Murder on the Orient Express

Characters
Hercule Poirot: world-famous detective from Belgium.
• Bouc: Poirot's Belgian friend and a director of the Compagnie Internationale des
Wagons-Lits.
Samuel Ratchett/Cassetti: An American gangster who kidnapped and murdered three-
year-old Daisy Armstrong.
• Dr. Stavros Constantine: a Greek physician, who, after the murder, determines
Ratchett's time of death.
• Mrs. Caroline Hubbard: the American actress Linda Arden, who is also revealed
to be Daisy Armstrong's maternal grandmother.
• Mary Debenham: An English governess returning from Baghdad and
was formerly Daisy Armstrong's governess.
Characters
• Colonel John Arbuthnot: Colonel Armstrong's English best friend who is in love
with Mary Debenham.
• Princess Natalia Dragomiroff: a Russian princess who is ultimately revealed to
be Sonia Armstrong's godmother.
• Hector MacQueen: Ratchett's American secretary and translator, whose father was
the Armstrongs' lawyer.
• Countess Helena Andrenyi: Sonia Armstrong's sister, notable as the only
one of the thirteen suspects who did not participate in the murder.
• Count Rudolph Andrenyi: Countess Andrenyi's Hungarian husband, who
took his wife's place as the twelfth murderer.
• Cyrus Hardman: an American ex-policeman who was in love with Daisy Armstrong's
French nursery maid, Susanne, who killed herself after being falsely accused of aiding
Cassetti.
• Antonio Foscarelli: an Italian-American car salesman who was formerly the Armstrongs'
chauffeur and had loved little Daisy.
• Greta Ohlsson: a Swedish missionary who was formerly Daisy Armstrong's nurse.
• Hildegarde Schmidt: Princess Dragomiroff's German maid who was
formerly the Armstrongs' cook
Characters
• Edward Henry Masterman: Ratchett's English valet, a remote and haughty
man, who was Col. Armstrong's batman in the war and valet in New York.
• Pierre Michel: the French train conductor and father of Daisy Armstrong's nursery
maid, Susanne, who killed herself after being falsely accused of aiding Cassetti.

Plot summary
Hercule Poirot, the best detective in the world,
decides to travel on the Orient Express. The train
accidentally gets stopped because of a small
avalanche. Little did he know that a murder was
planned and that a person on this train was capable
of committing such crime.
 Plot/Story [Murder on the Orient Express (2017 film)]
In 1934, famed Belgian detective Hercule Poirot solves a theft at the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. The obsessive-compulsive
Poirot had intended to rest in Istanbul but must return to London for
another case. His friend Bouc, director of the Simplon-route Orient
Express service, arranges Poirot's accommodations aboard the train.
Other passengers include American widow Caroline Hubbard,
American businessman Edward Ratchett, Ratchett's English
manservant Edward Masterman and his secretary/translator Hector
MacQueen; elderly Russian Princess Natalia Dragomiroff and her
German maid Hildegarde Schmidt; Hungarian diplomat Count Rudolf
Andrenyi and his wife Elena; physician John Arbuthnot; Mary
Debenham, a governess; Pilar Estravados, a Spanish missionary;
Cuban-American car salesman Biniamino Marquez; and Gerhard
Hardman, an Austrian university professor.
 Ratchett offers to hire Poirot as his
bodyguard during the three-day journey,
having received anonymous threatening
letters, but Poirot declines. An avalanche
derails the train's engine, stranding the
passengers until a rescue engine can arrive.
During the night, Poirot is awakened by
strange noises in Ratchett's compartment,
which is next to his own. Immediately after, he
sees someone in a red kimono rushing down
the aisleway.
Ratchett is found murdered the next morning, stabbed a dozen
times. Poirot and Bouc investigate the other passengers.
Evidence indicates one person murdered Ratchett. Mrs.
Hubbard claims a man was in her compartment during the
night. Poirot discovers a partially burned note connecting
Ratchett to Daisy Armstrong, a small child who was kidnapped
and then murdered after her wealthy family paid the ransom.
Ratchett's true identity is John Cassetti, Daisy's kidnapper and
murderer. The shock of Daisy's death caused her pregnant
mother, Sonia, to die after giving premature birth to a stillborn
baby; her father, Colonel John Armstrong, was overcome with
grief and committed suicide. The family's nursemaid, Susanne,
was wrongly suspected of complicity, leading to her arrest and
subsequent suicide while in police custody.
 More evidence is found, including a bloodstained handkerchief, and,
in Mrs. Hubbard's compartment, a conductor's uniform button. Poirot
finds the uniform and the red kimono planted in his suitcase. Hubbard
is stabbed, non-fatally, in the back, but she cannot identify the culprit.
Poirot discovers many passengers have direct connections to the
Armstrong family and uncovers their hidden pasts. While interviewing
Debenham, Poirot is shot in the shoulder by Dr. Arbuthnot, who claims
responsibility for the murder, but Bouc prevents him from killing Poirot.
However, Poirot realises that Arbuthnot, a former army sniper, never
intended to kill him.
Poirot confronts the suspects outside the train, offering two theories
on Cassetti's death. The first is simple but does not fit all the facts: a
murderer disguised as a conductor boarded the train at a previous
stop, murdered Cassetti, then fled the train. The second theory is
more complex: every suspect is connected to the Armstrongs,
Susanne, or to her trial. All had a motive to murder Cassetti:
Poirot concludes they acted together, which Hubbard confirms, admitting she
planned the murder and recruited the others to participate. Each co-
conspirator and Michel stabbed Cassetti in turn. Debenham wore the kimono
and Arbuthnot superficially stabbed Hubbard to convince Poirot there was a
lone killer. Poirot challenges the passengers and Michel to shoot him with a
confiscated gun to prevent him from exposing their plot; Bouc can lie, but
Poirot, obsessed with truth and balance, cannot. Hubbard grabs the gun and
attempts suicide, but it is empty; Poirot was testing the suspects' reactions.

