Summary
Chapter 7
Poirot and Dr. Constantine go together to Ratchett’s compartment to examine his body. Constantine has already looked at it, and tells Poirot that he’s tried not to disturb anything in the compartment so as not to ruin possible clues. This means he hasn’t closed the open window, even though the little room is freezing. Poirot says that this is probably an attempt to trick investigators: the murderer wanted them to think he or she had escaped via the open window, but the footprint-free snow outside tells another story. The window also has no fingerprints, but, as Poirot reflects, modern criminals no longer make rookie mistakes like leaving their fingerprints at the crime scene.
Turning his attention to the body, Poirot sees that Ratchett’s pajamas are unbuttoned. Constantine explains that he has unclothed him in order to inspect his wounds. He has many, some deep enough to be fatal and some nearly scratches. Constantine also notices something he hasn’t before. Two of the wounds, though deep, have not bled. They look as if they were delivered to an already-dead body. Poirot wonders whether the murderer got nervous and returned to ensure that Ratchett was truly dead, but quickly dismisses that theory as absurd. Constantine also points out that, while some of the wounds could only have been delivered by a left-handed person, others could only have been delivered by a right-handed person. Examining the light switches, Poirot determines that the lights in the compartment were off overnight.
He posits a theory: one murderer came in the night, killed Ratchett, and turned off the lights. Another entered, did not see that Ratchett had died because of the dark, and stabbed him twice more. However, he hedges, this explanation is nonsensical-sounding. Constantine points out more evidence supporting the two-murderers theory. Some wounds seem to indicate a strong and athletic killer (probably, he says, a man or a very strong and angry woman), others a very weak one. Poirot becomes distressed by the strange collection of evidence, but then finds, under Ratchett’s pillow, a loaded pistol. The men begin to search for more evidence around the cabin.
They find a glass of what looks like water, but realize that it is actually drugged: Ratchett was unconscious, which explains why he didn’t use his gun. Beside some charred paper scraps they find two matches, of different design, one flatter than the others. In Ratchett’s pocket they discover a box of matches—the flat variety. But they find none of the other sort. Poirot then spots a woman’s handkerchief, embroidered with an “H.” The killer, Poirot says, has left evidence—just as she would in a film or a book. He then sees a pipe cleaner on the floor. Since Ratchett doesn’t smoke, this, too, seems like evidence—this time evidence of a male killer. Just when they’re marveling over these clues, Constantine spies something he hadn’t before in Ratchett’s pajama pocket: a watch, stabbed just like Ratchett, with the time stopped at 1:15. This, says Constantine, must be the time of the murder. As Constantine grows more excited, Poirot seems increasingly skeptical about this abundance of convenient clues.
Suddenly, he asks for a woman’s hat box. Running through a list of women on the train, he calls the conductor and asks for boxes from the Swedish woman and Princess Dragomiroff’s maid. The conductor brings them. He finds there the old-fashioned style of hat he’s seeking, in which a clump of wire netting is attached to the inside of the hat. He removes these clumps and asks the conductor to return the hat boxes. He then speaks to Constantine about why he doesn’t trust the clues they’ve found. Altogether, they seem too convenient: it strikes him as unrealistic that a man and a woman would each try to kill Ratchett and each drop one piece of incriminating evidence. The one bit of evidence he trusts is the flat match, which he believes was used by the murderer in order to burn a paper. He uses some random objects, including the wire from the hats, to make a makeshift device in order to flatten and illuminate the charred paper scraps lying around. This reveals the words “-member little Daisy Armstrong.”
Poirot announces that he knows Ratchett’s real identity. He is actually called Casseti. Constantine recognizes the name but isn’t sure why, and Poirot promises to explain more later. They quickly seek more clues, and try to get into the adjoining compartment, but the door is locked from the other side. How, Constantine asks, could someone leave the compartment if they didn’t escape out the window and if all the doors out of the compartment are locked? Poirot says that this was done to trick investigators, and to make them think that the killer could only have left via the window.
