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Dumb Witness by Agatha Christie (1937)

‘They don’t understand – old people don’t… they can’t… They don’t know what it is to live!’
(young Theresa, Chapter 2)

‘Let me tell you that no matter is finished with until Hercule Poirot ceases to concern himself with it!’
(Poirot telling off Hastings, Chapter 6)

‘The dog hunts rabbits. Hercule Poirot hunts murderers.’
(Poirot to Hastings, Chapter 9)

‘If one is going to tell a lie at all, it might as well be an artistic lie, a romantic lie, a convincing lie!’
(Poirot justifying fibbing to the people he interviews, Chapter 10)

‘Always trouble after a death, anyway. A man or woman is hardly cold in their coffin before most of the mourners are scratching each other’s eyes out.’
(Miss Peabody, Chapter 10)

‘The various characters in our drama begin to emerge more clearly. In some ways it resembles, does it not, a novelette of olden days. The humble companion, once despised, is raised to affluence and now plays the part of lady bountiful.’
(Poirot acknowledging the hackneyed quality of many of Christie’s plots and characters, Chapter 12)

‘There is something in the depths there – yes, there is something! I swear it, by my faith as Hercule Poirot, I swear it!’
(The conviction that motivates the investigations of not only Poirot but the independent investigators in all her other murder mysteries, Chapter 18)

Dumb Witness

‘Dumb Witness’ is the 17th Hercule Poirot book, the 14th novel (given that the 17 include 2 books of short stories and a play). Interestingly, it is the last one to feature and, indeed be narrated by, his sidekick Captain Hastings, until the final Poirot novel, ‘Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case’ in 1975, a gap of nearly 40 years.

It’s notable because Hastings’s narrative only starts in Chapter 5, the first four chapter having been told by a third-party omniscient narrator, a combining of the two types of narrator which we had previously encountered in ‘The A.B.C. Murders’.

Christie was an restless experimenter not only with the form of her novels, but also the form of her murders. There is a relentless experimenting or playing with who the murderer turns out to be throughout the stories. The experiment in this one is having the murdered person dead and buried months before Poirot is even involved. So instead of being on the spot or arriving at the crime scene the next day, and interviewing everyone for a day or two before briskly revealing the murderer, this is more in the manner of a cold case, months old and, crucially, nobody thinks it was a murder. Everyone thinks an old lady passed away in a perfectly ordinary way, after a series of illnesses and accidents, and left her money to her companion. Bit odd, maybe, but nothing to see here, and the world has moved on.

So why does Poirot get involved or suspect anything untoward? Because, as in numerous previous novels, Poirot is roped in via a letter from the deceased. But the start of the mystery is that she, the deceased, Miss Emily Arundell, died in May and yet Poirot doesn’t receive the letter asking him to come and visit her till nearly two months later, 28 June – and the letter was dated 17 April. Hmm. Puzzling.

Setup

‘Dumb Witness’ is an amusing and entertaining portrait of the clash between the generations in the kind of traditional Victorian family which Christie herself grew up in.

In Miss Arundell’s day, women took second place. Men were the important members of society.

The old-fashioned character of 70-something Miss Arundell is persuasively, lovingly and entertainingly described. Miss Arundell is the doughty old representative of a grand family, the last survivor of five children to long-dead General Arundell, whose drunken binges were kept well hidden from the outside world.

The first four chapters describe her giving a house party for her three closest relatives: Charles and Theresa (brother and sister, children of Miss A’s brother Thomas) and Bella (daughter of Miss A’s sister, Arabella). In these opening scenes we learn how all three of them badly need the fortune Miss A is sitting on i.e. have plenty of motive to bump her off. In fact Charles freely admits telling her to her face that her tightness with money would lead to someone ‘bumping her off’.

These opening chapters are slow and detailed and entertaining and I was just starting to really like Miss Arundell’s character when the fifth chapter jumps us forward a couple of months to the June morning when Poirot opens the letter from her saying she is worried about a family affair and would like to consult him – except that, upon enquiring, Hastings and Poirot discover that Miss Arundell died a month ago, the will was read, she left her entire fortune to her lady companion, Miss Lawson (much to the anger of the three young relatives) and that the fine old Victorian house where the opening chapters are set, Littlegreen House, is up for sale.

If the fears Miss Arundell expressed in her letter to Poirot are justified, if someone was trying to murder her, if she was indeed murdered, then the case has not only gone completely cold but also nobody else, none of the authorities, even think a murder has been committed. Poirot has to first find the evidence that there even has been a murder, before he can think about trying to find the culprit.

All of which explains why I described it as being a characteristically interesting experiment in the form of the detective novel and the type of murder.

So, as you might expect, Poirot and Hastings head off to Market Basing, where they pretend to be interesting in buying the house in order to be given a tour by the servants (who have agreed to stay on and maintain it till it is sold), discreetly pumping them for information along the way. They then interview everyone they can find in the town, namely Miss Arundell’s contemporary, the acid-tongued Miss Peabody, staid young Dr Donaldson, and the two spiritualist sisters, Miss Julia and Miss Isabel Tripp, close friends of the companion who inherited Miss A’s fortune, Miss Minnie Lawson.

Then it’s back to London to interview the younger generation – Charles and Bella and Theresa – in a bid to understand whether a murder did in fact take place and, if so, who committed it…

It seems too obvious to suspect that Miss Lawson, the person who gained most, was the culprit. More like Christie is the notion that one of the aggrieved three younger relatives tried to pull off a complicated plot which backfired and left Miss Lawson the beneficiary. Or is it a double bluff, and the apparently dim, ineffectual Miss Lawson was in fact a cunning mastermind?

First of all we have to accompany Poirot as he delves deeper into bitter grievances and poisonous enmities of yet another Christie family which turns out to be at war with itself.