With the locomotive back on the tracks, Poirot concludes that justice is
impossible in this case, as Cassetti deserved death. For the first time,
Poirot must live with a lie and imbalance. He presents the lone killer theory
to the Yugoslavian police, allowing the others to remain on the train. As he
disembarks, a British Army messenger delivers a note asking him to
investigate a death on the Nile. Poirot accepts the case.
Plot/Story [Murder on the Orient Express (by English writer Agatha Christie)]

After 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. He instructs the concierge to book
him a first-class compartment on the Simplon-route Orient Express
service leaving that night. Although the train is fully booked, Poirot
obtains a second-class berth through the intervention of friend, fellow
Belgian, and fellow passenger Monsieur Bouc, director of the train
operator Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits(CIWL). Other
passengers include American widow Caroline Hubbard; English governess
Mary Debenham; Swedish missionary Greta Ohlsson; American
businessman Samuel Ratchett, with his secretary/translator Hector
MacQueen, 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. Hardman; and Greek medical doctor Stavros
Constantine.
 Ratchett has been receiving death threats; recognizing
Poirot, he tries to hire him for protection. Poirot, repulsed by
Ratchett, refuses, telling him, "I will not take your case
because I do not like your face." Bouc has taken the last first-
class cabin, but on the first morning he arranges to move to a
separate coach and gives Poirot his space. That night, Poirot
observes some strange occurrences. Early in the morning, he
is awakened by a cry from Ratchett's compartment next
door. Pierre Michel, the train's conductor, knocks on
Ratchett's door, but a voice from inside responds, "Ce n'est
rien. Je me suis trompé." ("It is nothing. I was mistaken.")
Hubbard rings her bell and tells Michel a man passed through
her room. When Poirot rings his bell for water, Michel informs
him that the train is stuck in a snowdrift between Vinkovci
and Brod before he hears a loud thump next door. He
observes a woman in a red kimono going towards the
washroom, then goes to sleep.
 the murderer is still aboard, having no way to escape in the snow. As
there are no police onboard, Poirot takes up the case. With help from Dr.
Constantine, Poirot examines Ratchett's body and compartment,
discovering the following: the body has twelve stab wounds, the window
had been left open, a handkerchief with the initial "H", a pipe cleaner, a
flat match different from the ones Ratchett used, and a charred piece of
paper with "member little Daisy Armstrong" written on it.

