1928: The Mystery of the Blue Train

Publisher: William Collins & Sons, 1928 (UK);  Dodd, Mead & Co., 1928 (US)          

Series: Hercule Poirot

Category: Novel

Cross refs: ‘The Plymouth Express’; The Big Four; After the Funeral; The Third Girl; Hallowe’en Party; Murder at the Vicarage

Warning, spoilers!

Anyone who has read the short story ‘The Plymouth Express’ would be forgiven for having a sense of déjà vu when embarking on The Mystery of the Blue Train. Indeed, the latter, published in 1928, was based on the 1923 short story, and developed at a time when – as with The Big Four – Christie was going through a difficult period in her life, but faced the necessity of delivering a book.

I have previously written about Christie’s ability to form a well-paced and carefully structured narrative in a paucity of words. What we see here is the evolution of a concept from short story to novelised version without allowing the text to get too ‘baggy’. Granted, The Mystery of the Blue Train could have done without the first two chapters; indeed, the serialised version – published in The Star between 1 February and 15 March 1928 – left out these rather flamboyant pages with little editorial tweaks required elsewhere to conceal their omission. International jewel smugglers aside, this book demonstrates how a two-dimensional story can blossom into a three-dimensional mystery, complete with an intriguing supporting cast and glamourous Riviera backdrop. If you have read this novel but have not read ‘The Plymouth Express’ I would suggest reading the latter to experience this blossoming first hand.

Christie wrote most of The Mystery of the Blue Train while she was in the Canary Islands with her daughter Rosalind and her friend (and Rosalind’s governess) Charlotte Fisher, known affectionately as ‘Carlo’ and ‘Carlotta’ (c.1901–1976). The writing, already a struggle due to a lack of ‘elan’ on Christie’s part, was not made any easier by Rosalind who, ‘was not a child who could amuse herself’. In fact, Christie goes on to question ‘how the wretched book ever came to be written’ at all.[1]  

I had no joy in writing … I had worked out a plot … but I could not see the scene in my mind’s eye and the people would not come alive. I was driven desperately on by the desire, indeed the necessity, to write another book and make some money.[2]     

Christie regarded this time as being significant in terms of her career; a moment when she went from amateur writer to professional author.[3] She, ‘assumed the burden of a profession’, which, as she observed, was ‘to write even when you don’t want to, don’t much like what you’re writing, and aren’t writing particularly well’.[4] The dedication in the book is to, ‘the two distinguished members of the O.F.D. – Carlotta and Peter’. O.F.D. here refers to the ‘Order of the Faithful Dogs’, those people who stuck with Christie during the difficult years following the death of her mother and the infidelity of her first husband. Peter was Rosalind’s much-loved dog!

Despite her own negative feelings towards The Mystery of the Blue Train, Christie did eventually manage to breathe life into her characters. What we have in this novel (and what was wanting in The Big Four) are not only protagonists, but also side characters, who have real depth of personality and who allow Christie to return to some moments of shrewd social observation alongside a sprinkling of humour. The straight-talking Miss Viner, for example, remains a staunch favourite of mine. At the news that Katherine Grey has come into some money she declares:

‘Don’t think you’ll get married, though, my dear, because you won’t. You’re not the kind to attract the men. And, besides, you’re getting on. How old are you now?’

‘Thirty-three’, Katherine told her.

‘Well’, remarked Miss Viner doubtfully, ‘that’s not so very bad. You’ve lost your first freshness, of course … But you’re a very nice girl … And I’m sure there’s many a man might do worse than take you for a wife instead of one of these flibbertigibbets running about nowadays showing more of their legs than the Creator ever intended them to.’

Later, when Katherine returns to England from Nice, Miss Viner observes:

Have you come back a stuck-up fine lady, as well you might have done? No, there you are, as sensible as ever you were, with a pair of good Balbriggan stockings on and sensible shoes. 

Such backhanded compliments cannot but be met with a wry smile. Moreover, it should not go unremarked upon that Miss Viner lives in the small village of St Mary Mead, a location that Christie would revisit in 1927 in the first Miss Marple mystery – a short story entitled ‘The Tuesday Night Club’ (first published in the UK in The Royal Magazine) – and again from 1930, when her first full-length Miss Marple novel was published.

