Murder on the Orient Express

Part 2 includes a bird’s-eye sketch of the Orient Express train with all the cabins and a diagram of who was sleeping in which cabin on the night of the murder.

Poirot—accompanied by Bouc and Dr. Constantine—interviews the Frenchman Pierre Michel, the Wagon Lit conductor. Pierre gives an account of his whereabouts the evening that Mr. Ratchett (Cassetti) was killed. He reports checking in on Mr. Ratchett (Cassetti), which Poirot himself overheard. Pierre also reports seeing MacQueen and Colonel Arbuthnot talking in MacQueen’s compartment when he walked by. Pierre was summoned by the Princess Dragomiroff, who asked him to fetch her maid, Hildegarde Schmidt. Pierre then spent the remainder of the night sitting in his seat in the corridor, where Poirot saw him. Like Poirot, Pierre saw the person in the red silk kimono in the corridor. However, Pierre denies hearing the strange thump that Poirot heard outside his door.

Poirot, Bouc, and Dr. Constantine speak to MacQueen again. MacQueen says he was in his compartment speaking to Colonel Arbuthnot regarding politics in India and Prohibition in the United States. He says he noticed a conductor pass by at one point, as well as a woman in a red silk kimono, but he says he didn’t look closely enough to see her face and didn’t see her return down the hallway at any point.