 
The WORLD of HERCULE POIROT Impeccably dressed, scrupulously logical, and with a penchant for growing vegetable marrows, Hercule Poirot remains to this day one of Agatha Christie’s most beloved (and most instantly recognizable) literary creations. When Christie’s sister Madge challenged her to write a detective story in 1916, neither woman knew that this would be the beginning of a writing career lasting over half a century. During this time, Christie wrote thirty-three novels, a play and dozens of short stories starring Poirot and a recurring cast of his friends and associates, building a legacy that has made her the world’s best-selling novelist of all time. At the time Christie wrote her first Poirot story, she was working in a dispensary during the First World War. Drawing inspiration from the many Belgian refugees she met there, Christie decided to make her sleuth one of them. Once a star of the Belgian police force [1], Hercule Poirot [2] fled to England during the war and became a highly successful private investigator. Known for his rationality rather than his modesty, Poirot described himself as 'probably the greatest detective in the world’. Standing at five feet four inches tall, and with a head 'exactly the shape of an egg’, he carried himself with great elegance and dignity. Poirot was never seen with even a speck of dust on his clothing, sported a now-iconic eye-catching black moustache and had a charming and courteous manner (which often came in handy for eliciting vital pieces of information from suspicious onlookers). Poirot’s recorded career spanned six decades, and his cases took him all over the world: from a cruise down the Nile [3], to one of his most famous investigations aboard the Orient Express [4], where he was tasked with discovering the identity of a woman in a scarlet kimono [5] spotted near the crime scene. He handled delicate matters for private individuals and societies, as well as for people at the highest levels of government (with at least one home secretary and two prime ministers in his debt.) By Poirot’s side through many of these adventures was his loyal chronicler Captain Arthur Hastings [6], the narrator of numerous Hercule Poirot short stories and eight novels, beginning with the first, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, and concluding with the last, Curtain, which was published in 1975. After a distinguished military career, Hastings worked as an MP’s secretary and became Poirot’s roommate in London, before he married and moved to Argentina. Some notable cases they investigated together included a stabbing on a golf course in The Murder on the Links and a pair of deaths connected to a fancy-dress party in 'The Affair at the Victory Ball’. Another of Poirot’s trusted advisors in many of his famous cases was Miss Felicity Lemon [7], the detective’s extremely efficient secretary, who dreamed of inventing the world’s greatest filing system. Poirot helped Miss Lemon extract her sister from a web of murder and smuggling in Hickory Dickory Dock, in which a youth hostel was shaken by valuables smuggled in rucksacks [8], and missing jewellery reappearing in soup bowls. Meanwhile, George [9], Poirot’s quiet, meticulous valet, whose name he pronounced 'Georges’, stepped forward to help the sleuth capture a poisoner in The Labours of Hercules: a collection of twelve cases including dogmapping, art theft and the tracking of a murderer to a snowbound mountaintop inn [10]. Poirot also often found himself helping out Scotland Yard with their investigations: his friend and dedicated detective Inspector James Japp [11] relied on Poirot’s assistance from the 1920s to 1940. Their cases included a death by poison dart on an airplane in Death in the Clouds, a shooting while on holiday in Peril at End House, and the hunt for a serial killer who left behind a railway guide [12] at every crime scene in The ABC Murders. Poirot also worked alongside Colonel John Race [13], a dashing globetrotter working for Britain’s Secret Service with whom Christie’s detective investigated the murder of an heiress and the theft of a pearl necklace [14] in Death on the Nile. Mrs Ariadne Oliver [15], a famous mystery writer who is often seen as a self-parody on Christie’s part, appeared in six of the novels. She was notoriously disorganized, believed strongly in women’s intuition, and loved eating apples. She often declared that 'if a woman was in charge of Scotland Yard’ very few crimes would go unsolved. She became Poirot’s most prominent investigative ally during the latter decades of his life, helping him save a condemned man in Mrs McGinty's Dead, investigate suspicious young artists during the Swinging Sixties in Third Girl, and solve the murder of a girl drowned in an apple-bobbing bucket [16] in Hallowe'en Party. But of all Poirot’s friends and allies, he was most enamoured with the Countess Vera Rossakoff [17], a flamboyant Russian expatriate aristocrat and sometimes jewel thief who was perhaps the great love