'Murder On The Orient Express' Summary of the book
Hercule Poirot finds himself the uninvited guest at the scene of an elaborately planned murder on wheels. The Belgian detective is making his way from Istanbul, Turkey, to London, and he is looking forward to a leisurely trip and a chance to clear his head, a chance to rest his “little grey cells,” as Poirot refers to his brain.
A good friend of Poirot, M. Bouc, is an administrator with Wagon Lit, the train company that operates the Orient Express. Poirot prefers to travel first class. Because it is winter, off season for tourists, the detective is assured by Bouc that finding a first-class cabin on the train will be easy. To their surprise, the car leaving Istanbul, the Calais Coach, is nearly full. There is, however, one no-show, and Poirot finds himself sharing a compartment with Hector MacQueen, the private secretary to a wealthy American, Mr. Ratchett.
Poirot is introduced by Bouc to Dr. Constantine, a Greek physician, traveling in the next car. On the first night of the journey, as they sit in the dining car, Bouc points out to Poirot the variety of travelers in the dining car: the rich and the poor. Some are English, some American, some French, some Italian, some Russian, some Hungarian—an array of passengers from differing socioeconomic backgrounds and different cultures. Where else in the world, Bouc wonders aloud, could one find such an assortment of people beneath one roof? Yes, Poirot thinks to himself, perhaps only in America.
The first night passes peacefully, and Bouc moves Poirot from his shared cabin with MacQueen to a private one next door to Ratchett. During the second night of the trip, Poirot has trouble sleeping, awakened by voices, service bells summoning conductor Pierre Michel, and thumping on his cabin door. At about 1:15 a.m., Poirot sticks his head out of his cabin and sees a woman wearing a kimono with a dragon print walking down the corridor. He hears his neighbor, Ratchett, tell the conductor in perfect French that nothing is wrong and that he had not meant to ring his service bell. The train is stopped, too, as an avalanche of snow covers the tracks.
Ratchett, Poirot has determined, is an evil man. The evil shows on his face, and Poirot has taken an instant dislike in him. Earlier in the evening, Poirot had been approached by Ratchett and was offered a job—to keep Ratchett alive. Ratchett has been receiving hate mail and otherwise threatening letters. Poirot turns down the offer of employment.