‘Miss Peabody tells us that Charles Arundell would murder his grandmother for twopence. Miss Lawson says that Mrs Tanios would murder any one if her husband told her to do so. Dr Tanios says that Charles and Theresa are rotten to the core, and he hints that their mother was a murderess and says apparently carelessly that Theresa is capable of murdering any one in cold blood. They have a pretty opinion of each other, all these people!’ (Chapter 18)

Cast

  • Miss Emily Arundell of Littlegreen House in the little country town of Market Basing, well over seventy, the last of a family of five
  • Bob – her wire-haired terrier
  • Miss Wilhelmina ‘Minnie’ Lawson – her paid companion (and lackey), very interested in seances and clairvoyancy etc. Emily doesn’t think much of her: ‘Poor Minnie! Emily Arundell looked at her companion with mingled affection and contempt. She had had so many of these foolish, middle-aged women to minister to her – all much the same, kind, fussy, subservient and almost entirely mindless’ – and: ‘She is a fool,’ said Aunt Emily, ‘but she is a faithful soul. And I really believe she is devoted to me. She cannot help her lack of brains’

Miss Arundell has three surviving relations:

  • Bella Biggs – ‘Emily Arundell’s niece, had married a Greek, Dr Jacob Tanios. And Emily Arundell’s people, who were what is known as “all service people,” simply did not marry Greeks’ – Bella ‘was a good woman – a devoted wife and mother, quite exemplary in behavior – and extremely dull!’ — In Miss Arundell’s mind a Greek was ‘almost as bad as an Argentine or a Turk’ – Bella had money of her own but Tanios has lost it through speculations – now they want money to pay for the education of their children, Mary and Edward and John
  • Theresa – beautiful and grand, engaged to young Dr Donaldson – ‘Theresa’s clothes were expensive, slightly bizarre, and she herself had an exquisite figure’ – she wants Miss A’s money to continue funding her lifestyle but also free Donaldson to do his research – ‘[Miss Arundell] had no control over Theresa since the latter had come into her own money at the age of twenty-one. Since then the girl had achieved a certain notoriety. Her picture was often in the papers. She belonged to a young, bright, go-ahead set in London – a set that had freak parties and occasionally ended up in the police courts’
  • Charles – ‘tall and good-looking with his slightly mocking manner… charming though he was, was not to be trusted’ – Charles wants Miss A’s money to pay his numerous debts
  • Dr Tanios – a big, bearded, jolly-looking man, married to Bella, but a) has lost most of her money on bad speculations and b) is controlling
  • Dr Rex Donaldson – assistant to Market Basing’s established old doctor, ‘a fair-haired young man with a solemn face and pince-nez’, fiancé of Theresa, clever but ineffectual

Others

  • Caroline Peabody – another older lady from a ‘good’ family, shares the same Victorian values as Miss Arundell: ‘They had known each other for considerably over fifty years. Miss Peabody knew of certain regrettable lapses in the life of General Arundell, Emily’s father. She knew just precisely what a shock Thomas Arundell’s marriage had been to his sisters. She had a very shrewd idea of certain troubles connected with the younger generation. But no word had ever passed between the two ladies on any of these subjects. They were both upholders of family dignity, family solidarity, and complete reticence on family matters’
  • Julia and Isabel Tripp – friends of Minnie, spiritualists, vegetarians etc
  • Dr Grainger – Emily’s doctor: ‘a man of sixty odd. His face was thin and bony with an aggressive chin, bushy eyebrows, and a pair of very shrewd grey eyes’
  • Mr Gabler – estate agent: ‘a grey-haired, middle-aged man entered with a rush. His eye, a militant one, swept over us with a gleam.’
  • Miss Jenkins – can’t-be-bothered assistant in the estate agent’s
  • Ellen – the elderly house-parlour-maid,
  • Annie – the cook
  • Mr Lonsdale – local vicar
  • Mr Purvis – the family lawyer, ‘a big, solidly built man with white hair and a rosy complexion. He had a little the look of a country squire. His manner was courteous but reserved’
  • the gardener – ‘a big, rugged old man’
  • local chemist – ‘a middle-aged man of a chatty disposition’
  • Nurse Carruthers – nursed Miss Arundell in her final illness, ‘a sensible-looking, middle-aged woman’

Good humoured, amiable knowledge of life, or the kind of lives her characters lead. Thus the old lady’s bantering relationship with her doctor:

Emily Arundell replied with spirit – she and old Dr Grainger were allies of long standing. He bullied and she defied – they always got a good deal of pleasure out of each other’s company! (Chapter 4)

Poirot’s method

Christie repeats the basics of Poirot’s method.

‘As you say – a regrettable failure to employ order and method in the mental processes, and without order and method, Hastings –’
‘Quite so,’ I interrupted hastily. ‘Little grey cells practically non-existent.’ (Chapter 5)

Suspect everyone.

‘Mon ami, you know my suspicious nature! I believe nothing that any one says unless it can be confirmed or corroborated… “He says”, “she says”, “they say”. Bah! what does that mean? Nothing at all. It may be absolute truth. It may be useful falsehood. Me, I deal only with facts.’ (Chapter 12)

He hates talk of intuition or instinct. These are nothing but the accumulated insights of order and method.

‘Instinct! You know how I dislike that word. “Something seems to tell me” – that is what you infer. Jamais de la vie! Me, I reason. I employ the little grey cells.’ (Chapter 5)

‘You have the mistaken idea implanted in your head that a detective is necessarily a man who puts on a false beard and hides behind a pillar! The false beard, it is vieux jeu, and shadowing is only done by the lowest branch of my profession. The Hercule Poirots, my friend, need only to sit back in a chair and think.’ (Chapter 6)

The importance of psychology

‘Do not neglect the psychology – that is important. The character of the murder – implying as it does a certain temperament in the murderer – that is an essential clue to the crime.’
‘I can’t consider the character of the murderer if I don’t know who the murderer is!’
‘No, no, you have not paid attention to what I have just said. If you reflect sufficiently on the character – the necessary character of the murder – then you will realize who the murderer is!’
(Chapter 22)

Thinking

‘Then think, Hastings – think. Lie back in your chair, close the eyes, employ the little grey cells.’ (Chapter 25)

How to soften up your interviewee

I have often had occasion to notice how, where a direct question would fail to elicit a response, a false assumption brings instant information in the form of a contradiction. (Chapter 7)

Discussions of death and such matters do more to unlock the human tongue than any other subject. Poirot was in a position to ask questions that would have been regarded with suspicious hostility twenty minutes earlier. (Chapter 8)

Poirotisms

As far as I know I’ve coined the term ‘Poirotism’ for the occasions when Christie mocks her creation by having him mangle a well-known English proverb or saying. For some reason ‘Dumb Witness’ is particularly rich in Poirotisms.

‘On the contrary, my friend, ‘any old lie,’ as you put it, would not do. Not with a lawyer. We should be – how do you say it? – thrown out with the flea upon the ear.’ (Chapter 13)

‘The only thing is – I am afraid.’
‘Afraid? Of what?’
He said gravely: ‘Of disturbing the dogs that sleep. That is one of your proverbs, is it not?’
(Chapter 18)

‘It is true that I am pig-headed – that is your expression, I think? Yes, definitely I have the head of the pig,’ said my friend meditatively. (Chapter 21)

Poirot patted her reassuringly on the shoulder. ‘It was the narrow squeak – yes?’ (Chapter 26)

‘Bien,’ said Poirot, rising with the check in his hand. ‘We have done our part. Now it is on the knees of the gods.’ (Chapter 26)

‘She is not one who wishes to wash the dirty linen in public, as the saying goes.’ (Chapter 29)

Poirot and Hastings bicker like an old married couple

Poirot to Hastings:

‘This conversation has occurred on previous occasions. You are about to say that it is not playing the game. And my reply is that murder is not a game.’ (Chapter 15)

Hastings is confused:

‘You know, Poirot, I don’t quite understand all this.’
‘If you will pardon my saying so, Hastings, you do not understand at all!’ (Chapter 25)

Foreignness

Much is made of how the older generation of posh ladies don’t like or trust foreigners, specifically the Greek doctor, Tanios, who Miss Arundell’s niece Bella has married. Animosity against and distrust of him run through the story like a silver thread.

