# The Mystery of the Blue Train — Character guide

> Key figures in The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie.

- [Hercule Poirot](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_mystery_of_the_blue_train_se/characters/hercule_poirot.md): Poirot arrives in this case not as a policeman but as a consultant summoned by a grieving millionaire, and he insists on riding the very train where the crime occurred. His methods are theatrical and precise: he acts out
- [Katherine Grey](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_mystery_of_the_blue_train_se/characters/katherine_grey.md): Katherine spent a decade managing a difficult old lady in Little Crampton, and she carries that hard-won composure into a sudden inheritance and a first-class ticket to the Riviera. On the train she listens to Ruth Kette
- [Ruth Kettering](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_mystery_of_the_blue_train_se/characters/ruth_kettering.md): Ruth Kettering is the pivot on which the whole tragedy turns: rich, restless, and quietly desperate to escape a marriage her father is determined to end for her. She confides in a stranger, Katherine Grey, about a man sh
- [Derek Kettering](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_mystery_of_the_blue_train_se/characters/derek_kettering.md): Derek Kettering moves through the story with the easy manners of a man who has never had to earn anything, and the mounting debts of one who has spent everything anyway. He is travelling on the same train as the wife he 
- [Rufus Van Aldin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_mystery_of_the_blue_train_se/characters/rufus_van_aldin.md): Van Aldin built his fortune by trusting his own judgement, and he brings that same blunt certainty to his daughter's death, immediately naming Derek Kettering a scoundrel and the Comte de la Roche a murderer. His grief i
- [Mirelle](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_mystery_of_the_blue_train_se/characters/mirelle.md): Mirelle receives Derek in her amber-cushioned flat, listens to his talk of divorce and ruin, and coolly weighs whether to stay. She is beautiful, calculating, and frank about her own survival: when Derek asks if she will
- [Major Knighton](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_mystery_of_the_blue_train_se/characters/major_knighton.md): Knighton serves as right hand to the American millionaire Van Aldin, handling sensitive business with a tact that keeps him close to every development in the Kettering case. His very self-effacement makes him hard to rea
- [Comte de la Roche](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_mystery_of_the_blue_train_se/characters/comte_de_la_roche.md): The Comte de la Roche moves through Riviera society with an easy gallantry that masks a calculating eye, and his name is already whispered in connection with stolen gems before the murder. When Mirelle arrives at his vil
- [Lady Tamplin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_mystery_of_the_blue_train_se/characters/lady_tamplin.md): Lady Tamplin presides over a villa in Nice with an eye fixed firmly on advantage, welcoming Katherine Grey less out of family feeling than out of hope that her cousin's inheritance will prove useful. Her breezy snobbery 
- [Lenox Tamplin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_mystery_of_the_blue_train_se/characters/lenox_tamplin.md): Lenox Tamplin sees through her mother's social maneuvering with a sardonic clarity that she hides behind a sullen manner and a grin. She warns Katherine not to be taken in, then decides she likes her precisely because Ka
- [Ada Mason](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_mystery_of_the_blue_train_se/characters/ada_mason.md): Ada Mason has served many ladies and prides herself on giving satisfaction, and her composure is tested when she is brought before the French magistrate to describe her mistress's last hours. Dressed in black with a redd
- [M. Papopolous](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_mystery_of_the_blue_train_se/characters/m_papopolous.md): Papopolous moves through the story with the polished manners of a connoisseur, but his real business lies in the shadow market for precious stones, where reputations are quietly traded and rubies change hands without pro
- [Miss Viner](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_mystery_of_the_blue_train_se/characters/miss_viner.md): Katherine's elderly employer in St. Mary Mead, who dies early in the story.
- [M. Carrège](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_mystery_of_the_blue_train_se/characters/m_carrege.md): The examining magistrate in charge of the murder investigation.
- [Zia](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_mystery_of_the_blue_train_se/characters/zia.md): Papopolous's daughter, assisting her father in the jewel trade.
- [Chubby Evans](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_mystery_of_the_blue_train_se/characters/chubby_evans.md): A friend of Derek Kettering, involved in the social circle.
- [Goby](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_mystery_of_the_blue_train_se/characters/goby.md): A discreet private investigator employed by Van Aldin.
- [Hipolyte Flavelle](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_mystery_of_the_blue_train_se/characters/hipolyte_flavelle.md): A young man connected to the Comte de la Roche's circle.
- [Joseph Aarons](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_mystery_of_the_blue_train_se/characters/joseph_aarons.md): A theatrical agent who provides information to Poirot.
- [M. Caux](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_mystery_of_the_blue_train_se/characters/m_caux.md): A police officer assisting in the investigation in France.
- [George](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_mystery_of_the_blue_train_se/characters/george.md): Poirot's valet, who occasionally assists his master.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_mystery_of_the_blue_train_se/characters