has made enough money to only take cases that interest him.

Needs to smoke whilst he reflects on the evidence.

Signs of the Times

Poirot begins his journey on the “Taurus Express” from Aleppo to Constantinople/Istanbul. Run by the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits, the service began in 1930 and started in Baghdad, although until 1940 the stage from Kirkuk to Nusaybin was by motor coach. It is now only an internal overnight service from Eskisehir and Adana.

The Orient Express was a luxury train service which originated in 1882 with a round trip from Paris to Vienna. The Simplon-Orient Express used by Poirot ran from Istanbul (also known by Westerners as Stamboul) to Calais via Sofia, Belgrade, Venice, Milan, the Simplon Tunnel, Lausanne, and Paris. The service declined due to the advent of high speed trains with the final service in 2009 being just Strasbourg to Vienna.

The Armstrong Kidnapping is modelled on the real-life Lindbergh Kidnapping of 1932 where the son of aviator Charles Lindbergh was abducted and murdered.

Mrs Hubbard’s handbag contains a packet of Glauber’s salts which are a type of laxative.

Princess Dragomiroff refers to Linda Arden playing Magda. That would be in Hermann Sudermann’s play “Heimat” (1893) translated into English as “Magda” (1896). The role was taken by prominent actresses of the time such as Sarah Bernhardt and Mrs Patrick Campbell.

Arbuthnot and MacQueen discuss international affairs including Stalin’s Five Year Plan. The Soviet Union ran a number of centralised economic Five Year Plans, initially to speed up the country’s industrialisation. The first plan ran from 1928-1932 and the second 1933-1937.

All the male passengers of the Istanbul-Calais coach are smokers with the possible exception of MacQueen.

Debenham & Freebody was a department store in Wigmore Street, London and was part of what is now Debenhams plc.

Hardman plans to take any remaining whisky back to America in a bottle labelled hair wash. Prohibition of alcohol was in force in the USA from January 1920 to December 1933. The novel was published in January 1934.

References to previous works

Poirot says that based on his reading of Dickens, Mr Harris will not arrive. Hastings alluded to the non-existent Mrs Harris in “Peril at End House”.

Pierre Michel was also the name of the conductor in “The Mystery of the Blue Train” but Poirot makes no reference to his presence at the scene of two murders so maybe they are not the same man.

Vintage Reading Challenge

The murder takes place on a train so fulfils “Where – on a mode of transportation”.

SPOILERS

The One Where (Almost) Everyone Did It! I can’t remember what I thought on first reading this but I can imagine it was something along the lines of “normally Poirot goes round explaining why each person has a motive for the murder but each of them is then innocent until we finally get to the killer. Therefore each time someone is revealed to have a connection to the Armstrong household it can’t be them. Therefore it must be someone else with for an entirely different reason.”

Even though the coincidence of all these people being on the train is astounding, I would have allowed for this because there are always coincidences in detective fiction and in Christie in particular there are often false identities. Although the evidence of the stab wounds implies two killers, the reader is unlikely to extrapolate to twelve killers, even though we know that is the exact number of wounds – this has been partially hidden as initially Dr Constantine talks of being stabbed ten, twelve, fifteen times.

The main question is whether Poirot could have got to the truth without the scrap of paper referring to Daisy Armstrong. He would have had to go about his investigation very differently but he still knew that Ratchett had taken a sleeping draught despite having a gun under his pillow – implicating MacQueen or Masterman – that Hardman’s story of being hired by Ratchett was fishy given that Ratchett had tried to hire him and that Mary Debenham had previously been concerned about being late but was so no longer.

The other point of interest is that in the book Poirot has no scruples in letting the killers go free but in both the David Suchet and Kenneth Branagh adaptations – particularly the former – he feels that he is being forced into a cover-up and that the passengers should not have taken the law into their own hands. I think this comes from judging the past with a modern viewpoint as in the UK the death penalty was abolished over fifty years ago and in that case by carrying out their sentence the group would have exceeded what the law would have prescribed had Ratchett been found guilty. I assume that readers of the time would have had no complaint with Ratchett receiving his just deserts – nor I guess would most modern readers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vintage Reading Challenge – October 2018

The Case of the April Fools by Christopher Bush

Fulfils “When – time/date in the title”

Christopher Bush seems to be the break-out GAD author of 2018 with many reviews across the blogs that I follow so when I was buying books to fill in the gaps for the Vintage Mystery Challenge I decided I had to give him a go.

