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Murder on the Orient Express - Coggle Diagram

- - - - Adding to the drama of the novel's murder is the complete separation from all outside communications and sources due to the snow. While it provided time for Poirot to solve the case, it also made the process of typical background checks and identifying legitimate evidence significantly harder.
  - - - The repetition of the word "anything" further builds up the suspenseful atmosphere that Christie is creating while also further establishing the character "Mrs. Hubbard" as a mouthpiece of hysteria not to be taken too seriously.
    - - As the reader goes through the story, they are under the impression that this "quiet" is a result of Poirot's authoritative presence and fear of the killer's identity. However, Christie omits the details of their behavior because the true reason for this atmosphere lies in their fear that they will all be discovered.
      - She does hint to the bigger picture in the statement that Mrs. Hubbard was "unnaturally" quiet. It would be expected that her nerves would drive her into a frenzy.
- - - - Beyond his bad first impressions as an "evil" individual, the protagonist is ignorant of Ratchett's identity and why anyone would particularly target him. It isn't until his true name is discovered that he can start to put the picture together, despite the passenger's best attempts to throw him off.
  - - - Previously the man known as Hardman was an eccentric American, until he reveals that he is also a detective who is traveling. This feels like it should give more credibility to him as a source but Poirot remains weary and rightfully so as he was also involved in the murder.
  - - - Originally, Poirot had been investigating upon the basis of questionable clues, but a glimmer of hope appears when not one but two separate accounts refer to the culprit as a small, dark man with a womanish voice. This seemingly massive clue does not help in the slightest as no one on the train remotely fits that description.
  - - - The biggest red herring given to not the characters, but the reader is the msterious "Mr. Harris" who is supposed to be in Poirot's compartment. The small, dark man could have very well been this elusive Mr. Harris who had remained out of sight all this time, but in fact he would never come in to play at all.
- - - - Not only Poirot's acknowledgment of others but theirs of him establishes the neutral perspective of the narrator.
    - - Each character introduced by the narrator through Poirot's perception of them creates an individuality and sense of capability in each separate character.
    - - In his conversation with Mary Debenham, Poirot calls back to the first delay where something had caught fire in the dining car where she appeared fanatic and irritated, however when they are completely immobilized by snow, she shows utmost patience. Poirot's most impressive ability is his ability to notice his surroundings
  - - - Ratchett knows that he is being targetted and so he enlists Poirot's aid in security. In Poirot's eyes, as a seasoned detective, anyone who has enemies never has one. Ratchett understands the trouble that he's in before he is even killed and Poirot knows that if he's being hunted it won't be by just one person.
        
        This foreshadow's the reveal at the end.
  - - - The strategy used by Poirot acts on the correct assumption that everyone could be lying about every aspect of their story. It worked because everyone had someone else to protect due to their personal connections. It is arguable that by this point he has already resolved in his mind that everyone on the train is guilty.
- - - - Mr. Ratchett's assistant; son of the district attorney who failed to prosecute Ratchett for Daisy Armstrong's murder
    - - Countess Andrenyi's governess when Daisy Armstrong was kidnapped
        
        “'Not the fact that Miss Debenham was companion governess in the Armstrong household at the time of the kidnapping of little Daisy Armstrong?'” (301).
      - Mysterious conversation with Colonel Arbuthnot
        
        The statement, "'Not now. Not now. When it’s all over. When it’s behind us—then—'" (23) puzzles Poirot who believed that no one on the train had previously met and when they further denied any connection, his suspicions grew drastically. The resolution takes care of his questions as they had all previously known each other.
    - - Friend of Daisy Armstrong's father, Colonel Armstrong
      - The Pipe Cleaner
        
        "The pipe cleaner is a faked clue" (262).
        
        In Poirot's investigations, he asked each character if they smoked cigarettes of a pipe since one of the clues in Ratchett's compartment was a pipe cleaner. He found that Arbuthnot was the only who smoke a pipe. This threw suspicion on him, but as we would come to find with Poirot, that clue was completely fakes and quite irrelevant.
    - - Famous actress Linda Arden, Daisy Armstrong's grandmother
        
        "Mrs. Hubbard, let me say, played the most important part in the drama. By occupying the compartment communicating with that of Ratchett she was more open to suspicion than anyone else. In the nature of things she could not have an alibi to fall back upon. To play the part she played—the perfectly natural, slightly ridiculous American fond mother—an artist was needed. But there was an artist connected with the Armstrong family—Mrs. Armstrong’s mother—Linda Arden, the actress …'” (335).
        
