The novel begins on a train platform in Aleppo, Syria, early in the morning. Our narrator shows us that two men are speaking in French: one, Lieutenant Dubosc, is seeing off another, Hercule Poirot. Dubosc thanks Poirot profusely. He has evidently performed an important task for the French army, though the reader is privy to few specifics. Poirot brushes off the compliments, reminding Dubosc that he, in fact, once saved Poirot’s own life. Poirot boards the train, which will be stopping next in Stam boul (or Istanbul). He takes a nap, and when he wakes up, encounters a fellow passenger in the dining car. The passenger, Miss Debenham, is a young Englishwoman returning from a post as a governess in Baghdad.