It starts with a bit of bad luck. Hercule Poirot, the man with the most famous mustache in literary history, just wants to get home. He’s in Istanbul, he’s tired, and he manages to snag a last-minute compartment on the Simplon Orient Express thanks to his friend M. Bouc. It’s winter. It’s crowded. That's the first red flag. Why is a luxury train in the off-season completely booked? Honestly, if you’ve ever tried to book a flight during a holiday, you know that feeling of "something is up here."
But the plot of Murder on the Orient Express isn't just about a crowded train; it’s about a locked-room mystery on wheels that moves through the snowy Balkan landscape until, suddenly, it doesn't. The train hits a snowdrift in Yugoslavia. It stops. And in the silence of the night, a man named Samuel Ratchett is stabbed twelve times in his sleep.
The Victim Nobody Liked
Ratchett is a piece of work. Before he's killed, he actually tries to hire Poirot to protect him. He knows someone is coming for him. Poirot, being a man of high moral standards and even higher ego, refuses. He says, quite bluntly, "I do not like your face."
It turns out Poirot's gut was right. Ratchett wasn't Ratchett. He was actually a man named Cassetti, a gangster who kidnapped and murdered a three-year-old girl named Daisy Armstrong years prior in the United States. If that sounds familiar, it's because Agatha Christie ripped it straight from the headlines of the 1932 Lindbergh kidnapping.
The Armstrong case was a tragedy that didn't just end with one death. Daisy's mother died in childbirth with a second, stillborn child. Her father, Colonel Armstrong, shot himself in grief. The French maid, falsely accused of being an accomplice, threw herself out a window. It was a total annihilation of a family. And Cassetti? He escaped justice on a technicality and fled to Europe with the ransom money.
Twelve Stabs and a Million Clues
When Poirot examines the body, things get weird. Very weird.
Usually, a murder has a pattern. But Ratchett’s wounds are all over the place. Some are deep, some are shallow. Some were delivered with the right hand, others with the left. It’s like the killer couldn't decide on a style, or there were multiple people in that room.
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Then there are the "clues" left behind:
- A pipe cleaner (Ratchett didn't smoke a pipe).
- A silk handkerchief with the letter "H" on it.
- A charred fragment of paper that, when Poirot uses a clever little trick with a spirit lamp, reveals the name "Armstrong."
This is where the plot of Murder on the Orient Express starts to deviate from your standard whodunit. Usually, a detective finds clues that lead to one person. Here, the clues seem to lead everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Every single person in the Calais coach has a solid alibi, and yet, every single person seems to be hiding something.
The Passengers: A Cast of "Strangers"
Poirot begins his interviews. You've got the Russian Princess Dragomiroff, a woman so old and frail she looks like a "withered toad." There's the loud-mouthed American, Mrs. Hubbard, who claims a man was in her compartment. There's a Swedish missionary, an English governess, a Hungarian Count and Countess, and an Italian car salesman.
It’s too diverse.
Think about it. In a normal world, you don't get that specific mix of social classes and nationalities in one train car unless it’s a setup. Poirot realizes that the only place you’d see a mix like this—butlers, cooks, colonels, and aristocrats—is in an American household. Specifically, a household like the Armstrongs'.
Breaking the Logic of the Detective Novel
Most people get the ending of this story wrong in their memory because they forget how radical it was for 1934. Poirot eventually offers two solutions.
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The first solution is simple: A stranger got on the train at Vinkovci, donned a conductor’s uniform, killed Ratchett, and vanished into the snow. It’s neat. It’s easy. It’s also clearly a lie.
The second solution is the one that changed mystery writing forever.
There wasn't one killer. There were twelve.
Every single passenger on that train (with one minor exception for the Countess, whose husband took her place) was a member of the Armstrong household or family. The governess was Daisy's teacher. The Italian salesman was the chauffeur. The Princess was the godmother. Even the conductor was the father of the maid who killed herself.
They weren't a random group of travelers. They were a jury.
They had tracked Cassetti down, bought out the entire carriage, and took turns stabbing him so that no one person could be held solely responsible for his death. It was a collective execution. They didn't want "murder"; they wanted justice that the law failed to provide.
Why This Ending Still Sparks Debates
The real kicker isn't the reveal; it's what Poirot does next.
Usually, the detective calls the police, the handcuffs click, and the credits roll. But here, Poirot looks at M. Bouc and the doctor. He looks at the twelve people who have suffered unimaginable loss. He decides to tell the police the first solution—the "lone assassin" theory. He lets them go.
This raises a massive ethical question that scholars still argue about today. Is Poirot a hero for showing mercy, or did he betray his own principles as a man of the law? By letting them walk, he essentially agrees that vigilante justice is acceptable if the victim is "evil" enough. It's a dark, messy conclusion for a book that looks like a cozy mystery on the surface.
How to Experience the Story Today
If you're looking to dive deeper into the plot of Murder on the Orient Express, don't just stop at the summary.
- Read the 1934 Original: Christie’s pacing is relentless. You can finish it in a single afternoon, and the way she handles the dialogue is much more cynical than the movies suggest.
- Watch the 1974 Film: Sidney Lumet directed this one, and Albert Finney’s Poirot is arguably the most "book-accurate" in terms of being an annoying, eccentric genius. The ending sequence is masterfully shot.
- The David Suchet Version (2010): If you want a darker take, this is it. It focuses heavily on Poirot’s religious struggle with the decision to let the killers go. It's less of a romp and more of a psychological drama.
- Avoid Spoilers for Others: This is one of the few "holy grail" endings in literature. If you're discussing it, keep the "everyone did it" reveal under wraps for those who haven't seen the 2017 Branagh version or read the book.
The brilliance of the story lies in how it uses the physical constraints of the train to mirror the emotional entrapment of the characters. They are literally stuck in the snow with their trauma until they "cut" it out of their lives. It’s a brutal, brilliant piece of work that proves Agatha Christie wasn't just writing puzzles—she was writing about the breaking point of the human soul.
Check the copyright dates on older editions if you're a collector; the early UK Collins Crime Club editions are the gold standard for enthusiasts. If you're just looking for a good read, any paperback will do, but keep a notebook handy to see if you can spot the "H" handkerchief clue before Poirot does. It's harder than it looks.