by Anne Hart
9 Also published under the title Death in the Air.
10 Before coming to work for Poirot, Miss Lemon served as secretary to yet another of Agatha Christie’s detectives, Parker Pyne.
11 Also published under the title Poirot Loses a Client.
12 Though a much longer case, Miss Arundell’s posthumous summoning of Poirot is reminiscent of Miss Barrowby’s in ‘How Does Your Garden Grow?’.
13 Two others published during this period, ‘The Incredible Theft’ and ‘Dead Man’s Mirror’, are expanded versions of ‘The Submarine Plans’ and ‘The Second Gong’.
14 Also published, sometimes in slightly differing versions, under the titles ‘Crime in Cabin 66’, ‘The Mystery of the Crime in Cabin 66’, and ‘Poirot and the Crime in Cabin 66’.
15 During this voyage a fellow passenger asked Poirot if he had ever been to Egypt. ‘Never, Mademoiselle,’ he replied, completely forgetting ‘The Adventure of The Egyptian Tomb’ of the 1920s, a remarkable lapse of Poirot’s famous memory that I can only ascribe to seasickness.
16 Although Cards on the Table was published in 1936, a sobering remark by one of its characters – ‘Even if somebody did push their great-aunt down the stairs in 1912, it won’t be much use to us in 1937’ – places events of this case in the following year.
17 Like Poirot himself, Superintendent Battle, Ariadne Oliver and Colonel Race each has his or her own separate sphere in Christie literature. To bring the four of them together at his dinner table was certainly a triumph for Mr Shaitana.
18 This book should not be confused with a Parker Pyne short story of the same title.
19 Also published under the titles Murder for Christmas and A Holiday for Murder.
20 Also published under the titles The Patriotic Murders and An Overdose of Death.
5
THE 1940S
‘And someone who solves crimes is coming to lunch tomorrow.’
—Midge Hardcastle, THE HOLLOW
Acharming book that spans Poirot’s life from late 1939 to late 1940 is The Labours of Hercules, published in 1947.1 This cycle of adventures was launched by the visit of an old friend:
Hercule Poirot’s flat was essentially modern in its furnishings. It gleamed with chromium. Its easy chairs, though comfortably padded, were square and uncompromising in outline.
On one of these chairs sat Hercule Poirot, neatly – in the middle of the chair. Opposite him, in another chair, sat Dr Burton, Fellow of All Souls, sipping appreciatively at a glass of Poirot’s Château Mouton Rothschild. There was no neatness about Dr Burton. He was plump, untidy and beneath his thatch of white hair beamed a rubicund and benign countenance. He had a deep wheezy chuckle and the habit of covering himself and everything round him with tobacco ash. In vain did Poirot surround him with ash trays.
Dr Burton was asking a question.
‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘Why Hercule?’
‘You mean, my Christian name?’
‘Hardly a Christian name,’ the other demurred.
Warmed by the Château Mouton Rothschild, Dr Burton then launched into a short lecture on Greek mythology and, in particular, on Poirot’s epic namesake and his twelve famous labours. At first Poirot chose to be unimpressed: ‘Take this – Hercules – this hero! Hero indeed? What was he but a large muscular creature of low intelligence and criminal tendencies!’ But further research in the calf-bound classical dictionaries obediently provided by Miss Lemon inspired Poirot – once again in a retirement mode – to a grand scheme.
Why not bow out dramatically from his life as a detective by modelling himself on the Hercules of old?
In the period before his final retirement he would accept twelve cases, no more, no less. And those twelve cases should be selected with special reference to the twelve labours of ancient Hercules. Yes, that would not only be amusing, it would be artistic, it would be spiritual.
With this lofty resolve, Poirot sat back confidently in expectation of a case to match Hercules’s first Labour, the capture of the Nemean Lion.
Naturally he did not expect a case to present itself actually involving a flesh and blood lion. It would be too much of a coincidence should he be approached by the Directors of the Zoological Gardens to solve a problem for them involving a real lion.
No, here symbolism must be involved. The first case must concern some celebrated public figure, it must be sensational and of the first importance! Some master criminal – or, alternatively, someone who was a lion in the public eye. Some well-known writer, or politician, or painter – or even royalty?