        In revealing Mrs. Arden's part in the crime, the questions of who was in her compartment the night of the murder and how the murderer escaped fall to the waistside.
        
        The twist of her being Mrs. Armstrong's mother makes her ramblings of her daughter all the more poingant in the beginning of the novel.
      - Connected room with Ratchett; who was in her room when the murder happened
    - - Wagons-Lit uniform button
        
        "The man was right there in the same compartment with me. And, what’s more, I’ve got proof of it'” (129).
        
        After the mystery character that entered Mrs. Hubbard's room "loses a button", the audience is led to believe that an individual working on the train or at least disguised as such is the culprit. This throws both the reader and Poirot off of the trail of any of the entire group.
        
        “'I have lost no button, Monsieur,' he said. 'There must be some mistake'” (146).
        
        Further confusing the evidence, Pierre Michel, the Wagon Lit attendant of the train assures and proves to Poirot that there is no missing button from his uniform. This still leaves the possibility of a disguise, however, Michels's proven "innocence" makes solving the crime all the more difficult.
      - Father of Daisy Armstrong's nursemaid who committed suicide
    - - Lover of Daisy Armstrong's French nursemaid
        
        "Hardman turned away to peer out at the snow for a minute. 'Perhaps you’re right, M. Poirot,' he said. 'But I guess every nation likes its own girls best.' He blinked as though the snow hurt his eyes" (230).
      - "We had first to track Ratchett down. Hardman managed that in the end" (336).
    - - The Handkerchief with initial "H"
        
        “'Well, now, that’s curious, but it’s certainly not mine. Mine are marked C.M.H., and they’re sensible things—not expensive Paris fallals. What good is a handkerchief like that to anybody’s nose?'” (136).
        
        This piece of evidence also threw the detective into confusion as there were only a select few people on the train with the initial "H" and even less who would even use such an expensively made one. Mrs. Hubbard was among the points of interest of this handkerchief and her claim to not use such an item led the detective to investigate names that at first glance had nothing to do with the letter "H". He would find that Princes Dragomiroff was on that list of people.
        
        "My handkerchiefs are always initialled in the Russian characters. H is N in Russian'” (292).
      - Godmother of Sonia Armstrong, Daisy's mother
    - - Chauffer for the Armstrong household at the time of Daisy Armstrong's kidnapping
        
        “'That was in the Armstrong case, was it not? You were the chauffeur?'” (311).
    - - Armstrong's chef
        
        "I laid a trap for her—she fell into it. I said I knew she was a good cook. She answered, ‘Yes, indeed, all my ladies have said so.’ But if you are employed as a lady’s maid your employers seldom have a chance of learning whether or not you are a good cook" (335).
    - - Countess is Sonia Armstrong's sister
      - Scarlet kimono
        
        "Neatly folded on the top of the case was a thin scarlet silk kimono embroidered with dragons" (246).
        
        The biggest red herring given to the protagonist as it can not be found with any passenger and even ends up in his luggage.
      - Husband stabs for her
        
        “'I came to a very odd conclusion. I came to the conclusion that the person who had taken no part in the crime was the person who would be considered the most likely to do so. I refer to Countess Andrenyi" (334).
        
        The Count's love for the Countess leads to him taking the fall for her in case suspicion should fall on her. Even if she had the most motive, she surprisngly did not lift a finger against Cassetti.
      - "instead of Elena, it were Helena" (273).
        
        Multiple characters' names aren't as they first appear to avoid suspicion, most importantly Countess Andrenyi who has the first letter of her name erased hastily with grease. When Poirot runs out of "H" initials to tie to the handkerchief it is taken care of by Dragomiroff.
    - - Daisy Armstrong's nurse
        
        'You were the nurse who was in charge of little Daisy Armstrong?'” (313).
    - - Mr. Ratchett's valet; personal servant of Colonel Armstrong, father to Daisy, during WWI
        
        "I was Colonel Armstrong’s batman in the war, sir, and afterwards I was his valet in New York" (314).
        