Ludovic Travers accidentally overhears that he is to be a witness to a happening and so he readily accepts Courtney Allard’s invitation to a country house party.

Another guest has been receiving threatening letters but no one seems to be taking this seriously as the scheduled date of death is April Fools’ Day. Although Travers walks into the situation forewarned, murder still occurs leaving him completely baffled.

Travers is allowed to assist the police in their investigation as his uncle is Chief Commissioner and whilst he makes himself useful it is actually Inspector Norris who solves the case thanks to his builder and his children.

At first I was disappointed with the solution (with hindsight that was probably because my wife had hit upon a key point which I had immediately dismissed) but with time the cleverness and elegance of how everything fitted together has grown on me and I will be giving Travers and Bush another go in the future.

A final word of warning: I didn’t read the introductions until I had finished the book for which I was thankful. The first part about the author is no problem but the second part about the book itself I felt went into far too much detail and revealed too much about the plot, though without touching on the solution.

Fire in the Thatch by E. C. R. Lorac

Fulfils “Why – has been read/reviewed by a fellow challenger”

Two newcomers to Devon both want the same tenancy from local squire, Colonel St Cyres, and although only one can get what he wants the other stays in the area anyway having found another property. We see the impact that they both have on their surroundings before the titular conflagration occurs.

A few months pass before Inspector Macdonald, acting upon information received, re-opens a case of accidental death to look for a possible murderer.

Due to my interpretation of the blurb, I was most surprised and strangely saddened when the victim’s identity was revealed.

A very different book to Lorac’s “Bats in the Belfry” and having been slightly disappointed with that, I was much happier with this book. It is an interesting reminder that even during a state of total war, everyday life, including police work, continues in varying degrees of normality, especially in more rural areas.

Kate’s review at Cross Examining Crime can be read here.

#18 – The Hound of Death

A collection of short stories, almost all with a supernatural element, and mostly a supernatural explanation.

1. The Hound of Death – a doctor investigates whether a nun destroyed a convent full of German soldiers during the war using psychic powers.

2. The Red Signal – which of three men should heed the warning not to go home?

3. The Fourth Man – a discussion between a clergyman, doctor, and a lawyer is interrupted by a stranger who knows much more than they do.

4. The Gipsy – why is Dickie Carpenter so afraid of gypsies?

5. The Lamp – Mrs Lancaster takes a haunted house.

6. Wireless – due to a cardiac weakness Mrs Harter is advised to lead a quieter life so her nephew buys her a radio.

7. Witness for the Prosecution – a solicitor is concerned when his client’s alibi starts to unravel.

8. The Mystery of the Blue Jar – why does an unimaginative young man hear a cry for help at the same time every day?

9. The Strange Case of Sir Arthur Carmichael – or the Curious Incident of the Cat in the Night-Time.

10. The Call of Wings – a contented millionaire is shaken to the core by a road accident and its aftermath.

11. The Last Seance – is Elise right that someone will have to pay for her employer’s mediumistic activities?

12. SOS – is a message written in the dust from the past, present or future?

I might have read this before, but if so, none of the stories can have made that much of an impression upon me. A couple of the supernatural stories have quite creepy ideas behind them, but even in one of those it was obvious to me what was going on from very early on. One story benefits from being surrounded by the others as it does have a rational explanation but the reader has been conditioned to expect a supernatural solution.

The only possible saving grace is the inclusion of The Witness for the Prosecution, probably Christie’s best known short story as she later adapted it into a play, which was then filmed starring Marlene Dietrich, but it doesn’t belong in this collection in any way at all.

Unless you are a completist, give this one a miss and find The Witness for the Prosecution in a different collection.