But the lion, when he made his appearance, was none of these. He was small and snuffly, his name was Shan Tung, and he was a Pekinese dog. Over the years Poirot had resented being consulted about kidnapped lap-dogs, but in the story of ‘The Nemean Lion’2 he unerringly perceived a splendid case of mythology in the making.
In ancient Greece many would-be heroes attempted to slay the nine-headed Hydra, but only Hercules proved equal to the task. In the case of ‘The Lernean Hydra’,3 when appealed to by a country doctor whose village was rife with rumours that he had poisoned his wife, Poirot knew at once he had found his second Labour:
‘We are going into the country, Georges,’ said Hercule Poirot to his valet.
‘Indeed, sir?’ said the imperturbable George.
‘And the purpose of our journey is to destroy a monster with nine heads.’
‘Really, sir? Something after the style of the Loch Ness Monster?’
‘Less tangible than that. I did not refer to a flesh and blood animal, Georges.’
Together, in Market Loughborough, Poirot and George beheaded the monster.
In legendary times Hercules pursued a gold-homed hind across a magic landscape for a year before capturing her, and in the story ‘The Arcadian Deer’4 Poirot, his usually prudent namesake, spent more time and money than he could ever have imagined, and with no fee in sight, to find the lost sweetheart of a village mechanic – but then Poirot always was a romantic and matchmaker at heart.
The end of the third Labour found Poirot in Switzerland, where he decided to remain for a short holiday in the Alps. It was in snow and mountains such as these that an earlier Hercules had tracked the fabled boar of Erymanthia. None of the dangers he encountered, however, was greater than those faced by a Poirot coaxed into aiding the Swiss Police in the capture of a vicious master criminal, Marrascaud.
Hercule Poirot sighed. To hunt down a ruthless killer was not his idea of a pleasant holiday. Brain work from an armchair, he reflected, was more in his line. Not to ensnare a wild boar upon a mountainside.
But there it was, the fourth Labour, and in ‘The Erymanthian Boar’5 Poirot, marooned with the killer and his gang in a most disorganized hotel, displayed bravery, wit, and a hitherto unsuspected skill:
Monsieur Lementeuil, Commissaire of Police, seized Poirot by both hands.
‘Ah, my friend, with what emotion I greet you! What stupendous events – what emotions you have passed through! And we below, our anxiety, our fears – knowing nothing – fearing everything. No wireless – no means of communication. To heliograph, that was indeed a stroke of genius on your part.’
‘No, no.’ Poirot endeavoured to look modest.
Like the Hercules of old, Poirot, in the affair of ‘The Augean Stables’, undertook to clean up an awful mess. Summoned to meet with a pompous home secretary and an admirable new prime minister, he was told:
‘The situation is an extremely delicate one, M. Poirot.’
A faint smile flitted across Hercule Poirot’s lips. He almost replied, It always is!
Instead, he composed his face and put on what might be described as a bedside manner of extreme discretion.
Sir George Conway proceeded weightily. Phrases fell easily from his lips – the extreme delicacy of the Government’s position – the interests of the public – the solidarity of the party – the necessity of presenting a united front – the power of the press – the welfare
of the country …
In short, Poirot was being asked to hush up a terrible political scandal. Whether the best interests of the country were served in the long run by Poirot’s cunning is another matter, but it is a fact that his brilliant counter-offensive against the gossip-mongering X-Ray News soon had the government smelling like a rose.6
Shortly thereafter – perhaps spending some of the handsome fee the Government undoubtedly paid him for its rescue – Poirot attempted yet another holiday in an out-of-the-way hotel in the tiny Balkan state of Herzoslavakia. With Greece not far away, he must surely have pondered on his inevitable sixth Labour. Could anything possibly resembling the frightful iron-beaked vultures of Stymphalus be lurking amid these tidy pine woods and pretty lakes? But birds of prey in the form of blackmailers were indeed about, and in the case of ‘The Stymphalean Birds’7 Poirot kindly rescued their victim – a decent young Englishman – between afternoon tea on the terrace and breakfast next morning. ‘I strive only to follow the example of my great predecessor, Hercules,’ he murmured.
The case of ‘The Cretan Bull’8 was also concerned with the fate of a decent young Englishman.
In ancient times, moved by Pasiphae’s sorrow, Hercules set free her beloved Cretan Bull. Poirot’s seventh task began with a visit from a distraught new client. Always one to put considerable store in first impressions,
Hercule Poirot looked thoughtfully at his visitor.
