Summary

This chapter contains the solution of the mystery, and Poirot's explanation of how he came to understand it.

After all the passengers (and the Conductor, Michel) have assembled in the dining car, Poirot tells them there are two possible explanations for how Ratchett was killed. The first, he suggests, is that the murderer was "a certain enemy" of Ratchett's who snuck onto the train at one of its early stops disguised as a conductor, killed Ratchett, left through Mrs. Hubbard's compartment (where he lost a button and hid the weapon into her sponge-bag), hid the uniform, and jumped off before the train left its stop. The watch, he says, displays the time it does because Ratchett forgot to adjust it as the train crossed the time line. The voice crying out in French from Ratchett's compartment, he concludes, was someone else who went in (for...