Hercule Poirot The Complete Short Stories

1018 Pages·2016·4.43 MB·English

by  Agatha Christie

Contents
Foreword: Who Is Hercule Poirot?
1 The Affair at the Victory Ball
2 The Jewel Robbery at the Grand Metropolitan
3 The King of Clubs
4 The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim
5 The Plymouth Express
6 The Adventure of “The Western Star”
7 The Tragedy at Marsdon Manor
8 The Kidnapped Prime Minister
9 The Million Dollar Bond Robbery
10 The Adventure of the Cheap Flat
11 The Mystery of Hunter’s Lodge
12 The Chocolate Box
13 The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb
14 The Veiled Lady
15 The Adventure of Johnnie Waverly
16 The Market Basing Mystery
17 The Adventure of the Italian Nobleman
18 The Case of the Missing Will
19 The Incredible Theft
20 The Adventure of the Clapham Cook
21 The Lost Mine
22 The Cornish Mystery
23 The Double Clue
24 The Theft of the Royal Ruby
25 The Lemesurier Inheritance
26 The Under Dog
27 Double Sin
28 Wasps’ Nest
29 The Third Floor Flat
30 The Mystery of the Baghdad Chest
31 Dead Man’s Mirror
32 How Does Your Garden Grow?
33 Problem at Sea
34 Triangle at Rhodes
35 Murder in the Mews
36 Yellow Iris
37 The Dream
38 The Labors of Hercules
39 The Nemean Lion
40 The Lernean Hydra
41 The Arcadian Deer
42 The Erymanthian Boar
43 The Augean Stables
44 The Stymphalean Birds
45 The Cretan Bull
46 The Horses of Diomedes
47 The Girdle of Hyppolita
48 The Flock of Geryon
49 The Apples of the Hesperides
50 The Capture of Cerberus
51 Four and Twenty Blackbirds
About the Author
The Agatha Christie Collection
Credits
Related Products
Copyright
About the Publisher
Foreword: Who Is Hercule Poirot?
H
e was born in Agatha Christie’s fertile brain—a refugee from the German
invasion of Belgium that brought Britain into World War I, the Great War of
1914–18. Those who could flee the German onslaught did, and as a ranking
policeman in the city of Brussels, Poirot might well have been taken up and put
in prison.
Not the sort of thing Poirot would relish. No scope for ze leetle gray cells
there. And faced with the need to occupy himself, if not to earn a living while his
country was in German hands, Poirot fell back on what he did best: solving
crimes.
Later he shared lodgings with an ex-officer of that war, Captain Hastings,
who became in a sense his Watson, the man who carried the revolver in
emergencies and who was the sounding board for theories. Hastings often had
theories of his own, but just as often they were red herrings.
Poirot’s first case was The Mysterious Affair at Styles. Christie made him a
ludicrous figure, with his short, portly figure and egg-shaped head, his little
mannerisms, and the immaculate clothes of a bygone era. But she gave him as
incisive a brain as Sherlock Holmes, a man whose mind could cut through the
tangle of lies and secrets—and unerringly point to the murderer.
David Suchet portrayed Poirot to perfection in the PBS series, and even
Christie’s grandson, Mathew Pritchard, wished that she had lived to see his
portrayal. Peter Ustinov had taken the role in Death on the Nile, even dancing a
very fine tango with one of the characters. Albert Finney had portrayed Poirot in
a darker interpretation in Murder on the Orient Express. But it’s Suchet who
captured not only the outward appearance of the man but the inner strength and
intuitive intelligence that has given Poirot so many years of life and led new
generations of readers to discover him on the printed page.
Poirot appeared in novels and in a long list of short stories. And it is here in
the short stories that the Christie fan and the Poirot aficionado alike find him at
his best. Christie reserved some of her most intriguing plots for Poirot, devising
new ways of looking at how and why crimes were committed. Indeed, she gave
the mystery genre some of its finest plot twists. You need only look at John
Curran’s Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks or Agatha Christie: Murder in the
Making to see how brilliantly Christie’s mind worked while creating a story. It’s
a revelation to watch her fuse characters and plots as she keeps the reader
guessing.
But that’s another tale. Here before us now is a feast of Poirot, of the short
stories that made him famous throughout the world for almost a hundred years.
If you haven’t discovered this pompous little man with the marvelously
razor-sharp mind, here’s your chance—an omnibus to savor, to dip into when
you want something fun to read that keeps you on your toes spotting clues, to put
on your shelf as a collector’s item, to carry in your bag for the next flight or the
long commute or sitting in a doctor’s office, or to use as a companion over lunch
on a rainy afternoon or at bedtime when you want to put aside the cares of the
day. Poirot is all this and more. He’s the epitome of creativity; he’s the legacy of
an extraordinary woman writer who can stand shoulder to shoulder with Conan
Doyle and give the mystery genre a character as famous and long-lasting as
Holmes.
Even her titles are evocative, often a play on familiar nursery rhymes. Just
skim the contents to see the variety. And yet each one is chosen with malice
aforethought. Chistie does nothing by chance.
But the mystery here, aside from the wonderful stories, is Hercule Poirot
himself. Christie leads us on a merry chase, giving us more about his appearance
than his biography. Clues abound, but you must watch for them and eliminate
the red herrings Poirot himself deliberately plants about his past.
What cases had he already solved by the time he reached England? How old
was he? Why did he choose to live in a certain place? Why was he well known
to the Belgian royal family? Why had he never married? What was the
connection to Captain Hastings? And what was Hastings’s first name? There
was a statue of Poirot in a Belgian town—but was this his birthplace? And look
at his clothing—where did he find the money to live so well, this refugee from
war? Poirot himself is an enigma. Here’s your chance to get to know him as a
person as well as a character. Like Christie herself, Poirot keeps secrets.