        "Then we had to try to get Masterman and Hector into his employment—or at any rate one of them. Well, we managed that" (336).
        
        Once more, certain characters that seemed to meet by chance as M. Bouc indicated in the beginning were perfectly planned. The audience is not left to wonder how Masterman and MacQueen found their way into their positions because Mrs. Hubbard explains the grande plan.
  - - - Poirot uses lists such as this one to keep everything organized and sensical in his own mind. In doing so, he can systematically tie up the loose ends of the plot while keeping things straight for the reader.
  - - - In this explanation, the small, dark man with a womanish voice, got on the train dressed as a Wagon-Lit, murdered Ratchett and then as the train stopped, got back off and escaped.
        
        This guess is quickly dismissed as it has tons of holes in the evidence and disregards key points. It is mostly just a set up to propose the second, 100% accurate solution.
    - - “'And then, Messieurs, I saw light. They were all in it. For so many people connected with the Armstrong case to be travelling by the same train by a coincidence was not only unlikely, it was impossible. It must be not chance, but design. I remembered a remark of Colonel Arbuthnot’s about trial by jury. A jury is composed of twelve people—there were twelve passengers—Ratchett was stabbed twelve times. And the thing that had worried me all along—the extraordinary crowd travelling in the Stamboul—Calais coach at a slack time of year was explained" (330).
        
        From the beginning it was highly unusual for so many passengers to be o a train to the same place at this time of year.
        
        The first guess at the circumstances of murder that it was committed by 2 people, one man and one female, due to the nature of the wounds. It would make even more sense at the variability of the strikes to be 12 different people, men, women, young, old, right handed, left handed.
        
        All of the evidence could be faked and evenly distributed among all passengers and they could still provide alibis for each other.
- - - - They believed they were doing the entire world a favor by killing one man to save many later on and get revenge for those already victimized. The question of is killing a killer justified is one that can be seen across all types of literature and critical thinking, stretching into the tales of Batman. Some hold the view that if you kill a killer you become equally evil. However, others contend that evils must be eliminated from this world for it to be better.
  - - - Earlier in the novel, Poirot makes the statement, "'I belong to the world, Madame,'" (162), and in the final moments of the story, he is faced with the choice of serving the law or the people. Without a doubt, Casetti should not have escaped prison or execution in his trial, and the fact taht he did was a loss for the world. Poirot understands that by letting these people go he is not letting criminals go but grieving individuals who carried out a justice that was stolen from the world.
- - - - While it is a passing comment,the purpose of Arbothnot's comment is immediately clear as he does not seem to see the job of governess as an honorable or respectale job.
  - - - "Discussed world politics and the Government of India and our own troubles with the financial situation and the Wall Street crisis. I don’t as a rule cotton to Britishers—they’re a stiff-necked lot—but I liked this one'” (113).
        
        The reveal of all the passengers being connected sheds an ironic light on this statement as it would be contrued as, usually he doesn't like "Britishers" but this one it okay, when in reality they knew each other already.
      - “'That is just it—it is impossible—quite impossible—that an honourable, slightly stupid, upright Englishman should stab an enemy twelve times with a knife! Do you not feel, my friends, how impossible it is?'” (174)
      - “'That is more difficult. The English, they do not stab" (261).
        
        The dichotimy drawn between nationalities is most prominent between the English and Italian, in particular regarding the use of a knife. The knife represents cunning and a quiet danger. The English are described as dumb, arrogant, and bold while the Italians are described as vicious and deceitful. Both are racist stereotypes that appear to divide a large portion of the guests on the train.
    - - “'and he is an Italian, and Italians use the knife! And they are great liars! I do not like Italians'” (190).
        
        M. Bouc is likely the most notorious of the perpetraters letting his racist judgements cloud his ablity to objectively investigate the crime. He places his hopes on the Italian and acts defeated when doubt is cast elsewhere.
        
        "not like those nasty murdering Italians one reads about'” (315).
      - "The English are extremely cold. Probably it is because they have no figures … But that is not the point. It seems that the Italian could not have done it—a pity. I suppose the English valet is not lying when he said the other never left the compartment? But why should he? It is not easy to bribe the English, they are so unapproachable" (268).
        
        More stereotypes of English behavior being cold and distant.