of his life. Over the course of the series, Poirot thwarted her criminal schemes, helped her escape The Big Four, an organization bent on world domination, and rescued her young son. Though Vera may have been the unrivalled object of Poirot’s affections, the charismatic detective did like to dabble in romance alongside his investigations. He displayed a fondness for matchmaking, pairing up his close friends (like Hastings) as well as relative strangers, repairing estranged marriages, and usually bringing together at least one, and often two, couples per book. In Christie’s influential novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Poirot had retired to a cottage in a small country town, to focus on growing the perfect vegetable marrow [18]. However, he still felt the need to exercise his 'little grey cells' and could not resist helping to solve a murder or three (dozen) in his later years. Many of these cases took him to stately English country houses, staffed by servants of varying degrees of loyalty. Cat Among the Pigeons saw him visiting an exclusive boarding school, where a schoolgirl [19] helped him catch a killer and recover a Middle Eastern country’s crown jewels. Poirot loved travelling, and voyaged as far east as Iraq in Murder in Mesopotamia, where he worked alongside archaeologists to solve murders and reclaim stolen antiquities. He also broke up a spy ring in The Clocks and solved a decades-old crime in Elephants Can Remember. By the time of his final case in Curtain, Poirot triumphed over illness to return to Styles Court [20] with Hastings and catch a serial killer with a Shakespearean murder method. Reflecting on his long career, Poirot told Hastings: “They have been good days…” Christie readers the world over would tend to agree. Illustration by Ilya Milstein Text by Chris Chan CAN YOU SPOT ALL THE NODS TO POIROT STORIES IN THE PICTURE? CAUTION – SOME SPOILERS! The Mysterious Affair at Styles, 1920: strychnine [21], vase filled with paper spills [22] The Murder on the Links, 1923: golf clubs [23], three identical daggers [24], lead piping [25] Poirot Investigates, 1924: chocolate box [26], false beard [27], Western Star diamond [28] The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, 1926: Tunisian dagger [29], Dictaphone [30], feather and wedding ring [31] The Big Four, 1927: chessboard [32], jade figurines [33], labyrinth [34], frozen leg of lamb [35] The Mystery of the Blue Train, 1928: Heart of Fire ruby [36], blue train [37], cigarette case [38] Black Coffee, 1930: black coffee [39], chemical formula [40] Peril at End House, 1932: wristwatch [41], will [42] Lord Edgware Dies, 1933: corn knife [43], pince-nez [44] Murder on the Orient Express, 1934: embroidered handkerchief [45], train conductor [46] Three Act Tragedy, 1935: tray of martinis [47], laboratory equipment [48] Death in the Clouds, 1935: blowpipe [49], airplane [50], saucer with two spoons [51] The ABC Murders, 1936: silk stocking [52], St. Leger Stakes horse race [53] Murder in Mesopotamia, 1936: archaeological dig [54], gold cup [55], stone quern [56] Cards on the Table, 1936: jewelled stiletto dagger [57], playing cards [58] Murder in the Mews, 1937: aircraft blueprints [59], broken wall mirror [60], dinner gong [61] Dumb Witness, 1937: Bob the dog [62], phosphorescent smoke [63], stairwell [64] Death on the Nile, 1937: pearl-handled pistol [65], red nail varnish [66], velvet stole [67], Temple of Abu Simbel [68] Appointment with Death, 1938: Petra [69], hypodermic syringe [70] Hercule Poirot’s Christmas, 1938: uncut diamonds [71], Christmas tree [72] Sad Cypress, 1940: plate of fish-paste sandwiches [73], thornless rose [74], judge [75] One, Two, Buckle My Shoe, 1940: buckled shoe [76] Evil Under the Sun, 1941: wax figure [77], Jolly Roger [78] Five Little Pigs, 1942: painting of a beautiful woman [79], bottle of beer [80] The Hollow, 1946: clay horse [81], doodle of a tree [82] The Labours of Hercules, 1947: Pekinese dog [83], Hell nightclub [84] Taken at the Flood, 1948: The Stag Inn [85], marble fireplace [86] Mrs McGinty’s Dead, 1952: sugar hammer [87], photograph [88], teacup with a lipstick stain [89] After the Funeral, 1953: painting of a pier [90], hatchet [91], slice of wedding cake [92] Hickory Dickory Dock, 1955: bowl of soup with a ring in it [93], Lion of Lucerne paperweight [94] Dead Man’s Folly, 1956: Nasse House [95], boathouse [96], five murder weapons [97] Cat Among the Pigeons, 1959: tennis racket [98], sandbag [99] The Clocks, 1963: four clocks set at 4:13 [100], street sign [101] Third Girl, 1966: painting of a peacock [102], art studio [103], portraits of a husband and wife [104] Hallowe’en Party, 1969: witch ball and hand mirror [105] Elephants Can Remember, 1972: four wigs [106], elephant [107] Poirot’s Early Cases, 1974: Pierrot [108], oyster shells [109] Curtain, 1975: wheelchair [110], binoculars [111], copies of Othello and John Ferguson, and a letter [112]
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