Signs of the Times

“The Hound of Death” has several First World War references. Uhlans were German cavalrymen who were dismounted early in the war. German forces undoubtedly killed and displaced a significant number of Belgian citizens during their occupation, but these atrocity stories were greatly exaggerated by the British to encourage enlistment into the army. The British army won an important victory at Mons and rumours of angels assisting them started to spread after a short story featuring phantom archers from the fifteenth century battle of Agincourt was taken for truth.

Sir Alington West is an alienist (2). This is a now old fashioned name for a psychiatrist but is sometimes still used for those who determine whether a defendant is mentally competent to stand trial.

Jack Trent won the VC for saving Dermot West’s life (2). The Victoria Cross is the highest award of the British honours system given for acts of valour in the presence of the enemy. I had believed that most VCs were awarded posthumously but this is only true for 295 out of a total of 1,358. Three men have received a bar (a second award of the same honour) to their VC.

I was surprised by the use of Alistair as a woman’s name (4).

The lines quoted in “The Lamp” are from “The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam”.

The violins of Rienzi (10) refers to the 1842 opera by Richard Wagner.

Professor Roche is from the Salpêtrière (11). L’hôpital universitaire Pitié-Salpêtrière is a teaching hospital in Paris tracing its origins back to 1656.

Vintage Reading Challenge

Fulfils “What – an animal in the title”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

#17 – Lord Edgware Dies

Although he does not normally touch domestic cases, Poirot is persuaded by the actress Jane Wilkinson to discuss a possible divorce with her husband which he has previously refused to grant.

Poirot is therefore surprised when she is arrested for  Lord Edgware’s murder as he had now agreed to divorce her – although no one else was yet aware of this fact – and she was out to dinner at the time of the crime – although this was due to a late change of plan.

With witnesses prepared to swear that Jane did visit her husband on the night of the murder can Poirot discover who has framed his client and bring them to justice?

A clever but quite unlikely solution is revealed in time – Poirot is able to take time out to work on something else – involving a piece of evidence that has to be considered three times before its full significance is understood and a motive that should have been much more evident to Poirot.

Recurring character development

Hercule Poirot

Until Hastings’ account was published he had not been connected publicly connected with this case, which he considers to have been a failure.

When viewing a body he makes a vow and the sign of the Cross as he does so.

Both he and Hastings play bridge, but he is happier to play for higher stakes and has a good with Sir Montagu Corner.

During an exceptional case (a feather in his cap) he had to guess each suspect in turn like someone reading a detective story.

Captain Hastings

Has always been an admirer of Jane Wilkinson.

Still has his toothbrush moustache.

Signs of the Times

Japp is reminded of the Elizabeth Canning Case where two sets of witnesses swore that Mary Squires, an accused party, was in two different places at the same time. Canning (1734-1773) claimed to have been kidnapped and held prisoner for a month in 1753 and accused Squires and Susannah Wells of having been her captors. The latter were initially found guilty but on further investigation they were release and the former found guilty of perjury. This story was the inspiration for the highly recommended “The Franchise Affair” by Josephine Tey.

Hastings compares himself to the Light Brigade with the quote “mine not to reason why, mine but to do or die”. This is a paraphrase of a line in Tennyson’s poem “The Charge of the Light Brigade” (1854) which detailed the disastrous outcome of a miscommunication at the Battle of Balaclava which caused the British Light Brigade cavalry to make a frontal assault at the Russian guns.

References to previous works

Poirot recalls a case that Hastings was part of which involved a clue that was not believed as it was four feet long and not four centimetres. This may be a case that features in “Poirot’s Early Cases”. In “The Murder on the Links” Poirot remarks that a clue of two feet long is every bit as valuable as one measuring two millimetres.

Lady Yardly from “The Adventure of the Western Star – Poirot Investigates” recommended that the Dowager Duchess of Merton should consult Poirot.

Poirot takes some time out of the case to investigate the disappearance of an ambassador’s boots, a very similar case to that detailed in “Partners in Crime”.

Vintage Reading Challenge

Lord Edgware is stabbed to death so fulfils “How – death by knife/dagger”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

#17 – Lord Edgware Dies – WITH SPOILERS

Although he does not normally touch domestic cases, Poirot is persuaded by the actress Jane Wilkinson to discuss a possible divorce with her husband which he has previously refused to grant.

