Summary
Chapter 4
When the train briefly stops in Belgrade, giving the passengers a chance to stretch their legs on the platform, Poirot learns that he has been moved to another carriage—M. Bouc’s. Bouc has decided to give up his own so that Poirot can sit in first class. Poirot thanks him profusely. On his way to his new seat, he sees Colonel Arbuthnot and Mr. MacQueen chatting. He informs MacQueen—who was under the mistaken impression that Poirot would be getting off the train at Belgrade—that he has been moved out of their shared carriage.
He then sees Mrs. Hubbard, the American woman who had been visiting her daughter, talking to the elderly woman she had previously sat next to in the dining car. Hubbard gives the woman a magazine and asks if she has any aspirin: she evidently isn’t feeling well. After the old woman leaves, Mrs. Hubbard informs Poirot that she is Swedish, possibly a missionary, and not very good at English. She begins to talk about her daughter, as she does incessantly. Poirot and Mrs. Hubbard then briefly glimpse Mr. Ratchett through his open carriage door. She tells Poirot that she, too, is frightened of him, and that he reminds her of a train robber. In fact, Hubbard says, her daughter has always complimented her strong intuition. Hubbard notes how much she pities MacQueen for having to work for Ratchett.
At this point MacQueen and Arbuthnot stroll down the corridor, deep in conversation about British colonial policy in India. They pass and disappear into MacQueen’s carriage. Poirot and Mrs. Hubbard say goodnight, and Poirot goes to sleep in his carriage, which is beside Ratchett’s. He wakes hours later to a loud yell from somewhere nearby—possibly Ratchett’s room. He notes that the train is stopped, as if at a station. Poirot looks out into the corridor in time to see the conductor knock on Ratchett’s door. As the conductor knocks, a light turns on in a compartment down the corridor. From within Ratchett’s room, someone says, in French, “It’s nothing. I was mistaken.” The conductor leaves to go look at the lighted compartment farther down the corridor, and Poirot goes back to bed. Before sleeping he checks his watch and sees that it is twenty-three minutes to one.
Chapter 5
Poirot lies awake for a long time. The train seems to have stopped moving, and he hears Ratchett walking around the compartment next door. Poirot is about to ring a bell, calling for the conductor to bring him a glass of water, when he hears someone else ringing the bell from their own compartment. He hears the conductor talking to Mrs. Hubbard, and then, once he hears the two finish talking, he calls for the conductor himself. The frustrated conductor enters his room and begins to complain about Mrs. Hubbard, who claims that she saw a man intruding in her compartment. This is an obvious delusion, says the conductor, since the compartment is locked. The conductor also says that the train is stopped indefinitely due to snow.
Poirot goes back to bed, but wakes to the sound of something heavy falling outside in the corridor. He peeks out and sees a woman wearing a red kimono, walking away down the corridor. He also sees the conductor sitting in his spot in the corridor, doing paperwork. He goes back to bed. In the morning he goes to the dining car, where other passengers are gathered, complaining about the train’s delay. Mary Debenham, with whom Poirot strikes up a conversation, once again seems panicked by the prospect of a late arrival. Still, she is unwilling to discuss her feelings with Poirot. Poirot takes note of who is not present: his friend M. Bouc, Princess Dragomiroff, the Hungarian couple, Mr. Ratchett, Ratchett’s valet, and the German maid.
While Poirot is enjoying the company of the other passengers, he is fetched to speak to Bouc. He is brought to a compartment where he finds Bouc, the conductor, the chef de train (a guard), and a man introduced as Dr. Constantine. Bouc explains that Mr. Ratchett has been stabbed to death in his berth. Constantine believes, having examined the body, that the murder took place between midnight and 2 a.m. Bouc says that Ratchett was last seen alive at 12:40, when he spoke to the conductor. Though the window in Ratchett’s berth was left open, Constantine believes that anyone escaping via the window would have left footprints in the snow—and there are no footprints.
The conductor explains that Ratchett’s valet and the dining car attendant each knocked on the victim’s door that morning. Getting no response, they asked the conductor to open it with his keys. The conductor found Ratchett stabbed in at least 10 places, haphazardly. The chef de train insists that only a woman would deliver such passionate blows. Poirot recalls Ratchett’s complaint about enemies trying to hurt him. Bouc then begs Poirot to take on the case, and Poirot assents. Moreover, because the train has been stopped due to snow since 12:30 and there are no footprints in the snow outside, the murderer must still be in the train. Poirot asks for his fellow passengers' passports and tickets, plus a map of the Istanbul-Calais coach, and prepares to investigate.