A brilliant woman who wrote mysteries, a brilliant detective who solves
them—a collection of his life and works as well as hers. A gift for friends, a
treasure for yourself, Hercule Poirot: The Complete Short Stories is not to be
missed.
—Charles Todd
One
T A V B
HE FFAIR AT THE ICTORY ALL
“The Affair at the Victory Ball” was first published in The Sketch, March 7, 1923.
I
P
ure chance led my friend Hercule Poirot, formerly chief of the Belgian force,
to be connected with the Styles Case. His success brought him notoriety, and he
decided to devote himself to the solving of problems in crime. Having been
wounded on the Somme and invalided out of the Army, I finally took up my
quarters with him in London. Since I have a firsthand knowledge of most of his
cases, it has been suggested to me that I select some of the most interesting and
place them on record. In doing so, I feel that I cannot do better than begin with
that strange tangle which aroused such widespread public interest at the time. I
refer to the affair at the Victory Ball.
Although perhaps it is not so fully demonstrative of Poirot’s peculiar
methods as some of the more obscure cases, its sensational features, the well-
known people involved, and the tremendous publicity given it by the press, make
it stand out as a cause célèbre and I have long felt that it is only fitting that
Poirot’s connection with the solution should be given to the world.
It was a fine morning in spring, and we were sitting in Poirot’s rooms. My
little friend, neat and dapper as ever, his egg-shaped head tilted on one side, was
delicately applying a new pomade to his moustache. A certain harmless vanity
was a characteristic of Poirot’s and fell into line with his general love of order
and method. The Daily Newsmonger, which I had been reading, had slipped to
the floor, and I was deep in a brown study when Poirot’s voice recalled me.
“Of what are you thinking so deeply, mon ami?”
“To tell you the truth,” I replied, “I was puzzling over this unaccountable
affair at the Victory Ball. The papers are full of it.” I tapped the sheet with my
finger as I spoke.
“Yes?”
“The more one reads of it, the more shrouded in mystery the whole thing
becomes!” I warmed to my subject. “Who killed Lord Cronshaw? Was Coco
Courtenay’s death on the same night a mere coincidence? Was it an accident? Or
did she deliberately take an overdose of cocaine?” I stopped, and then added
dramatically: “These are the questions I ask myself.”
Poirot, somewhat to my annoyance, did not play up. He was peering into the
glass, and merely murmured: “Decidedly, this new pomade, it is a marvel for the
moustaches!” Catching my eye, however, he added hastily: “Quite so—and how
do you reply to your questions?”
But before I could answer, the door opened, and our landlady announced
Inspector Japp.
The Scotland Yard man was an old friend of ours and we greeted him
warmly.
“Ah, my good Japp,” cried Poirot, “and what brings you to see us?”
“Well, Monsieur Poirot,” said Japp, seating himself and nodding to me, “I’m
on a case that strikes me as being very much in your line, and I came along to
know whether you’d care to have a finger in the pie?”
Poirot had a good opinion of Japp’s abilities, though deploring his
lamentable lack of method, but I, for my part, considered that the detective’s
highest talent lay in the gentle art of seeking favours under the guise of
conferring them!
“It’s the Victory Ball,” said Japp persuasively. “Come, now, you’d like to
have a hand in that.”
Poirot smiled at me.
“My friend Hastings would, at all events. He was just holding forth on the
subject, n’est-ce pas, mon ami?”
“Well, sir,” said Japp condescendingly, “you shall be in it too. I can tell you,
it’s something of a feather in your cap to have inside knowledge of a case like
this. Well, here’s to business. You know the main facts of the case, I suppose,
Monsieur Poirot?”
“From the papers only—and the imagination of the journalist is sometimes
misleading. Recount the whole story to me.”
Japp crossed his legs comfortably and began.
“As all the world and his wife knows, on Tuesday last a grand Victory Ball
was held. Every twopenny-halfpenny hop calls itself that nowadays, but this was
the real thing, held at the Colossus Hall, and all London at it—including your
Lord Cronshaw and his party.”
“His dossier?” interrupted Poirot. “I should say his bioscope—no, how do
you call it—biograph?”
“Viscount Cronshaw was fifth viscount, twenty-five years of age, rich,
unmarried, and very fond of the theatrical world. There were rumours of his
being engaged to Miss Courtenay of the Albany Theatre, who was known to her
friends as ‘Coco’ and who was, by all accounts, a very fascinating young lady.”
“Good. Continuez!”
“Lord Cronshaw’s party consisted of six people: he himself, his uncle, the
Honourable Eustace Beltane, a pretty American widow, Mrs. Mallaby, a young
actor, Chris Davidson, his wife, and last but not least, Miss Coco Courtenay. It
was a fancy dress ball, as you know, and the Cronshaw party represented the old
Italian Comedy—whatever that may be.”
“The Commedia dell’ Arte,” murmured Poirot. “I know.”
“Anyway, the costumes were copied from a set of china figures forming part
of Eustace Beltane’s collection. Lord Cronshaw was Harlequin; Beltane was
Punchinello; Mrs. Mallaby matched him as Pulcinella; the Davidsons were
Pierrot and Pierette; and Miss Courtenay, of course, was Columbine. Now, quite
early in the evening it was apparent that there was something wrong. Lord
Cronshaw was moody and strange in his manner. When the party met together
for supper in a small private room engaged by the host, everyone noticed that he
and Miss Courtenay were no longer on speaking terms. She had obviously been
crying, and seemed on the verge of hysterics. The meal was an uncomfortable
one, and as they all left the supper room, she turned to Chris Davidson and
requested him audibly to take her home, as she was ‘sick of the ball.’ The young
actor hesitated, glancing at Lord Cronshaw, and finally drew them both back to
the supper room.