Bella had married a foreigner – and not only a foreigner – but a Greek. In Miss Arundell’s prejudiced mind a Greek was almost as bad as an Argentine or a Turk. The fact that Dr Tanios had a charming manner and was said to be extremely able in his profession only prejudiced the old lady slightly more against him. She distrusted charm and easy compliments.

Or as Miss Peabody puts it:

‘His manners are really delightful. But I don’t trust foreigners. They’re so artful!’ (Chapter 15)

Here’s the housekeeper, Ellen:

‘Miss Bella’s husband, the foreign doctor, he went out and got her a bottle of something, but although she thanked him very politely she poured it away and that I know for a fact! And I think she was right. You don’t know where you are with these foreign things.’ (Chapter 20)

Even Hastings is prey to glib stereotypes about swarthy Mediterranean types:

I must say that my first sight of Dr Tanios was rather a shock. I had been imbuing him in my mind with all sorts of sinister attributes. I had been picturing to myself a dark bearded foreigner with a swarthy aspect and a sinister cast of countenance. Instead, I saw a rotund, jolly, brown-haired, brown-eyed man… (Chapter 17)

Poirot mocks Hastings for his xenophobia:

‘You found him an agreeable man, open-hearted, good-natured, genial. Attractive in spite of your insular prejudice against the Argentines, the Portuguese and the Greeks – a thoroughly congenial personality?’ (Chapter 18)

This of course echoes and amplifies the fact that Poirot himself is a foreigner and outsider in England, although he can see it both ways i.e. sometimes he feels an outside to the class system, posh public school diction about ‘playing the game’, about the intricacies of the aristocracy, and so on. But other times he is able to use his outsiderness, as when he soothes Bella’s irritation at old Miss Arundell for mistrusting her husband.

‘As you say, elderly ladies distrust foreigners sometimes,’ said Poirot. ‘I am sure they think that English doctors are the only doctors in the world. Insularity accounts for a lot.’ (Chapter 16)

Abroad was far away

But it’s as well to remind ourselves that 1936 was not 2025: there were far fewer means of travel, planes were expensive, cruise ships time consuming, and so travel abroad was a luxury, a rarity. Hence the atmosphere of exoticness and luxury which trails around her stories set on the Blue Train or Orient Express or Rhodes. As demonstrated by this statement by Dr Tanios which was, presumably, unremarkable in its day:

‘Yes, indeed. I am very fond of my wife.’ There was a rich tenderness in his voice. ‘I always feel it was so brave of her to marry me – a man of another race – to come out to a far country – to leave all her own friends and surroundings.’ (Chapter 23)

Nobody would think of moving to Greece as a brave action, leaving friends and family for ‘a man of another race’ nowadays.

Sherlock

There is always at least one reference to Sherlock Holmes in every one of her novels. It’s compulsory. Here there are two.

‘Poirot, I – the humble Watson – am going to hazard a deduction.’
‘Enchanted, my friend. What is it?’
I struck an attitude and said pompously: ‘You have received this morning one letter of particular interest!’
‘You are indeed the Sherlock Holmes! Yes, you are perfectly right.’ (Sherlock Holmes)

And she mentions the incident of the dog in the night-time, again.

‘Well, out with it. What’s the interesting point? I suppose, like the “incident of the dog in the night-time”, the point is that there is no interesting point!’ (Chapter 5)

In praise of things Victorian

The sympathetic descriptions of old Miss Arundell take in an appreciation of her old-fashioned habits and values, the Victorian values Christie herself (born 1890) was brought up amidst in her late-Victorian childhood and, to some extent, an affectionate portrait of her mother and her lady friends and their generation. Anyway, the book has notably more references to Victoriana of various types than any of her earlier books.

‘She has made her bed and she must lie on it.’ And having uttered this final Victorian pronouncement she went on: ‘I am going to the village now…’ (Chapter 1)

But her sensible, shrewd, Victorian mind would not admit that for a moment. There was no foolish optimism about the Victorians. (Chapter 3)

This room was definitely Victorian. A heavy mahogany dining-table, a massive sideboard of almost purplish mahogany with great clusters of carved fruit, solid leather-covered dining-room chairs. On the wall hung what were obviously family portraits.

In especial, one big jar with a lid on it seemed to attract him. It was not, I fancy, a particularly good bit of china. A piece of Victorian humour – it had on it a rather crude picture of a bulldog sitting outside a front door with a mournful expression on its face. (Chapter 8)

Morton Manor proved to be an ugly substantial house of the Victorian period. (Chapter 10)

[Miss Peabody] She chuckled – a rich Victorian fruity chuckle. (Chapter 10)

‘He’s a dear little doggie…’

Personally I don’t like dogs. Out on country walks I’ve been terrorised, chased and bitten by them, and seen small children scared out of their wits by huge barking animals, to have anything but fear and aversion to them. Plus the dog poo everywhere. And the streets reeking of dog pee whenever it rains.

But I appreciate that tens of millions of people love dogs, including Christie, and this book is by way of being a tribute to doggy love in the shape of the charismatic wire-haired terrier named Bob, old Miss Arundell’s pet, who everyone claimed to love and play ball with.

I’ve mentioned the two narrators – the third-person narrator who opens the novel and then Captain Hastings who takes over – but in a jokey way there’s a third voice, because Christie spends some time imagining what Bob the dog is saying, via his barks and expression. Thus:

The bushes were thin at that point and the dog could be easily seen. He was a wire-haired terrier, somewhat shaggy as to coat. His feet were planted wide apart, slightly to one side, and he barked with an obvious enjoyment of his own performance that showed him to be actuated by the most amiable motives.
‘Good watchdog, aren’t I?’ he seemed to be saying. ‘Don’t mind me! This is just my fun! My duty too, of course. Just have to let ’em know there’s a dog about the place! Deadly dull morning. Quite a blessing to have something to do. Coming into our place? Hope so. It’s durned dull. I could do with a little conversation.’ (Chapter 6)

Or:

[Poirot] stopped and patted Bob. ‘Brave chien, va! You loved your mistress.’
Bob responded amiably to these overtures and hopeful of a little play went and fetched a large piece of coal. For this he was reproved and the coal removed from him. He sent me a glance in search of sympathy.
‘These women,’ it seemed to say. ‘Generous with the food, but not really sportsmen!’ (Chapter 8)

Christie also appreciated the savage violence of dogs, although I imagine the following is intended to be humorous and charming:

Then we strolled off in the direction of Littlegreen House. When we rang the bell. Bob immediately answered the challenge. Dashing across the hall, barking furiously, he flung himself against the front door.
‘I’ll have your liver and your lights’ [note 1] he snarled. ‘I’ll tear you limb from limb! I’ll teach you to try and get into this house! Just wait until I get my teeth into you.’ (Chapter 20)

Everyone thinks their dog is a sweety, and when it barks its head off at small children or the postman or terrifies cows or savages sheep, it’s always ‘playing’, right up till the moment when it rips a baby’s face off. Ellen the housekeeper makes the usual dog owner’s excuses:

‘He makes such a noise and rushes at people so it frightens them [but] he’s quite all right, really.’

