Agatha Christie Reference (Spoilers)

[Patience_Jones]

Ok, this is driving me crazy.

I keep thinking that there is a reference to the conclusion of **Murder on the Orient Express **in a later Christie novel. From what I remember, someone directly asks Poirot if he can let the murderer off, because he or she had once heard that he had done something similar long ago.

Googling hasn’t helped much, and my memory is a bit too vague. Does anyone know what I’m talking about, or did I make this up in my own fevered brain?

[SpoilerVirgin]

Maybe you’re remembering this from Curtain (courtesy of Wikipedia)

Poirot mentions that once in Egypt he attempted to warn a murderer before the person committed the crime. That case is the one retold in Death on the Nile. He mentions that there was another case in which he had done the same thing: almost certainly that retold in “Triangle at Rhodes” (published in Murder in the Mews in 1937).

[Don_Draper]

I can’t help much except to say that I do remember it. I don’t remember what title it was (I don’t think it was “Curtain” though.) It was a woman character I remember who says something like “Rumor has it that during the affair in the Calais Coach of the Orient Express you allowed the true solution of the murder be suppressed…” Poirot explodes at her and exclaims that that was an entirely different set of circumstances.

I’m going to take a stab in the dark (pardon the pun) and guess that it was “Appointment with Death” - which, like “Orient Express” features a despicable person as the murder victim, one whom some might think would be justified in offing.

[The_Other_Waldo_Pepper]

@Don_Draper

I’m going to take a stab in the dark (pardon the pun) and guess that it was “Appointment with Death” - which, like “Orient Express” features a despicable person as the murder victim, one whom some might think would be justified in offing.

Looks like you’re right:

During his investigation, Nadine Boynton says to Poirot, “I have heard M. Poirot, that once, in that affair of the Orient Express, you accepted an official verdict of what had happened.” And he replies, “I wonder who told you that.”

[Patience_Jones]

Thanks very much!

[Dendarii_Dame]

Poirot also mentions Murder on the Orient Express in the novel, Cards on the Table. He shows the murder weapon and states

that twelve people used it to kill a man.

He says that the Compagnie des Wagon Lits (in other words, the owner of the railroad) gave it to him.

[Patience_Jones]

Thanks, I had forgotten that reference. I think I’ve only read that novel once.

[Elendil_s_Heir]

Bumped.

Here’s Agatha Christie in 1972, naming her own Top Ten favorite books (at least at that time): The Top 10 Agatha Christie Books According to Agatha Christie - For Reading Addicts

[Northern_Piper]

Interesting - I’ve read and re-read all of the ten she mentions, with one exception: Endless Night. Didn’t enjoy reading it and have never re-read it.