Chapter 6
Poirot asks to speak to MacQueen, Ratchett’s former employee. Bouc ensures that the dining car will be left empty so that Poirot can comfortably interview suspects there. When he talks to MacQueen, the young American is only slightly surprised to find his fellow passenger acting as a detective: he realizes, upon being reminded, that the name “Hercule Poirot'' is slightly familiar. MacQueen also appears shocked that Ratchett is dead—but also assumes without being told that he has been murdered. He says he has worked as Ratchett’s secretary for about a year, after meeting him in Persia, and that he has helped Ratchett by translating on his extensive travels. But he knows almost nothing about the man’s past, and says that his employer was extremely reticent to share information. He says that Ratchett has been receiving threatening letters and fetches some from his files. The letter-writers vaguely say that they will “get” Ratchett, but Poirot finds the handwriting more revealing than the content: on close inspection the notes are written by two people, each one writing every other word.
Poirot tells MacQueen about how Ratchett asked him for help before his death. He then asks for MacQueen’s opinion of the dead man. MacQueen confesses to disliking his employer and to believing him cruel beneath his polished veneer. He adds that he last saw Ratchett alive the previous night at 10, when he went to take down some notes for him regarding purchases he’d made in Persia. He also says that Ratchett received the last piece of threatening mail the morning the train left Constantinople (like Stamboul, Constantinople is another, older name for Istanbul). Before dismissing his suspect, Poirot asks MacQueen not to say anything to the other passengers. Ratchett’s valet, says MacQueen, already knows the situation—but he’s a British, silent type who won’t blab. Left alone with Bouc, Poirot says that MacQueen seems as if he’s being honest—and while he’s not confident enough to totally label him innocent, he thinks it’s unlikely that a levelheaded man like him would kill someone in such a frenzied manner.
Analysis
It is in these chapters that the novel, which until this point has focused on introducing characters and setting, fully assumes its form as a mystery. Over the course of chapters 4 and 5, readers are privy to a series of seemingly unremarkable events taking place during a long night of travel. Poirot is kept awake by fellow passengers’ noisy habits and, conversely, by the eerie silence of the stopped train. Some readers may even wonder why Christie finds it necessary to describe these events in such detail. Ultimately, two reasons stand out—one stylistic and one plot-related.
In terms of plot, these details are likely to become extremely important later. Readers, who understand that they are working with a mystery novel, know that every detail of the scene might be useful later for solving the mystery. However, they don’t yet know how the details will come into play, or even what the mystery is. For one thing, it’s possible that (prior to the news of Ratchett’s murder) some readers will think he is the killer rather than the victim. Christie’s portrayal of his cruelty and untrustworthiness certainly create some misdirection, so that readers may go through this pivotal scene looking for evidence that he’s committing a murder. In any case, nobody seems more clueless about the nature of what’s happening around him than Poirot. This requires some mild suspension of disbelief: put simply, Hercule Poirot has no idea that he’s a beloved detective in a mystery series, and that his sole function is to encounter and solve mysteries. He thinks he’s a typical train passenger dealing with normal travel annoyances. Readers, of course, know that he’s bound to encounter a mystery, and that any event happening around him may become important later. This is an example of dramatic irony, and in this particular case the tension created by that device is bolstered by the conventions of the mystery novel. Those conventions serve as a contract between reader and writer, in which it is agreed that no detail is superfluous to the central question at the heart of the plot. Poirot, rather charmingly, isn’t in on this contract and has no idea that his everyday life is about to become wrapped up in a murder.
The tension in this novel largely stems from a feeling of claustrophobia and closeness between the passengers in the train. Even before Ratchett’s death, Christie creates a sense that any passenger’s actions or feelings have an outsize effect on the others. The closed space of the train assumes the attributes of a micro-society, with shifting alliances, employer/employee relationships, and even an intricate geography. The repetitive space of the train, with its rows of compartments and seats, is imbued with character and detail in Christie’s descriptions. For instance, Poirot’s shared compartment with MacQueen has an altogether different feeling from the one he moves into beside Ratchett. The nighttime disturbances described in chapters 4 and 5 help fill out the physical and social terrain of the train. When Bouc dramatically announces that the murderer is still on the train, the statement doesn’t just function as a way to narrow down potential suspects. After all, we have just witnessed Poirot’s sleepless night, in which his neighbors’ voices and footsteps are shown to deeply impact something as private as his ability to fall asleep. Voiced against the now-richly textured setting of the train, Bouc’s announcement foreshadows the all-encompassing nature of the new mystery. Readers get the sense that Ratchett’s murder will reverberate throughout the train, affecting each and every passenger. Poirot’s interview with MacQueen shows the first phase of this occurring. MacQueen already knows Ratchett, but Christie indicates that he’s in over his head: being a murder suspect goes somewhat beyond the terms of his employment. By the end of the chapter, it becomes clear that even people with far fewer (evident) connections to Ratchett will find themselves entangled in his murder.