For dog owners and lovers, their beast frightening the living daylights out of people is just fine. They don’t mean it, really.

Anyway, what with all this emphasis on Bob the dog (not a very imaginative name, is it?) and his involvement in the first suspicious incident i.e. Miss Arundell supposedly tripping over his rubber ball and falling down the stairs and nearly breaking her neck, and with the cover of the book featuring a big picture of a wire-haired terrier, I for a long time thought that Bob would turn out to be the dumb witness of the title – that somehow something the dog did would provide the key which unlocks the case. So it was very disappointing to reach the end of the book and find out this wasn’t the case.

Note 1: incidentally, in that quotation, ‘lights’ is a butcher’s term meaning ‘the lungs of an animal, typically pigs, sheep, or other livestock.’

House prices

Here’s the estate agent’s details for Littlegreen House:

‘Period house of character: four reception rooms, eight bed and dressing rooms, usual offices, commodious kitchen premises, ample outbuildings, stables etc. Main water, old-world gardens, inexpensive upkeep, amounting in all to three acres, two summer-houses, etc. Price £2,850 or nearest offer.’

Bargain.

Credit

‘Dumb Witness’ by Agatha Christie was published in 1937 by the Collins Crime Club.

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The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie (1928)

‘My name is Hercule Poirot,’ he said quietly, ‘and I am probably the greatest detective in the world.’
(Poirot, modest as ever, ‘The Mystery of the Blue Train’, chapter 17)

‘They will grab at the money and abuse you all the more afterwards.’
‘Well,’ said Katherine, ‘let them if they like. We all have our own ways of enjoying ourselves.’
(Katherine Grey’s plucky sense of humour, chapter 8)

‘What is important? What is not? One cannot say at this stage. But we must note each little fact carefully.’
(Poirot in typically sententious mode, chapter 11)

How should it have occurred to Ruth, except as the wildest coincidence, that the first person that the maid should run across in Paris should be her father’s secretary? Ah, but that was the way things happened. That was the way things got found out.
(Or at least that was the way things happen in classic detective stories which abound in outrageous coincidences and improbable situations.)

‘You are the goods, Monsieur Poirot. Every time, you are the goods.’
(Mr Van Aldin gets his money’s worth, chapter 25)

‘At the tennis one meets everyone.’
(Tennis, one of the 1920s’ new sports crazes, along with golf)

Executive summary

Millionaire’s daughter Mrs Ruth Kettering is travelling to the south of France on the famous Blue Train when, somewhere between Paris and Lyons, she is murdered in her compartment. Her jewel case, including the famous red rubies her father gave her, is stolen. Who did it? Suspicion falls on two obvious suspects:

  1. Her ne’er-do-well husband, Derek Kettering, heir to a title and large inheritance but is deeply in debt due to his addiction to gambling; who Ruth’s father was telling her to divorce because of his infidelity; and whose hard-hearted mistress, the dancer Mirelle, had suggested would be much better off if Ruth died before she divorced him because then he would inherit her millions; and who was on the same train heading south as Ruth, although he swears they were travelling separately and he didn’t know she was on it too.
  2. The Comte de la Roche: Ruth’s long-term secret lover, a seducer and exploiter of rich women well known to the police, who had written to Ruth asking her to come and visit him in the south of France and explicitly told her to bring the precious rubies because he was writing a book about famous gems; might he have been the mysterious man seen by various eye witnesses entering Ruth’s compartment soon before her death?

It just so happens that Poirot was travelling on the very same Blue Train and so, once the murdered woman’s body is found, he volunteers his services to the local police and sets about untangling the complicated motives of all the major players in the story, along with various peripheral figures (such as Ruth’s maid, Van Aldin’s secretary, and the mysterious figure of ‘the Marquis’).

Only after Christie has strewn the narrative with numerous red herrings and complicated but ambiguous details, does Poirot finally identify the murderer.

Longer summary

‘The Mystery of the Blue Train’ is the fifth Poirot novel. But it is not narrated by his sidekick, Captain Hastings, who doesn’t appear at all, so it lacks the layer of (often unwitting) comedy which Hastings brings to the stories. And it completely lacks the sparkling high spirits of the very funny comedy murder mysteries, The Secret of Chimneys and ‘The Mystery of the Seven Dials’, with their cast of wonderfully droll and self-aware young chaps and chapesses. Those two novels have preposterously complicated and far-fetched plots but that just makes them all the more amusing.

By striking contrast, ‘The Mystery of the Blue Train’ is a much more sober affair: there is only one murder and the three leading figures are rather boring. Katherine Grey is a former lady’s companion, who has led a boring life until the old lady she’s been caring for dies and leaves her a fortune; Derek Kettering is a suave but impetuous adulterer, quick to anger; and the Comte de la Roche is a slick con-man. No real laughs between the three of ’em.

Instead there’s such a long and elaborate build-up of character and backstory meaning that Poirot doesn’t appear until chapter 11 of this 36-chapter book.

Van Aldin-Ruth-Derek

Nothing is too good for American millionaire Rufus Van Aldin‘s daughter, Ruth. Which is why the narrative opens with him doing dodgy deals amid Paris’s criminal underworld, and even fighting off a mugging attempt by the notorious ‘Apaches’ or street criminals, in order to get his hands on some world-famous red rubies, including the legendary Heart of Fire which was supposedly worn by Catherine the Great of Russia. Why these lurid opening scenes? 1) Nominally in order to give them tom his beloved daughter Ruth. But 2) also to create a sense of crime and violence which is to loom over the rest of the novel.

Van Aldin’s daughter, Ruth, is no soft touch.