Poirot is therefore surprised when she is arrested for  Lord Edgware’s murder as he had now agreed to divorce her – although no one else was yet aware of this fact – and she was out to dinner at the time of the crime – although this was due to a late change of plan.

With witnesses prepared to swear that Jane did visit her husband on the night of the murder can Poirot discover who has framed his client and bring them to justice?

A clever but quite unlikely solution is revealed in time – Poirot is able to take time out to work on something else – involving a piece of evidence that has to be considered three times before its full significance is understood and a motive that should have been much more evident to Poirot.

Recurring character development

Hercule Poirot

Until Hastings’ account was published he had not been connected publicly connected with this case, which he considers to have been a failure.

When viewing a body he makes a vow and the sign of the Cross as he does so.

Both he and Hastings play bridge, but he is happier to play for higher stakes and has a good with Sir Montagu Corner.

During an exceptional case (a feather in his cap) he had to guess each suspect in turn like someone reading a detective story.

Captain Hastings

Has always been an admirer of Jane Wilkinson.

Still has his toothbrush moustache.

Signs of the Times

Japp is reminded of the Elizabeth Canning Case where two sets of witnesses swore that Mary Squires, an accused party, was in two different places at the same time. Canning (1734-1773) claimed to have been kidnapped and held prisoner for a month in 1753 and accused Squires and Susannah Wells of having been her captors. The latter were initially found guilty but on further investigation they were release and the former found guilty of perjury. This story was the inspiration for the highly recommended “The Franchise Affair” by Josephine Tey.

Hastings compares himself to the Light Brigade with the quote “mine not to reason why, mine but to do or die”. This is a paraphrase of a line in Tennyson’s poem “The Charge of the Light Brigade” (1854) which detailed the disastrous outcome of a miscommunication at the Battle of Balaclava which caused the British Light Brigade cavalry to make a frontal assault at the Russian guns.

References to previous works

Poirot recalls a case that Hastings was part of which involved a clue that was not believed as it was four feet long and not four centimetres. This may be a case that features in “Poirot’s Early Cases”. In “The Murder on the Links” Poirot remarks that a clue of two feet long is every bit as valuable as one measuring two millimetres.

Lady Yardly from “The Adventure of the Western Star – Poirot Investigates” recommended that the Dowager Duchess of Merton should consult Poirot.

Poirot takes some time out of the case to investigate the disappearance of an ambassador’s boots, a very similar case to that detailed in “Partners in Crime”.

Vintage Reading Challenge

Lord Edgware is stabbed to death so fulfils “How – death by knife/dagger”.

SPOILERS

The next one in our series of the killer was never even included in the list of suspects because it’s “The One Where the Only Person Seen at the Crime Scene Actually Did It”.

The whole business of Carlotta Adams being able to successfully impersonate Jane Wilkinson up close for an evening is quite unlikely (so much so that in the David Suchet TV version they just cheat and the actress seen at the dinner is the one playing Jane, not Carlotta) but if it has succeeded in the short term, it is then likely, as happens, that the illusion cannot be sustained long term. It is poetic justice that it is Carlotta’s intelligence and knowledge of classical civilisation that helps bring her killer to justice.  I think this is the first time that we see in a Christie novel the classic trope where someone realises something of importance (in this case that the Jane Wilkinson from the first dinner party would have recognised that the Judgement of Paris referred not to the French capital but to the Trojan prince being asked to decide which goddess should be given an apple of the Hesperides), manages to accidentally communicate that to the murderer, then dithers around so that they get bumped off before they can discuss it with the detective.

The use of Carlotta’s letter to her sister (the murderer overreaches themselves here and should just have destroyed it) is handled well. First we read the transcript where you can only see the join if you are looking for it, then we see the torn page, where the explanation is that the missing page has been torn off, then finally the significance of the missing corner which turns “he” into “she”.

And then there is the question of the motive which might be less obvious for the modern reader, but which to the Catholic Poirot should have been apparent much earlier: whilst a divorce would have been of benefit to Jane a year ago when she planned to marry someone else, now that she has her sights set on the Duke of Merton, it is of no use whatsoever, and yet Poirot completely ignores this point – if he had he might have seen through her alibi earlier.