He saw a pale face with a determined-looking chin, eyes that were more grey than blue, and hair that was of that real blue-black shade so seldom seen – the hyacinthine locks of ancient Greece.
He noted the well-cut but also well-worn country tweeds, the shabby handbag, and the unconscious arrogance of manner that lay behind the girl’s obvious nervousness. He thought to himself:
Ah, yes, she is ‘the County’ – but no money! And it must be something quite out of the way that would bring her to me.
It was indeed something quite out of the way – the plight of her impressive fiancé (‘Tall, magnificently proportioned, with a terrific chest and shoulders, and a tawny head of hair. There was a tremendous air of strength and virility about him’) who had apparently fallen heir to a most alarming insanity, the nocturnal murdering of cats, parrots and sheep. In this Labour Poirot had to unravel a sorry tangle of family secrets before the adored young bull could be set free.
In ‘The Horses of Diomedes’,9 events took Poirot to Mertonshire:
Mertonshire is a reasonable distance from London. It has hunting, shooting, and fishing, it has several very picturesque but slightly self-conscious villages, it has a good system of railways and a new arterial road facilities motoring to and from the metropolis. Servants object to it less than they do to other, more rural, portions of the British Isles. As a result, it is practically impossible to live in Mertonshire unless you have an income that runs into four figures, and what with income tax and one thing and another, five figures is better.
There, on the trail of a cocaine ring, Poirot found occasion to call on a shrewd observer, old Lady Carmichael:
‘You’re up to something, Hercule Poirot.’
‘Are you acquainted with the classics, Madame?’
‘What have the classics got to do with it?’
‘They have this to do with it. I emulate my great predecessor Hercules. One of the Labours of Hercules was the taming of the wild horses of Diomedes.’
‘Don’t tell me you came down here to train horses – at your age – and always wearing patent leather shoes! You don’t look to me as though you’d ever been on a horse in your life!’
‘The horses, Madame, are symbolic. They were wild horses who are human flesh.’
In the unlikely pastures of upmarket Mertonshire, Poirot soon rounded up the wild horses of Diomedes.
Flemish though he was, Rubens was not an artist Poirot particularly admired, so it was rather a bore for him to be asked to recover a friend’s treasured painting stolen from an exhibition at Simpson’s Galleries. In tracking the painting to the Continent, however, Poirot managed to combine this quest with a much more interesting search (suggested by Japp) for an English schoolgirl missing somewhere in France. Retrieving both the painting and the schoolgirl in ‘The Girdle of Hyppolita’,10 his ninth Labour, Poirot was rewarded by torrents of gratitude and a deluge of ‘young, vigorous femininity’ – twenty-five schoolgirls demanding: ‘M. Poirot, will you write your name in my autograph book?’ No doubt, as well, they all had a good giggle over Rubens’s voluptuous painting of Queen Hyppolita presenting her girdle to Hercules.
‘The Flock of Geryon’11 found Poirot emulating his great predecessor’s tenth Labour, the rescue of a herd of cattle from the triple-bodied monster, Geryon. The flock Poirot set out to rescue were victims of a bogus charismatic cult and were being fleeced, by injections of cannabis indica, into handing over money to its handsome leader, ‘The Great Shepherd’. In a pleasant field in Devon Poirot managed to defeat this monster in sheep’s clothing and solve a number of hitherto unsuspected murders. ‘You might start a new religion yourself,’ said Japp, ‘with the creed: ‘There is no one as clever as Hercule Poirot, Amen, D.C. Repeat ad lib?!”’
As his eleventh Labour Hercules carried away the golden apples guarded by the Hesperides, the ‘daughters of the evening star’, who dwelt in the mysterious west. As his eleventh task Poirot accepted a commission to find a Renaissance treasure of the Borgias, a goblet embellished with a jewelled serpent and emerald apples. His search, a long one, took him to the west of Ireland, the legendary end of the world. Disconcerted at first by a landscape where ‘the Romans had never marched, tramp, tramp, tramp; had never fortified a camp; had never built a well-ordered, sensible, useful road’, Poirot, in ‘The Apples of the Hesperides’,12 was moved to rhapsody:
‘Let me describe for you the place where I found it – the Garden of Peace, looking out over the Western Sea toward a forgotten Paradise of Youth and Eternal Beauty.’
