Just after midnight, a snowdrift stopped the Orient Express in its tracks. The luxurious train was surprisingly full for the time of the year. But by the morning there was one passenger fewer.An American lay dead in his compartment, stabbed a dozen times, his door locked from the inside.

Agatha Christie is known throughout the world as the Queen of Crime. Her books have sold over a billion copies in English with another billion in 100 foreign languages. She is the most widely published author of all time and in any language, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. She is the author of 80 crime novels and short story collections, 19 plays, and six novels written under the name of Mary Westmacott.

Agatha Christie’s first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles,was written towards the end of the First World War, in which she served as a VAD. In it she created Hercule Poirot, the little Belgian detective who was destined to become the most popular detective in crime fiction since Sherlock Holmes. It was eventually published by The Bodley Head in 1920.

In 1926, after averaging a book a year, Agatha Christie wrote her masterpiece. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was the first of her books to be published by Collins and marked the beginning of an author-publisher relationship which lasted for 50 years and well over 70 books. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was also the first of Agatha Christie’s books to be dramatised - under the name Alibi - and to have a successful run in London’s West End. The Mousetrap, her most famous play of all, opened in 1952 and is the longest-running play in history.

Agatha Christie was made a Dame in 1971. She died in 1976, since when a number of books have been published posthumously: the bestselling novel Sleeping Murder appeared later that year, followed by her autobiography and the short story collections Miss Marple’s Final Cases, Problem at Pollensa Bay and While the Light Lasts. In 1998 Black Coffee was the first of her plays to be novelised by another author, Charles Osborne.

Part 1

The Facts

 1 An Important Passenger on the Taurus Express 11

 2 The Tokaflian Hotel 25

 3 Poirot Refuses a Case 37

 4 A Cry In The Night 47

 5 The Crime 53

 6 AWoman? 69

 7 The Body 79

 8 The Armstrong Kidnapping Case 95

Part 2

The Evidence

 1 The Evidence of the Wagon Lit Conductor 103

 2 The Evidence of the Secretary 113

 3 The Evidence of the Valet 121

 4 The Evidence of the American Lady 129

 5 The Evidence of the Swedish Lady 141

 6 The Evidence of the Russian Princess 149

 7 The Evidence of Count and Countess Andrenyi 159

 8 The Evidence of Colonel Arbuthnot 167

 9 The Evidence of Mr Hardman 179

10 The Evidence of the Italian 189

11 The Evidence of Miss Debenham 195

12 The Evidence of the German Lady"s-Maid 203

13 Summary of the Passengers" Evidence 213

14 The Evidence of the Weapon 223

15 The Evidence of the Passengers" Luggage 233

Part 3

Hercule Poirot Sits Back and Thinks

1 Which of Them? 257

2 Ten Questions 267

3 Certain Suggestive Points 275

4 The Grease Spot on a Hungarian Passport 287 

5 The Christian Name of Princess Dragomiroff 297

6 A Second Interview with Colonel Arbuthnot 305

7 The Identity of Mary Debenham 311

8 Further Surprising Revelations 317

9 Poir0t Propounds Two Solutions 327