Murder on the Orient Express

Hardman’s evidence was necessary in case some outsider should be suspected of the crime and be unable to prove an alibi.

SUMMARY OF THE PASSENGERS’ EVIDENCE

“What’s wrong with my proposition?”

Poirot rose. “If you will forgive me for being personal—I do not like your face, M. Ratchett,” he said.

And with that he left the restaurant car.

“It may be so. But I could not rid myself of the impression that evil had passed me by very close.”

“That respectable American gentleman?”

“That respectable American gentleman.”

The speaker was a short stout elderly man, his hair cut en brosse.

M. Bouc was a Belgian, a director of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons Lits, and his acquaintance with the former star of the Belgian police force dated back many years.

“But I don’t like the idea of your being a governess—at the beck and call of tyrannical mothers and their tiresome brats.”

She laughed with just a hint of uncontrol in the sound.

“Oh! you mustn’t think that. The downtrodden governess is quite an exploded myth. I can assure you that it’s the parents who are afraid of being bullied by me.”

This was a tall man of between forty and fifty, lean of figure, brown of skin, with hair slightly grizzled round the temples.

“The Colonel from India,” said Poirot to himself.

She was, he judged, the kind of young woman who could take care of herself with perfect ease wherever she went. She had poise and efficiency. He rather liked the severe regularity of her features and the delicate pallor of her skin. He liked the burnished black head with its neat waves of hair, and her eyes—cool, impersonal and grey. But she was, he decided, just a little too efficient to be what he called “jolie femme.”

perhaps twenty-eight years of age. There was a kind of cool efficiency in the way she was eating her breakfast and in the way she called to the attendant to bring her more coffee which bespoke a knowledge of the world and of travelling. She wore a dark-coloured travelling dress of some thin material eminently suitable for the heated atmosphere of the train.

There was only one occupant at the moment, obviously the young English lady referred to by the conductor. She was tall, slim and dark—

“Eh bien,” said Lieutenant Dubosc hastily as another pause seemed to be about to occur.

muffled up to the ears

That implies a detached attitude. I think my attitude is more selfish. I have learned to save myself useless emotion.”

And now a passenger lies dead in his berth-stabbed.”

Princess Dragomiroff was missing, and the Hungarian couple. Also Ratchett, his valet, and the German lady’s-maid

I do not like your face, M. Ratchett,” he said

The woman opposite him was a mere girl-twenty at a guess. A tight-fitting little black coat and skir

A very handsome man of thirty-odd with a big fair moustache

Colonel Arbuthnot-alone. His gaze was fixed upon