Bombay Mail on AllMovie

Universal's Bombay Mail adheres to the pattern established by Paramount's Shanghai Express, with a group of Calcutta-bound train passengers thrust into a life-or-death situation. In the course of the 36-hour journey, a high-ranking British official (Ferdinand Gottschalk) and an equally prominent Maharajah (Douglas Gerrard) are both murdered. Police inspector Dyke (Edmund Lowe) would like to make an arrest, but is stymied by a lack of evidence -- or even a murder weapon. Complicating matters is a scheme hatched by a couple of other passengers to steal a valuable ruby. It turns out that a poisonous cobra is the instrument of death, and that the murderer is...well, no fair giving it away here. Future gossip queen Hedda Hopper appears as one of the most suspicious-looking suspects.