Another member of the supporting cast bestowed with personality, and one who would re-emerge in later novels, is Mr Goby. This ‘small, elderly man, shabbily dressed, with eyes that looked carefully all round the room, and never at the person he was addressing’, is a private investigator, brought in here by Mr Van Aldin but who is later (in books including After the Funeral (1953), The Third Girl (1966) and Hallowe’en Party (1969)) called upon by Poirot himself. Goby’s tendency to address himself to the radiator, the left-hand desk drawer, the cornice and other miscellaneous, but specific, points in the room, is a comic affectation that allows us to understand how this omniscient figure remains himself unseen. He is awkward and modest, but aware of the power of the knowledge he holds. He is, as Van Aldin observes, ‘the goods’.       

The novel also features a Wagon Lit conductor called Pierre Michel, which is the same name of the Wagon Lit conductor who appears in Murder on the Orient Express, though it is never revealed whether these two characters are one and the same.

Finally, The Mystery of the Blue Train also introduces us to Poirot’s valet, ‘Georges’, who, like Goby, becomes a recurring cast member. It seems that George has recently begun working for Poirot following service with the late Lord Edward Frampton. George’s efficiency is immediately established, he having removed the ‘morceau of filet de sole à la Jeannette’ from Poirot suit, which, we are told, had ‘alighted there’ during a meal at the Ritz on the preceding Tuesday: ‘There is no spot there now, sir’, said George reproachfully. ‘I have removed it.’ Likewise, his familiarity with the English aristocracy and preference for working with a certain class of gentleman is made abundantly clear. As Poirot observes:

‘I often wonder having lived so exclusively with titled families that you demean yourself by coming as a valet to me. I put it down to love of excitement on your part.’

‘Not exactly, sir’, said George. ‘I happened to see in Society Snippets that you had been received at Buckingham Palace. That was just when I was looking for a new situation. His Majesty, so it said, had been most gracious and friendly and thought very highly of your abilities.’

Perhaps there is the touch of the snob about George.

Indeed, in the 1920s the English class system was as pronounced as ever, and its presence does not go unremarked in this book. While addressing Mason, the maid of Mrs Kettering, we are told, ‘Poirot greeted her with his usual politeness, which was never without effect on that particular class.’ Later, having made a suggestion to Mason about the case, Poirot ‘leaned back in his chair and watched the suggestion slowly take effect. No one knew better than Hercule Poirot that the class to which Mason belongs cannot be hurried.’  

Distinctions of class are seen again in Miss Viner’s insistence on calling her maid Ellen, rather than her actual name, Helen. She remarks:

I can sound my h’s, dear, as well as any one, but Helen is not a suitable name for a servant. I don’t know what the mothers in the lower classes are coming to nowadays.

The upper classes are not exempt from such critiques. Lady Tamplin is portrayed as the picture of the social climber:

She was a woman of considerable experience, and had had four husbands. The first had been merely an indiscretion, and so was seldom referred to by the lady. He had had the good sense to die with commendable promptitude, and his widow thereupon espoused a rich manufacturer of buttons. He too had departed for another sphere after three years of married life – it was said after a congenial evening with some boon companions. After him came Viscount Tamplin, who had placed Rosalie securely on those heights where she wished to tread. She had retained her title when she married for a fourth time. This fourth venture had been undertaken for pure pleasure. Mr. Charles Evans, an extremely good-looking young man of twenty-seven, with delightful manners, a keen love of sport, and an appreciation of this world’s goods, had no money of his own whatsoever.

For the case, Poirot is, of course, hoisted back out of retirement, taking it upon himself to solve the murder of Ruth Kettering, daughter of the millionaire tycoon Rufus Van Aldin. There are the requisite twists, and the ‘loveable rogue’ character of Derek Kettering is elevated from his status of out-and-out bad lot in ‘The Plymouth Express’. Though not one of Christie’s favourite novels, Katherine is a strong and likeable lead, and we are introduced to Poirot’s romantic, matchmaking side as he assumes the role of ‘Papa Poirot’, a side that emerges again in later novels.   

[1] Christie 2011, p. 357.

[2] Christie 2011, pp. 357–8.

[3] ‘Book of the Month: The Mystery of the Blue Train’, The Home of Agatha Christie, 1 August 2017, https://www.agathachristie.com/en/news/2017/book-of-the-month-the-mystery-of-the-blue-train [accessed 8 June2026].

[4] Christie 2011, p. 358.