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The Mystery of the Blue Train
Agatha Christie
The daughter of an American millionaire dies on a train en route for Nice…When the luxurious Blue Train arrives at Nice, a guard attempts to wake serene Ruth Kettering from her slumbers. But she will never wake again – for a heavy blow has killed her, disfiguring her features almost beyond recognition. What is more, her precious rubies are missing.The prime suspect is Ruth’s estranged husband, Derek. Yet Poirot is not convinced, so he stages an eerie re-enactment of the journey, complete with the murderer on board…
The Mystery of the Blue Train
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by
Collins 1928
Agatha Christie® Poirot® The Mystery of the Blue Train™
Copyright © 1928 Agatha Christie Limited. All rights reserved.
www.agathachristie.com (http://www.agathachristie.com)
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015
Title lettering by Ghost Design
Cover photograph © Marcus Appelt/Arcangel Images
Agatha Christie asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008129484
Ebook Edition © May 2015 ISBN: 9780007422609
Version: 2017-04-13
TO THE TWO DISTINGUISHED MEMBERS OF THE O.F.D. CARLOTTA AND PETER
Contents
Cover (#u8f44331c-6012-5431-b3c2-aece66cf7692)
Title Page (#uecc04b20-6fc2-5965-b172-9f7d5450b1c0)
Copyright (#uc83d324a-3c32-52d9-a9d2-189bb38e5c45)
Dedication (#uc343b183-9db4-55e1-868c-5efdafa9436a)
CHAPTER 1: The Man With the White Hair (#u61d0b7fc-6252-563b-b90a-af6f066455ae)
CHAPTER 2: M. le Marquis (#u5f72d7d5-0a38-538a-b219-bb557c7959d3)
CHAPTER 3: Heart of Fire (#u2dfadfc6-17e3-59b2-8d7d-c2b17e07eea3)
CHAPTER 4: In Curzon Street (#uc1601575-6b26-5a2c-bdb5-cfa74a089ea3)
CHAPTER 5: A Useful Gentleman (#u85bbae6c-b540-5be8-971b-9d6e369d812f)
CHAPTER 6: Mirelle (#ue267f3df-b9a2-5ab3-b85d-ea1441b51bab)
CHAPTER 7: Letters (#u1904e8b9-fc70-513a-9403-4b10aa4350f6)
CHAPTER 8: Lady Tamplin Writes a Letter (#u8b51d4a1-6690-58dd-b448-81a28d599528)
CHAPTER 9: An Offer Refused (#u3aa9a331-9c4c-5c5c-856c-92428e6df69a)
CHAPTER 10: On the Blue Train (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 11: Murder (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 12: At the Villa Marguerite (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 13: Van Aldin Gets a Telegram (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 14: Ada Mason’s Story (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 15: The Comte de la Roche (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 16: Poirot Discusses the Case (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 17: An Aristocratic Gentleman (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 18: Derek Lunches (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 19: An Unexpected Visitor (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 20: Katherine Makes a Friend (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 21: At the Tennis (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 22: M. Papopolous Breakfasts (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 23: A New Theory (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 24: Poirot Gives Advice (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 25: Defiance (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 26: A Warning (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 27: Interview With Mirelle (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 28: Poirot Plays the Squirrel (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 29: A Letter From Home (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 30: Miss Viner Gives Judgment (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 31: Mr Aarons Lunches (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 32: Katherine and Poirot Compare Notes (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 33: A New Theory (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 34: The Blue Train Again (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 35: Explanations (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 36: By the Sea (#litres_trial_promo)
Also by Agatha Christie (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 1 (#u096d6e1f-8082-5602-b132-8f8038e0e69c)
The Man with the White Hair (#u096d6e1f-8082-5602-b132-8f8038e0e69c)
It was close on midnight when a man crossed the Place de la Concorde. In spite of the handsome fur coat which garbed his meagre form, there was something essentially weak and paltry about him.
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.
Even now, an Embassy awaited his return. But he had business to do first—business of which the Embassy was not officially cognizant. 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 tonight.
He came to the Seine, crossed it, and entered one of the less reputable quarters of Paris. Here he stopped before a tall, dilapidated house and made his way up to an apartment on the fourth floor. He had barely time to knock before the door was opened by a woman who had evidently been awaiting his arrival. She gave him no greeting, but helped him off with his overcoat and then led the way into the tawdrily furnished sitting-room. The electric light was shaded with dirty pink festoons, and it softened, but could not disguise, the girl’s face with its mask of crude paint. Could not disguise, either, the broad Mongolian cast of her countenance. There was no doubt of Olga Demiroff’s profession, nor of her nationality.
‘All is well, little one?’
‘All is well, Boris Ivanovitch.’
He nodded, murmuring: ‘I do not think I have been followed.’
But there was anxiety in his tone. He went to the window, drawing the curtains aside slightly, and peering carefully out. He started away violently.
‘There are two men—on the opposite pavement. It looks to me—’ He broke off and began gnawing at his nails—a habit he had when anxious.
The Russian girl was shaking her head with a slow, reassuring action.
‘They were here before you came.’
‘All the same, it looks to me as though they were watching this house.’
‘Possibly,’ she admitted indifferently.
‘But then—’
‘What of it? Even if they know—it will not be you they will follow from here.’
A thin, cruel smile came to his lips.
‘No,’ he admitted, ‘that is true.’
He mused for a minute or two, and then observed,
‘This damned American—he can look after himself as well as anybody.’
‘I suppose so.’
He went again to the window.
‘Tough customers,’ he muttered, with a chuckle. ‘Known to the police, I fear. Well, well, I wish Brother Apache good hunting.’
Olga Demiroff shook her head.
‘If the American is the kind of man they say he is, it will take more than a couple of cowardly apaches to get the better of him.’ She paused. ‘I wonder—’
‘Well?’
‘Nothing. Only twice this evening a man has passed along this street—a man with white hair.’
‘What of it?’
‘This. As he passed those two men, he dropped his glove. One of them picked it up and returned it to him. A threadbare device.’
‘You mean—that the white-haired man is—their employer?’
‘Something of the kind.’
The Russian looked alarmed and uneasy.
‘You are sure—the parcel is safe? It has not been tampered with? There has been too much talk…much too much talk.’