Ruth Kettering was twenty-eight years of age. Without being beautiful, or in the real sense of the word even pretty, she was striking looking because of her colouring. Van Aldin had been called Carrots and Ginger in his time, and Ruth’s hair was almost pure auburn. With it went dark eyes and very black lashes—the effect somewhat enhanced by art. She was tall and slender, and moved well. At a careless glance it was the face of a Raphael Madonna. Only if one looked closely did one perceive the same line of jaw and chin as in Van Aldin’s face, bespeaking the same hardness and determination. It suited the man, but suited the woman less well. From her childhood upward Ruth Van Aldin had been accustomed to having her own way, and anyone who had ever stood up against her soon realized that Rufus Van Aldin’s daughter never gave in.

Unfortunately, no amount of gifts can conceal the fact that Ruth is unhappy because she is married to the Honourable Derek Kettering who is a drawling philanderer who cares nothing for her.

…thirty-four, lean of build, with a dark, narrow face, which had even now something indescribably boyish in it…

In the scene where he gives Ruth his dramatic present of super-valuable rubies, Van Aldin also forces her to concede that, after putting up with Derek’s wretched behaviour for years, it’ about time she divorced him. Ruth appears reluctant because (the narrative strongly implies) any court case might bring out the fact that Ruth herself has been less than an angel, and we slowly realise this is because she has remained in touch with her first love, the louche Comte de la Roche.

In a separate scene Van Aldin calls Derek Kettering in for an interview. He loathes his son-in-law and tells him he must divorce his daughter but Derek infuriates the old man with his suave irony and flippancy. He counters Van Aldin’s criticism of him by pointing out that the main reason Ruth married him was because he is heir to the title of Lord Leconbury, ‘one of the oldest families in England’. When the current Lord dies, Derek will inherit the title and the grand house at Leconbury and Ruth will become its mistress. Derek says Ruth is well aware it would be a shame to divorce him (Derek) now, just as his father is on his last legs, just as he is about to inherit the title, at which point Ruth would become a Lady and chatelaine of a grand English country house. Derek leaves Van Aldin with the parting shot that the father (Van Aldin) ought to know the daughter (Ruth) better than he evidently does.

Derek then goes to the apartment of his lover, the attractive but slovenly Mirelle.

The dancer was a beautifully made woman, and if her face, beneath its mask of yellow, was in truth somewhat haggard, it had a bizarre charm of its own.

In their conversation it becomes clear that Derek is very poor, he has borrowed large sums against the promise of his inheritance and managed to lose most of it gambling. When he jokily describes how losing Ruth would leave him utterly penniless Mirelle makes it clear she will leave him if he is ruined. There is no love lost between them. She jokily suggests that Derek should bump off Ruth while they’re still married; then her fortune would come to him. But he doesn’t take it seriously and storms out.

Meanwhile, Van Aldin hires a private detective, Mr Goby, to find out the dirt on Derek, mainly confirming for Van Aldin what the reader has just learned – that he is broke and has a mistress.

After some business in the City, Van Aldin calls in again on his daughter and almost bumps into a man coming out of her hotel apartment. Only talking to Ruth does he realise that the man was Armand, the Comte de la Roche.

The Comte’s charm of manner was usually wasted on his own sex. All men, without exception, disliked him heartily.

Now it comes out that when Ruth was living in Paris she fell deeply in love with the Comte but her father, convinced he was a swindler (which the novel goes on to show that he is), broke them up and more or less forced her to marry Derek. So she blames her father for wrecking the love of her life and attaching her to a drawling wastrel (Derek).

Summary so far

To summarise: Van Aldin is pressurising his daughter Ruth to divorce her no-good husband Derek. Derek has discussed the possibility of murdering Ruth to ensure he inherits her fortune. Ruth is reluctant to take divorce proceedings because any legal action is likely to bring out the fact that she has carried on having an affair with the Comte de la Roche i.e. been just as unfaithful as Derek.

As for the Comte, we don’t get many scenes with him early on so we are inclined to Van Aldin’s view that he is a gold-digger, that he has always only pretended to love Ruth in order to get his hands on her fortune. The arrival of the famous red rubies in Ruth’s possession has only raised the stakes all round. And Mirelle is a wild card because she alternately loves Derek (for his money) and hates him (for threatening to leave her / becoming penniless).

In other words the three men and two women in this matrix of relationships all have good reason to resent and dislike each other.

On an impulse Derek decides that he wants to get away from London and drops into the Thomas Cook shop in Piccadilly to buy a ticket on the Blue Train to the Riviera. (Unbeknown to him, his wife is also going to be travelling on the same train, in response to the letter from the Comte.) And here (in the Thomas Cook office) he bumps into a mysterious grey-haired lady, who is also buying a ticket on the Blue Train. Who is she?

Miss Katherine Grey-Lady Tamplin

At which point we are introduced to a new thread and the other major character in the story:

Katherine Grey was thirty-three. She came of good family, but her father had lost all his money, and Katherine had had to work for her living from an early age. She had been just twenty-three when she had come to old Mrs Harfield as companion… Katherine Grey was born with the power of managing old ladies, dogs, and small boys, and she did it without any apparent sense of strain.

The Katherine narrative is more straightforward. For years she has been a companion to old Mrs Harfield in the sleepy village of St Mary Mead. The old lady has recently passed away. When Katherine goes to see the family solicitor, she expects she will get a little nest egg from the old lady who was always frugal, but is astonished to learn she had been nursing a small fortune which will now come to Katherine. What shall she do with it and with her life? Well, certainly buy some nice clothes but what then?

It’s at this juncture that Katherine receives a letter from one Lady Tamplin. A chapter is devoted to introducing her in her villa in the south of France. Lady Tamplin is:

A golden-haired, blue-eyed lady in a very becoming negligee. That the golden hair owed something to art, as did the pink-and-white complexion, was undeniable, but the blue of the eyes was Nature’s gift, and at forty-four Lady Tamplin could still rank as a beauty.

Lady Tamplin lives with her dim husband, ‘Chubby’, and her sharp, ironic daughter, the Honourable Lenox Tamplin.

A daughter such as Lenox was a sad thorn in Lady Tamplin’s side, a girl with no kind of tact, who actually looked older than her age, and whose peculiar sardonic form of humour was, to say the least of it, uncomfortable.

The point is that the Katherine Grey who has just inherited a fortune is a distant relative of Lady Tamplin. Lady T has just read about the legacy in The Times and sees an opportunity to mulct some money out of the innocent Katherine. So this is why Lady T decides to invite Katherine to come and stay with them on the Riviera, so that she and Lenox can introduce her into the ways of the upper class and/or try to extract some of her fortune from her, and writes her a letter of invitation to come and stay. At a loose end, Katherine agrees to accept the invitation.

So this is what she is doing at Thomas Cook’s offices in Piccadilly. Here she recognises the man in the queue to be served; he nearly bumped into her in the Savoy Hotel that morning (as he came out of the suite inhabited by the visiting millionaire Van Aldin). It is Derek Kettering. He has reserved a berth on the Blue Train to the Riviera on the 14th of the month under the name of his man, Pavett. Katherine follows him in the queue, and also buys a berth on the Blue Train to the Riviera on the 14th of the month.

