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The first night, Poirot observes some strange occurrences. Bouc has taken the last first-class cabin, but arranges to be moved to a separate coach and gives Poirot his space. Poirot, repulsed by Ratchett, refuses the case. Ratchett recognizes Poirot and asks for his protection as the former has been receiving death threats. Hardman and Greek medical doctor Stavros Constantine. Other passengers include American widow Caroline Hubbard English governess Mary Debenham Swedish missionary Greta Ohlsson American businessman Samuel Ratchett, with his secretary/translator Hector McQueen, and his English valet Edward Henry Masterman Italian-American car salesman Antonio Foscarelli Russian Princess Natalia Dragomiroff and her German maid Hildegarde Schmidt Hungarian Count Rudolph Andrenyi and his wife Elena English Colonel John Arbuthnot American salesman Cyrus B.
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Although the train is fully booked, Poirot obtains a second-class berth through the intervention of friend, fellow Belgian, and passenger Monsieur Bouc, director of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits railway. He instructs the concierge to book him a first-class compartment on the Simplon-route Orient Express service leaving that night. The railway station passenger terminal in Vinkovci, CroatiaĪfter taking the Taurus Express from Aleppo to Istanbul, private detective Hercule Poirot arrives at the Tokatlian Hotel, where he receives a telegram prompting him to return to London. The US title of Murder in the Calais Coach was used to avoid confusion with the 1932 Graham Greene novel Stamboul Train, which had been published in the United States as Orient Express. The rest of the novel takes place in Yugoslavia, with the train trapped between Vinkovci and Brod. The opening chapters of the novel take place in Istanbul. A murder is discovered, and Poirot's trip home to London from the Middle East is interrupted to solve the case.
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The elegant train of the 1930s, the Orient Express, is stopped by heavy snowfall. The UK edition retailed at seven shillings and sixpence (7/6) and the US edition at $2. In the United States, it was published on 28 February 1934, under the title of Murder in the Calais Coach, by Dodd, Mead and Company.
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It was first published in the United Kingdom by the Collins Crime Club on 1 January 1934. Murder on the Orient Express is a work of detective fiction by English writer Agatha Christie featuring the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot.
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