Agatha Christie's Poirot Episode Guide - inaf iasf bologna

Agatha Christie’s Poirot Episode Guide
Murder on the Orient Express
Season 12
Episode Number: 69
Season Episode: 3
Originally aired: Saturday December 25, 2010
Writer:
Agatha Christie, Stewart Harcourt
Director: Philip Martin (II)
Show Stars: David Suchet (Hercule Poirot)
Guest Stars: Denis Menochet (Pierre Michel), Hugh Bonneville (Edward Masterman),
Sam Crane (II) (Lt. Blanchflower), Stanley Weber (Count Andrenyi),
Samuel West (Dr Constantine), David Morrissey (Colonel
John Arbuthnot), Barbara Hershey (Caroline Hubbard), Toby Jones
(Samuel Ratchett), Joseph Mawle (Antonio Foscarelli), Jessica Chastain
(Mary Debenham), Marie-Josee (Croze Greta Ohlsson), Eileen
Atkins (Princess Dragomiroff), Susanne Lothar (Hildegarde Schmidt),
Elena Satine (Countess Andrenyi), Serge Hazanavicius (Xavier Bouc)
Summary: While travelling from Istanbul to London on the Orient Express, Poirot
is approached by the shady American traveller Samuel Ratchett, who
wants to hire him as a protector. Ratchett is soon found dead, with
multiple stab wounds. With the train trapped in a deep snow drift, the
immediate evidence points to a killer who boarded and left the train,
but Poirot finds a bewildering mass of clues and suspects, including a
Russian princess, a German maid, a Hungarian diplomat and his wife,
and a Swedish missionary. Ratchett proves to have been a mobster
responsible for the kidnapping and murder of an American child. In
the end, Poirot turns his back on the rule of law in favour of natural
justice. For more, see recap.
Returning from an important case in Syria, Hercule Poirot boards the Orient Express in Constantinople.
The train is unusually crowded for the time of year. Poirot secures a berth only
with the help of his friend M. Bouc, a director of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits.
When a Mr. Harris fails to show up, Poirot takes his place. On the second night, Poirot gets a
compartment to himself.
That night, in Vinkovci, at about twenty-three minutes before 1:00 am, Poirot wakes to the
sound of a loud noise. It seems to come from the compartment next to his, which is occupied by
Mr. Ratchett. When Poirot peeks out his door, he sees the conductor knock on Mr. Ratchett’s door
and ask if he is all right. A man replies in French ”Ce n’est rien. Je me suis trompé”, which means
”It’s nothing. I was mistaken”, and the conductor moves on to answer a bell down the passage.
Poirot decides to go back to bed, but he is disturbed by the fact that the train is unusually still
and his mouth is dry.
As he lies awake, he hears a Mrs. Hubbard ringing the bell urgently. When Poirot then rings
the conductor for a bottle of mineral water, he learns that Mrs. Hubbard claimed that someone
had been in her compartment. He also learns that the train has stopped due to a snowstorm.
Poirot dismisses the conductor and tries to go back to sleep, only to be wakened again by a thump
on his door. This time when Poirot gets up and looks out of his compartment, the passage is
completely silent, and he sees nothing except the back of a woman in a scarlet kimono retreating
down the passage in the distance.
The next day he awakens to find that Ratchett is dead, having been stabbed twelve times in
his sleep. M. Bouc suggests that Poirot take the case, being that it is so obviously his kind of
case; nothing more is required than for him to sit, think, and take in the available evidence.
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