What neither of them know is that Derek’s wife, Ruth, is also going to be on the same Blue Train because she has been invited to come and meet him in the south of France by the Comte.

After Derek’s got back home from buying his ticket, he is paid a visit by Van Aldin’s secretary, Major Knighton, ‘a tall fair man with a limp’ from a wound received in the war. Deeply embarrassed, Knighton presents van Aldin’s final offer that, if Derek doesn’t contest the divorce, VA will give him £100,000 flat. Derek listens then tells him to go to hell. Then tells his man to start packing his bags for his trip to the south of France.

On the Blue Train

So Ruth and Katherine are on the same Blue Train and end up sitting opposite each other at lunch and get talking. After over a decade as a lady’s companion, Katherine is used to listening, has an aura of confidentiality about her. So they quickly become confidential and Ruth confesses that she is going against her father’s explicit orders, to meet her lover in the south of France. Katherine learns all about her marital misfortunes but nonetheless advises her to telegram her father when the train gets to Paris to let him know where she’s going, and Katherine agrees.

They two women pass the afternoon on the train in their different ways, then, at dinner, Katherine finds herself sat opposite a small man with a waxed black moustache and an egg-shaped head. Well, any Christie fan immediately knows who this is – the world-famous detective Hercule Poirot, who is all politeness, charm and egotism.

‘It is true that I have the habit of being always right—but I do not boast of it.’ (Chapter 10)

He notices that Katherine is reading a detective novel (a roman policier in French). She says she enjoys reading them because such things never happen in real life. Poirot politely points out that sometimes they do. Either way a connection has been made between them.

More minor incidents occur the most significant of which is that just before the train reaches Lyon, Katherine thinks she sees the man she saw in the Thomas Cook office, in the corridor and then entering the compartment of Ruth. She thinks. Later she is not 100% sure…

The murder

When the train reaches Nice a train assistant knocks on the door, then enters, and discovers Ruth’s body. She is lying peacefully up in her bed, with her head turned away. Only when he shakes her does the train assistant realise she is dead. She has been strangled from behind and then, notable detail, her face severely disfigured by punches or blows.

The police are called in the shape of M. Caux the Commissary of Police. One by one they interview witnesses in an office in the station. The Commissary is surprised when there’s a knock on the door and in looks the famous Hercule Poirot. He and the other police officials enthusiastically welcome Poirot’s offer to help the investigation, so from here on he sits in on all the interviews of all the relevant witness.

It’s in this context that he meets Katherine again and notes that ‘From the beginning we have been sympathetic to each other’ going on to say, in his confidential manner:

‘This shall be a ‘roman policier‘ à nous. We will investigate this affair together.’ (Chapter 11)

And a little later:

‘This is our own roman policier, is it not?’ said Poirot. ‘I made you the promise that we should study it together. And me, I always keep my promises.’ (Chapter 20)

To some extent, Katherine replaces the figure of Captain Hastings, as a sort of assistant who he can bounce ideas off, muse out loud with and thus, at the same time, share his ideas with the reader.

At the Villa Marguerite

When she is released from questioning by the police, Katherine continues her plans. She is met at Nice station by Lady Tamplin’s husband, the harmless ‘Chubby’ Evans (Lady T’s title derives from a former marriage), and taken to the Villa Marguerite. Katherine quickly gets the measure of its three inhabitants:

She looked in turn at the three people sitting round the table. Lady Tamplin, full of practical schemes; Mr. Evans, beaming with naïve appreciation, and Lenox with a queer crooked smile on her dark face. (Chapter 12)

Later there is lunch and she is staggered to find herself sitting next to the (to her, unnamed and unknown) man who she saw in the queue at Thomas Cook’s, and then saw on the Blue Train. Even more staggered when a servant hands him a message and reveals his name is Kettering and so she learns that he is the husband of the murdered woman.

The cops

Van Aldin is in the middle of doing work with his secretary when he gets the telegram saying his daughter has been murdered. He immediately makes plans to catch the first train south and 24 hours later is joining the investigation, along with his own theories and prejudices (he thinks the murder must be Derek).

Cut to Van Aldin and his secretary arriving in Nice and being introduced to the French police and Poirot. They question Ruth’s maid, Mason. Oddly, Ruth had told her to stay behind, in Paris, at the Paris Ritz, and await further instructions. Why?

Van Aldin is staggered to learn that Ruth had taken her jewels with her, in a red morocco case, even the red rubies, when he had specifically told her to lock them in a safe deposit in London. All becomes clear when the French Juge d’Instruction, M. Carrège, produces a letter found on Ruth’s body, sent from the Comte, telling her to bring her jewels with her as he claimed to be writing a book about famous jewels.

The conference of cops gravitates to the theory that this Comte did the murder and stole the jewels, bringing themselves into conflict with Van Aldin who is unshakably convinced that it was his no-good son-in-law. Van Aldin hires Poirot on a commercial basis, as a freelance investigator, and the book takes on a new complexion. Out of the rather anarchic setup, we emerge into clarity knowing that whatever happens going forward, Poirot will, eventually, fix it all. For example it is Poirot who discovers that the Comte is staying at a villa he’s rented, the Villa Marina at Antibes.

So the police call in for questioning, or requestioning, the following witnesses: the Comte, Derek Kettering, the maid, and Katherine.

And it’s at this point that the plot becomes convoluted in the familiar Christie way because a straightfoward narrative of events starts to get overlaid and mixed up with the theories developed by the various personnel:

  • obviously the police have their theories
  • Poirot hints at his ideas, not least in conversations with Katherine, and adds questions to the police interrogations designed to confirm or refute them
  • Van Aldin has his simple animus against Derek and carries out his own interviews with Katherine and the maid to try and prove his point
  • and we are party to Katherine’s evolving theories about who did what, where.

‘But this is an entirely new theory,’ cried Knighton. (Chapter 33)

So it’s at this point that I’ll stop even trying to summarise the plot because from here onwards it consists of all the characters concocting theories which themselves continually shift and need updating as more information becomes available:

  • Who did the cigarette case found on the train with a monogrammed ‘K’ belong to?
  • What is the renowned and unscrupulous jewel merchant M. Papopolous (and his daughter Zia) doing in Nice?
  • What favour did Poirot do for Papopolous 17 years ago, and why does he call it in now?
  • What role is played by the mysterious figure M. Papolous refers to as ‘the Marquis’?
  • What is Derek’s mistress Mirelle doing in Nice and, furious at being dumped by him (‘She looked not altogether unlike a leopardess, tawny and dangerous’), will her spiteful denunciation persuade the police that Derek is guilty?

