45 pages • 1 hour read
Strangers On A Train
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BetaChapters 39-43Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 39 Summary
Bruno has a nightmare about being chased through a forest by Gerard. Guy is tied up and bleeding in the dream. Bruno shouts to Guy in his sleep and wakes to see Gerard watching him. Gerard knows that he met Guy on the train to Santa Fe, about the book on Plato and the calls to Metcalf.
Chapter 40 Summary
Guy completes work on the hospital drawings. He receives a telegram from his old friend Bob Treacher, who commissions him to build a bridge in Alberta. Bruno calls to inform Guy that Gerard has discovered the book on Plato and consolidate their story. Guy goes to meet Anne for lunch.
Chapter 41 Summary
Gerard connects the Haines murder with the Captain's, and questions Bruno, then Bruno and Guy together. Guy denies meeting Bruno on the train and Gerard discredits this with the waiter's testimony. Gerard links the two murders, but not conclusively.
Chapter 42 Summary
Gerard tells Anne that Guy has lied. He asks her about Guy's behavior the June before last. She replies that it was a difficult month, since Miriam died. Gerard infers in front of Anne that Bruno told Guy about his murder designs on his father and that Guy responded evasively. Gerard posits "a mutual secret" between the two men. Anne confirms Guy was nervous in March at the time of the Captain's murder, then wishes she hadn't.
Guy confesses to Anne that he met Bruno on the train, and that Bruno said he wished his father were dead. Guy lies to Anne, claiming that he doesn't want to tell Gerard in case it incriminates Bruno, and thinks to himself that telling this lie is "the basest thing he had ever done" (240). Guy contemplates whether or not he will be found out, and whether he committed the crime in "self-defense."
Chapter 43 Summary
Gerard announces to District Attorney Phil Howland that he has cracked the case. Gerard shows him the testimonies of everyone Bruno encountered on the night of Miriam's murder. Gerard explains that the two men exchanged murders, and Bruno's emotional manipulation of Guy. Gerard wants to approach Guy carefully. In the meantime, Gerard is going to Iowa on vacation.
Chapters 39-43 Analysis
In these chapters, Gerard connects the two murders. Simultaneously, Guy is commissioned to build the bridge in Alberta, a literal connection. Although Gerard's conflation of the two murders spells doom for the duo, the bridge is the commission that Guy has longed for. This suggests that he desires that Gerard bring his crimes to light. When Gerard departs for Iowa, it underscores a consistent rule in the novel that physical proximity does not guarantee intimacy, nor does a geographical distance entail a psychological one. In this sense, the psychological connection established by the two men on the train is the most radical and romantic of any in the novel, somewhat reminiscent of the 1945 classic film, A Brief Encounter. Frequently in fiction, as here, the train is a symbol of the seemingly ineluctable force of desire.
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