The piece of paper helps Poirot work out the murderer's motive. Many
years earlier, American gangster Cassetti kidnapped three-year-old
Daisy Armstrong. Cassetti collected a significant ransom from the
wealthy Armstrong family, then revealed that he had already killed the
child. Sonia Armstrong, Daisy's mother, who was pregnant with her
second child, went into premature labor upon hearing the news and died,
along with the baby. Her grieving husband, Colonel Armstrong, shot
himself, and Daisy's French nursemaid, Susanne, was accused of aiding
Cassetti and killed herself, only to be found innocent afterwards.
Cassetti escaped justice through corruption and legal technicalities, and
fled the country. Poirot concludes that Ratchett was actually Cassetti.
Whoever had answered the conductor was not Ratchett, as Ratchett did
not speak French.
 As Poirot begins interviewing everyone on the train, he discovers
MacQueen is directly involved as he knows about the Armstrong
note and believed it was destroyed and that Hubbard believes the
murderer was in her cabin. While the passengers and Pierre all
provide suitable alibis for each other, Poirot notes that some of
them observed the woman in the red kimono walking down the
hallway on the night of the murder. However, no one admits to
owning a red kimono. Hubbard had Ohlsson lock the
communicating door between her compartment and that of
Cassetti, which invalidates her story of the man in her
compartment, and Schmidt bumped into a stranger wearing a
Wagons-Lits uniform. Miss Debenham inadvertently reveals she has
been to America, contrary to her earlier statements, and Ohlsson
shows much emotion when the subject of Daisy is brought up,
causing further suspicion. Arbuthnot remarks that Cassetti should
have been found guilty in a second trial instead of murdered, and
Hardman admits he is actually a MacNeil Agency private detective
who was asked to watch out for an assassin that was stalking
Cassetti.
While inspecting the passengers' luggage, Poirot
is surprised to find the label on Countess
Andrenyi's luggage is wet and that her passport
is smudged, Schmidt's bag contains the uniform
in question, and Poirot's own luggage contains
the red kimono, recently hidden there. Hubbard
herself finds the murder weapon hidden in her
sponge bag. Poirot meets with Dr. Constantine
and Bouc to review the case and develop a list of
questions. With these and the evidence in mind,
Poirot thinks about the case, going into a
trance-like state. When he surfaces from it, he
deduces the solution.
 He calls in the suspects and reveals their true identities and that they
were all connected to the Armstrong tragedy in some way, gathering
them in the dining car for the second solution. Countess Andrenyi (nee
Goldenberg) is Helena, Daisy's aunt, who was a child herself at the time
of the tragedy. Rudolph, her loving husband, smudged her luggage label
and obscured her name to conceal her identity. Debenham was Helena's
and Daisy's governess; Foscarelli was the Armstrongs' chauffeur and a
suspect in the kidnapping; Masterman was Col. Armstrong's valet; Michel
is Susanne's father and the person who procured the false second
uniform; Hubbard is actually actress Linda Arden (Daisy's grandmother
and Sonia's and Helena's mother); Schmidt was the Armstrongs' cook;
and Ohlsson was Daisy's nurse. Princess Dragomiroff, in reality Sonia's
godmother, claims the monogrammed handkerchief, saying that her
forename is Natalia, and the "H" is actually a Cyrillic letter "N". Arbuthnot
is there on Debenham's behalf and his own, as he was a personal friend
of Colonel Armstrong. Hardman is an ex-policeman who admits he was in
love with Susanne, and MacQueen, who had feelings for Sonia, was the
son of the lawyer who represented the Armstrongs. The only passengers
not involved in the murder are Bouc and Dr. Constantine, both having
slept in the other coach, which was locked.
Poirot propounds two possible solutions, one far
simpler than the other, and advises them to
consider both seriously. The first is that a
stranger boarded the train when it stopped at
Vinkovci, killed Cassetti as a result of a Mafia
feud, and disembarked just before the train
started off again. The second is that all the clues
except the note about Daisy Armstrong were
planted and that Michel and all the passengers in
the coach, except Helena, stabbed Cassetti,
acting as their own jury. Arden acknowledges
everything and offers to take responsibility as
she was the mastermind. Bouc and Dr.
Constantine, however, decide the first solution
should be relayed to the police. Poirot retires
from the case.
All of this information leads to the main questio:
- Hypothetical Scenario of Sherlock Holmes vs. Hercule Poirot's case

:rules: (1) Holmes is placed in Poirot's scenarios throughout the case, this means
that everything that happened to Poirot, it will also happen to Holmes
immediately.
(2) Holmes will do things with his own way and not like Poirot.
(3) You have to provide how he going to inferences that physical evidences or
suspect’s lies based on Sherlock’s case problem-solving.

If Sherlock Holmes were to replace Herclue Poirot, would he be able to solve the
Murder On the Orient Express from Agatha Christie's books?

Would he be able to figure out the culprit? and if he would, could he prove it?
And could he find the solution?

Analyze as deeply as you can and explain to me in detail also about the case.
(Intensively analyze in specific original context and according to the story)