And many more convoluted questions. Not to mention the two leading suspects engaging in guilty behaviour of one sort or another.

You can read the whole thing, along with its surprising denouement, online. Here are a few scattered thoughts or observations.

Poirot

Poirot drew himself up. ‘Leave it in the hands of Hercule Poirot,’ he said superbly; ‘have no fears. I will discover the truth.’ (Chapter 24)

‘I am a good detective. I suspect. There is nobody and nothing that I do not suspect. I believe nothing that I am told.’ (Chapter 35)

Retirement

As always, I am puzzled why Poirot is permanently presented as having retired.

‘This is M. Hercule Poirot; you have doubtless heard of him. Although he has retired from his profession for some years now, his name is still a household word as one of the greatest living detectives.’ (Chapter 14)

How odd of Christie to introduce her detective as having retired just as he was about to embark on a 40-year career of solving crimes (that last Poirot book was published in 1974).

Poirot’s process

As far as I can tell Poirot’s process has two aspects: 1) record the facts and lay them out as logically and dispassionately as possible, 2) supplement the facts with psychology: why would so-and-so do x? Is it consistent with his or her character?

Here he is on the facts:

‘Let us arrange our facts with order and precision….’

‘I mean nothing,’ said Poirot. ‘I arrange the facts, that is all.’

And on the importance of psychology:

Poirot wagged an emphatic forefinger. ‘The psychology.’
‘Eh?’ said the Commissary.
‘The psychology is at fault. The Comte is a scoundrel—yes. The Comte is a swindler—yes. The Comte preys upon women—yes. He proposes to steal Madame’s jewels—again yes. Is he the kind of man to commit murder? I say no! A man of the type of the Comte is always a coward; he takes no risks.’

In summary:

‘It is nothing,’ said Poirot modestly. ‘Order, method, being prepared for eventualities beforehand—that is all there is to it.’ (Chapter 21)

‘I am always punctual,’ said Poirot. ‘The exactitude—always do I observe it. Without order and method—’

Poirot’s green eyes

As to Poirot’s other characteristics, they are all here to please fans. The green light in his eyes when he becomes excited:

Poirot sat up suddenly in his chair. A very faint green light glowed in his eyes. He looked extraordinarily like a sleek, well-fed cat. (Chapter 17)

When the car had driven off he relapsed into a frowning absorption, but in his eyes was that faint green light which was always the precursor of the triumph to be. (Chapter 28)

As Lenox remarks:

‘I have rather lost my heart to him. I never met a man before whose eyes were really green like a cat’s.’ (Chapter 29)

Poirot’s monstrous ego

‘Voilà,’ said the stranger, and sank into a wooden arm-chair; ‘I am Hercule Poirot.’
‘”Yes, Monsieur?’
‘You do not know the name?’
‘I have never heard it,’ said Hippolyte.
‘Permit me to say that you have been badly educated. It is the name of one of the great ones of this world.’
(Chapter 29)

Papa Poirot

The spooky way he refers to himself as Papa Poirot, especially when talking to women.

‘You mock yourself at me,’ said Poirot genially, ‘but no matter. Papa Poirot, he always laughs the last.’ (Chapter 21)

Poirot’s arrogance

It amused her to see the little man plume himself like a bird, thrusting out his chest, and assuming an air of mock modesty that would have deceived no one. (Chapter 21)

Poirot raised a hand. ‘Grant me a little moment, Monsieur. Me, I have a little idea. Many people have mocked themselves at the little ideas of Hercule Poirot—and they have been wrong.’ (Chapter 21)

‘M. Van Aldin is an obstinate man,’ said Poirot drily. ‘I do not argue with obstinate men. I act in spite of them.’ (Chapter 27)

At several points he compares himself to God, as being the only two forces in the world you can utterly rely on.

‘Trust the train, Mademoiselle, for it is le bon Dieu who drives it.’ The whistle of the engine came again. ”Trust the train, Mademoiselle,’ murmured Poirot again. ‘And trust Hercule Poirot. He knows.’
(Last words of the novel)

Praise from others

‘He is a very remarkable person,’ said Knighton slowly, ‘and has done some very remarkable things. He has a kind of genius for going to the root of the matter, and right up to the end no one has any idea of what he is really thinking.’ (Chapter 21)

Christie’s antisemitism

Apparently, the Anti-Defamation League in America complained to her publishers about the antisemitic stereotypes or tropes often found in Christie’s stories. ‘The Mystery of the Blue Train’ is no exception.

A little man with a face like a rat. A man, one would say, who could never play a conspicuous part, or rise to prominence in any sphere. And yet, in leaping to such a conclusion, an onlooker would have been wrong. For this man, negligible and inconspicuous as he seemed, played a prominent part in the destiny of the world. In an Empire where rats ruled, he was the king of the rats… His face gleamed white and sharp in the moonlight. There was the least hint of a curve in the thin nose. His father had been a Polish Jew, a journeyman tailor. It was business such as his father would have loved that took him abroad to-night. (Chapter 1)

A face like a rat?!

‘Seventeen years is a long time,’ said Poirot thoughtfully, ‘but I believe that I am right in saying, Monsieur, that your race does not forget.’
‘A Greek?’ murmured Papopolous, with an ironical smile.
‘It was not as a Greek I meant,’ said Poirot.
There was a silence, and then the old man drew himself up proudly.
‘You are right, M. Poirot,’ he said quietly. ‘I am a Jew. And, as you say, our race does not forget.’
(Chapter 22)

Christie’s sexism

Along with the stereotypes about Jews (and lots of other nationalities) go a raft of sexist generalisations about women. Obviously the books are of their time, allowances ought to be made etc, but it’s still notable. In particular there’s a lot of dwelling on the idea that women are attracted to romantic bad guys.

‘He is Lord Leconbury’s son, married a rich American woman. Women are simply potty about him.’
‘Why?’
‘Oh, the usual reason—very good-looking and a regular bad lot.’
(Chapter 12)

I don’t know where we are on the idea that some women are attracted to bad boys. It’s been true in my experience, but my experience is just a drop in the ocean. It’s certainly a recurring trope in this story, because both the men in it are wrong ‘uns who both seem to be popular with the ladies and, in particular, with Katherine.

‘A mauvais sujet,’ said Poirot, shaking his head; ‘but les femmes—they like that, eh?’
He twinkled at Katherine and she laughed.
(Chapter 20)

But really the bad boy in question is Derek Kettering.