Chapter 8
Poirot and Constantine find Bouc in the dining car. There, Poirot explains his theory. Daisy Armstrong, he says, was a three-year-old girl in America—the only child of rich and adoring parents. Her mother, meanwhile, was the daughter of the famous actress Linda Arden. She was kidnapped by a gang and held for ransom. Though her parents paid the enormous sum demanded, her body was discovered, revealing that she had been dead for weeks before. The case became famous. Daisy’s pregnant mother prematurely gave birth due to shock and died, and her father then killed himself. It doesn’t stop there. Poirot recalls that the child’s nursemaid, who came from either Switzerland or France, was a suspect in the crime. She was found innocent, but not before she, too, committed suicide. Cassetti was tried, but, thanks largely to his wealth and influence, acquitted on a technicality. He changed his name and fled the country.
Poirot wonders out loud whether Ratchett/Cassetti’s murder is retribution from a rival gang, or revenge from an aggrieved individual. Trying to remember whether Daisy Armstrong has any living family, he vaguely recalls that her mother had a sister. Conversation turns to the clue of the broken watch, which was stopped at 1:15. Bouc points out that, since Poirot heard Ratchett speak at 12:37 a.m., he must still have been alive then. Poirot appears deep in thought as they end their conversation and head to the restaurant car to continue investigating.
Analysis
While much of the mystery-solving as the novel continues will revolve around parsing verbal recollections, these chapters offer up a few physical clues. Objects like the match, the paper scrap with Daisy Armstrong’s name, and the handkerchief provide us with images to hold onto. With the influx of contradictory, confusing stories, these objects are like totems to ground us in the facts of the case. Except, of course, that we can’t necessarily trust their authenticity or helpfulness. Christie, in fact, uses these objects, and the tempting certainty they offer, to emphasize Poirot’s unique talents as a detective. While Dr. Constantine enthusiastically accepts them as evidence, Poirot doesn’t allow himself to be drawn into the straightforward narrative they offer.
Interestingly, Poirot notes that the handkerchief and pipe are suspicious for a very particular reason: they resemble the kind of clues detectives find in murder mysteries onscreen or on the page. In other words, Poirot is a detective within a narrative universe in which the detective genre, with its accompanying formulas, already exists and is well-known. This is the same reason that he is unsurprised by a lack of fingerprints at the crime scene. Today’s public, he says, simply knows the conventions of crime-solving too well to make that kind of error. By including these details, Christie accomplishes a clever, paradoxical goal. On the one hand she makes use of the comforting, expected details that are likely to keep fans coming back for more. Mystery devotees may be attached to the aesthetics of the genre, and might not feel like they’re getting what they’ve been promised without these kinds of bombshell clues. Therefore, Christie works in these details, but only in order to let readers know that they aren’t getting off so easy. A deep knowledge of mystery films and books, in fact, is as likely to mislead a reader as it is to help. In other words, Christie suggests, both Poirot and his seasoned fans have to stay on their toes.
This moment hints at a wider paradox inherent in the mystery genre. Mysteries have certain conventions that can’t be abandoned. At the very least, they’re supposed to involve a bewildering crime, a series of suspects, the search for helpful clues, and, ultimately, a shocking revelation (shocking, but not totally out-of-the-blue: it must in retrospect appear to be the only reasonable conclusion from the evidence presented by the author). Yet, in spite of the demand for these identical attributes in each story, a mystery novel also can’t be too predictable. After all, the plot’s tension is predicated on uncertainty, and the books would lose their appeal if too many of them had similar endings. Therefore, Christie must constantly walk a line between being too conventional and too surprising. Here, she walks that line by including conventional elements, but repurposing them in new ways.
One convention that Christie has to carefully preserve is the narrative distance between reader and protagonist. In order to keep Poirot a slightly elevated, larger-than-life figure, it’s important that readers not have too much access to his inner life. On the other hand, readers do need a way to know what he’s thinking, or else they won’t have a way to make sense of the evidence laid out in the book. This is more or less the narrative purpose of Dr. Constantine and M. Bouc in these two chapters. These men act as stand-ins for the reader, giving Poirot someone to explain things to and helping turn seemingly random bits of evidence into a compelling narrative.
