An Outline for Murder on the Orient Express

东方快车谋杀案梗概3000字左右

An Outline of Murder on the Orient Express

It was five o’clock on a winter’s morning in Syria. Lieutenant Dubosc had got a job of seeing off M. Hercule Poirot at the platform, where stood the Taurus Express. Hercule Poirot,was a Belgian private detective, who had just solved a case and wanted to went back home. It was freezingly cold, but Lieutenant Dubosc performed his his part manfully. Before the departure of the Taurus Express, there were several conversations took place between Lieutenant Dubosc and M. Poirot.

After boarding the train, the conductor helped Poirot to arrange his luggage, and then Poirot fell asleep. He woke up at half-past nine, and he sallied forth to the restaurant-car in search of hot coffee. In the restaurant-car, he met a young English lady Mary Debenham and an English Colonel Arbuthnot. The two act as if they were strangers, but Poirot observed behavior that suggested that they were not. Poirot was suspicious of the couple. They arrived at Konya that night about half-past eleven. Poirot desended to the platform to stretch his legs, and he heard a conversation between Mary Debenham and the colonel, which made him curious.

At about half-past two in the next afternoon, the train came to a halt., which seemed troubled Miss. Debenham a lot. But about ten minutes later the train started again. It arrived at Haydapassr only five minutes late, having made up time on the journey. Poirot separated from his travelling companions on the boat at Bosphorus. On arrival at the Galata Bridge he drove straight to the Tokatlian Hotel.

At the Tokatlian, Hercule Poirot got a telegram summoning him back to London immediately, so he had to change his plan and he asked the concierge to get a sleeper on the Simplon Orient Express. M. Poirot met his old friend M. Bouc at the Tokatlian Hotel by accident. M. Bouc was a director of the Compagnie International des Wagons Lits. When they talked, the concierge came back and told M. Poirot that the Orient train was unusually crowded for the time of year and there was not berth for him. Finally, with the help of M. Bouc, Poirot secured a berth on the train. When a Mr. Harris fails to show up, Poirot took his place. And on the second night, M. Bouc gave his compartment to Poirot, so Poirot got a compartment to himself.

The next day M. Bouc lunched with Poirot. While the two men sat and ate, Poirot looked around at the other thirteen passengers: a "big, swarthy Italian"; a neat Englishman; a big American, one of the "ugliest old ladies he had ever see—Princess Dragomiroff; Mary Debenham sitting with two other women; Colonel Arbuthnot by himself; a middle-aged Scandinavian woman; an English- looking couple and, lastly, Hector McQueen and Ratchett. (In the dining room of the Tokatlian Hotel, Poirot first saw Ratchett and Hector McQueen eating dinner. Poirot knew that Ratchett was an evil man and he described him to M. Bouc as an animal. ) The dining car emptied and Ratchett came and sat opposite Poirot. Ratchett told Poirot that he had enemies and that his life was threatened. He offered Poirot "big money" to protect him. Poirot told Ratchett that he only took cases that "interest him." Ratchett asked Poirot why he wouldn’t take the case. Poirot replied, "I do not like your face."

M. Bouc had taken the last first class cabin, but arranged to be moved to a separate coach and gave Poirot his space in first class.

That night, in Vinkovci, at about twenty-three minutes before 1:00 am, Poirot woke to the sound of a loud noise. It seemed to come from the compartment next to his, which was occupied by Mr. Ratchett. When Poirot peeked out his door, he saw the conductor knock on Mr. Ratchett's door and asked if he was all right. A man replied in French "Ce n'est rien. Je me suis trompé",

东方快车谋杀案梗概3000字左右

which meant "It's nothing. I was mistaken", and the conductor moved on to answer a bell down the passage. Poirot decided to go back to bed, but he was disturbed by the fact that the train was unusually still and his mouth is dry. As he lay awake, he heard Mrs. Hubbard ringing the bell urgently. When Poirot then rang the conductor for a bottle of mineral water, he learnt that Mrs. Hubbard claimed that someone had been in her compartment. He also learnt that the train had stopped due to a snowstorm. Poirot dismissed the conductor and tried to go back to sleep, only to be awakened again by a thump on his door. This time when Poirot got up and looked out of his compartment, the passage was completely silent, and he saw nothing except the back of a woman in a scarlet kimono retreating down the passage in the distance.

The next morning, the train still stopped, M. Bouc sent a conductor to inform Poirot that Ratchett had been murdered and the murderer was still aboard the train. Poirot told M. Bouc he would investigate the case. Poirot first examined Ratchett's body and compartment . Ratchett had twelve stab wounds. However, the clues and circumstances of Ratchett's death were very mysterious. Some of the stab wounds were very deep, only three are lethal, and some were

glancing blows. Furthermore, some of them appear to have been inflicted by a right-handed person and some by a left-handed person. The window was left open in Ratchett's compartment,

presumably to make the investigators think the murderer escaped out the window, but there were no footprints outside the window in the snow.

Poirot found several more clues in the victim's cabin and on board the train, including a linen handkerchief embroidered with the initial "H" and a pipe cleaner, which were found in Ratchett’s compartment and a button from a conductor's uniform, it was found in Mrs. Hubbard’s

compartment. All of these clues suggested that t …… 此处隐藏：11846字，全部文档内容请下载后查看。喜欢就下载吧 ……