‘There are men who have a strange fascination for women.’
‘The Comte de la Roche,’ said Katherine, with a smile.
‘There are others—more dangerous than the Comte de la Roche. They have qualities that appeal—recklessness, daring, audacity…’

Poirot repeats the thought to Kettering:

‘Your reputation is bad, yes, but with women—never does that deter them. If you were a man of excellent character, of strict morality who had done nothing that he should not do, and—possibly everything that he should do—eh bien! then I should have grave doubts of your success. Moral worth, you understand, it is not romantic. (Chapter 24)

All this is relevant because by the middle of the novel it’s become clear that Katherine is being actively wooed, both by Kettering and by Knighton. On the face of it they represent two polar opposites: the smooth seducer versus the honest war hero. And we are shown Katherine developing feelings for both of them. But can it be as simple as all that?

Other sexisms

The story invokes what I assume to be another sexist caricature, namely that women are preternaturally attracted by the glamour of precious stones, in a way that men aren’t.

Her eyes grew misty, a far-away light in them. The Comte looked at her curiously, wondering for the hundredth time at the magical influence of precious stones on the female sex. (Chapter 19)

‘They are all the same, these women—they never stop telling tall stories about their jewels. Mirelle goes about bragging that it has got a curse on it. ‘Heart of Fire,’ I think she calls it.’
‘But if I remember rightly,’ said Poirot, ‘the ruby that is named ‘Heart of Fire’ is the centre stone in a necklace.’
‘There you are! Didn’t I tell you there is no end to the lies women will tell about their jewellery?’
‘You have the outlook cynical,’ [Poirot] murmured.
‘Have I?’ There was no mirth in his sudden wide smile. ‘I have lived in the world long enough, M. Poirot, to know that all women are pretty much alike.’ (Chapter 24)

Well, in that case, are not all men pretty much alike. In reality, this is a meaningless statement except to express a kind of worldly misogyny. As many other empty generalisations along these lines:

‘And yet, who knows? With les femmes, they have so many ways of concealing what they feel—and heartiness is perhaps as good a way as any other.’ (Chapter 26)

But maybe the general thought about all these sweeping generalisations – so easy to notice and condemn in our progressive times – is that genre fiction like this is based on generalisations about human nature. The generalisations may have changed with the times, but maybe genre fiction can only really function if it not only complies with the requirements of the genre itself, but also abounds in obvious, easy and stereotypical generalisations about human nature – reflecting the commonly accepted values of the day in order to make the whole thing easier to consume.

Men

And so along with generalisations about ethnic groups and women, there are also generalising, stereotypical remarks about men. When he and Zia step out of the casino at Monte Carlo, she points out this is the garden where so many men have committed suicide after losing everything.

Poirot shrugged his shoulders. ‘So it is said. Men are foolish, are they not, Mademoiselle? To eat, to drink, to breathe the good air, it is a very pleasant thing, Mademoiselle. One is foolish to leave all that simply because one has no money—or because the heart aches.’
(Chapter 28)

And here is Katherine’s old lady friend, Miss Viner, later in the novel:

‘I was wrong about that young man of yours. A man when he is making up to anybody can be cordial and gallant and full of little attentions and altogether charming. But when a man is really in love he can’t help looking like a sheep. Now, whenever that young man looked at you he looked like a sheep. I take back all I said this morning. It is genuine.’ (Chapter 30)

Sweeping generalisations about men and women are probably the oldest trope in all literature. Think for a moment about Shakespeare or Jane Austen.

Bookishness and self-referentiality

As I’ve pointed out in all my Christie reviews, she knows she is writing popular detective stories and part of this always seems to be having your characters point out that they seem to be appearing in a story which is remarkably like a piece of popular detective fiction. There’s a curious self-aware, meta aspect to these frequent reminders that the characters are in a fiction.

‘She has all the instincts of a lady, as they say in books,’ said Lenox, with a grin. (Chapter 12)

‘They say she is wearing a ruby the size of a pigeon’s egg—not that I have ever seen a pigeon’s egg myself, but that is what they always call it in works of fiction.’ (Chapter 31)

A central example is the way Poirot first bonds with Katherine while she is reading a crime novel and Christie gives them a little exchange about the value of such things.

‘I see, Madame, that you have a roman policier. You are fond of such things?’
‘They amuse me,’ Katherine admitted.
The little man nodded with the air of complete understanding.
‘They have a good sale always, so I am told. Now why is that, eh, Mademoiselle? I ask it of you as a student of human nature—why should that be?’
Katherine felt more and more amused.
‘Perhaps they give one the illusion of living an exciting life,’ she suggested.
(Chapter 10)

This allows Poirot, once the murder is revealed, to suavely suggest that she join him in solving the murder. And, in their conversations, to remind her (and the reader) of the conventions of the genre of the book they are reading.

‘You confess that you read detective stories, Miss Grey. You must know that anyone who has a perfect alibi is always open to grave suspicion.’
‘Do you think that real life is like that?’ asked Katherine, smiling.
‘Why not? Fiction is founded on fact.’
‘But is rather superior to it,’ suggested Katherine.
‘Perhaps.’
(Chapter 21)

This self-referentiality is partly, I think, humorous. It makes the reader smile. And also it is a continuous reminder of the whimsically artificial nature of these kinds of books.

Humour

For me the single biggest appeal of Agatha Christie’s books is her consistently buoyant humorous tone. The entire story is told in a kind of tone of indulgent good humour (the entire character of Poirot is essentially comic), as well as comic interactions between other characters. In this novel the comedy is pre-eminently associated with Lady Tamplin and her daughter. Lady T is funny because of her predictable tone of snobbery and avarice.

‘I should like to meet Mr. Van Aldin,’ said Lady Tamplin earnestly; ‘one has heard so much of him. Those fine rugged figures of the Western world’—she broke off—’so fascinating,’ she murmured. (Chapter 21)

Which is perfectly complemented by the droll and knowing comments of her daughter, Lady Lenox, in exchanges like this:

‘Mademoiselle [Katherine] is wanted at the telephone,’ said Marie, appearing at the window of the salon. ‘M. Hercule Poirot desires to speak with her.’
‘More blood and thunder. Go on, Katherine; go and dally with your detective.’

Or:

‘What did Major Knighton ring up about?’ inquired Katherine.
‘He asked if you would like to go to the tennis this afternoon. If so, he would call for you in a car. Mother and I accepted for you with empressement. Whilst you dally with a millionaire’s secretary, you might give me a chance with the millionaire, Katherine. He is about sixty, I suppose, so that he will be looking about for a nice sweet young thing like me.’ (Chapter 21)

And:

‘Major Knighton was very particular to say it was Mr. Van Aldin’s invitation,’ said Lenox. ‘He said it so often that I began to smell a rat. You and Knighton would make a very nice pair, Katherine. Bless you, my children!’ Katherine laughed, and went upstairs to change her clothes.

It’s fun.

Credit

‘The Mystery of the Blue Train’ by Agatha Christie was published in 1928 by William Collins and Son.

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Posted by Simon on July 14, 2025

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