‘The Capture of Cerberus’13 – in mythical times the vanquishing of the many-headed dog who guarded the gate of the underworld – relates the most poignant of Poirot’s Labours.
One early evening, while travelling on the London Underground, Poirot heard his name called from an opposite escalator. Before his astonished eyes there passed before him:
… a visitation from the past. A woman of full and flamboyant form; her luxuriant henna-red hair crowned with a small plastron of straw to which was attached a positive platoon of brilliantly feathered little birds. Exotic-looking furs dripped from her shoulders.
It was his darling Countess Vera Rossakoff, whom he had not seen for well over twenty years.
Twisting himself sideways, leaning over the balustrade, Poirot cried despairingly:
‘Chère Madame – where then can I find you?’
Her reply came to him faintly from the depths. It was unexpected, yet seemed at the moment strangely apposite.
‘In Hell.’
What could she mean? Next morning Poirot consulted the font of all knowledge:
‘Miss Lemon, may I ask you a question?’
‘Of course, M. Poirot.’ Miss Lemon took her fingers off the typewriter keys and waited attentively.
‘If a friend asked you to meet her – or him – in Hell, what would you do?’
Miss Lemon, as usual, did not pause. She knew, as the saying goes, all the answers.
‘It would be advisable, I think, to ring up for a table,’ she said.
And so followed an emotional adventure in which Poirot ensconced himself night after night at a small table in Hell, a trendy nightclub presided over by the incorrigible Countess. A suspicion soon dawned on him, however – a suspicion confirmed by Japp – that the Countess and her spectacular Hell were being used as a front for a narcotics ring. ‘I entertain for you much affection,’ he said as he saved the Countess in the nick of time from a police raid. ‘And I do not want to see you in what is called the jam.’
‘Ah, but y
ou are wonderful – wonderful,’ she cried, embracing Poirot. ‘Lipstick and mascara ornamented his face in a fantastic medley.’
‘Good gracious,’ murmured Miss Lemon. ‘I wonder … Really – at his age! … Surely not …’
Thus ended the Labours of Hercules.14
It must now be recalled that at the outset of his self-imposed Labours Poirot had once more vowed to retire. He had even gone so far as to confide in the horrified Dr Burton a reawakened interest in the cultivation of vegetable marrows. He would take only twelve cases more, he had said, ‘no more, no less’. The addict of anything will instantly recognize the danger signals in this remark, and will not be surprised to find Poirot’s career continuing – admittedly in a semi-retired mode – for decades to come. As he himself had said to Hastings in The ABC Murders:
‘I know very well what you will say – I am like the Prima Donna who makes positively the farewell performance! That farewell performance, it repeats itself an indefinite number of times! Each time I say: This is the end. But no, something else arises! And I will admit it, my friend, the retirement I care for it not at all. If the little grey cells are not exercised, they grow the rust.’
As competently as ever, the virtuoso performances continued. Indeed, the cases of the 1940s were to be some of the most interesting Poirot ever undertook.
But where in this decade, one may very well ask, is Poirot and the Second World War? There had, after all, been forebodings of events to come in several of the cases of the late 1930s.
‘Very fine man, King Leopold, so I’ve always heard,’ Mr Morley, the doomed dentist in One, Two, Buckle My Shoe, had remarked to his quivering patient. The alarming events of 1940 – particularly the invasion of Belgium and its betrayal by her king – must have come as a shock to Poirot and revived vivid memories of his own plight in the earlier war. However, as is the case with Miss Marple in wartime,15 we are told practically nothing of Poirot’s activities. In Taken at the Flood, set in 1946, we are allowed a glimpse backward to an evening Poirot spent in the autumn of 1944 at a venerable club where ‘the fact that an Air Raid was in progress made no difference to normal procedure’, and in Dead Man’s Folly, published in 1956, Poirot recalled another occasion when bombs were falling and he was more preoccupied with pain from a corn on his little toe than with thoughts of death, but, apart from fragments such as these, a curtain of silence temporarily falls on anything to do with the times. Is this a coincidence, one wonders? It is hard to believe that Poirot, the last hope of British cabinets over the years, and a tidy spider who always kept carefully intact his police and political connections with the Continent, would be allowed to remain – or allow himself to remain – tamely on the sidelines.16
