Agatha Christie's Poirot

by Anne Hart

  NOTES

  1 Despite carefulness all around, surprises could occur. In Murder on the Orient Express Poirot opened one of his valises to find, neatly folded, a woman’s scarlet silk kimono embroidered with dragons.

  2 Though in Nice, in The Mystery of the Blue Train, he was seen ‘yesterday at the tennis’. It is elementary, however, to deduce that he was there as a spectator.

  3 The second version.

  4 For these details I am grateful to Dennis Sanders’s and Len Lovallo’s useful and interesting The Agatha Christie Companion.

  5 Murder in Mesopotamia, Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile and Appointment with Death.

  12

  ‘MY FRIEND POIROT’

  ‘Poirot’s friends are so many and so varied, and range from dustmen to dukes.’

  —Arthur Hastings, ‘Double Sin’

  To the end of his life Poirot was a cordial and hospitable man, and his sitting-room, over which a pleasant air of open house reigned, was always an interesting place to be – especially if one was a good listener and had an interest in crime. There are a number of references over the years to aficionados like Dr Hawker, Poirot’s near neighbour in ‘The Adventure of the Italian Nobleman’, who liked to ‘drop in sometimes of an evening and have a chat with Poirot, of whose genius he was an ardent admirer’; or Solly Levy, mentioned in Hallowe’en Party, with whom Poirot spent many happy hours ‘reviving their never-ending controversy about the real culprit in the Canning Road Municipal Baths murder’.

  With luck, if one was a visitor, one could forestall invitations to drink blackcurrant sirop until George arrived with the whisky, and with even greater luck one might be on hand for developments in an actual case – the arrival of a client from the country, for example, with a story of some disturbing event in the family, or a police inspector ostensibly dropping by for old time’s sake but really in search of advice. Or, of an evening, if one was a good friend of Poirot’s, one might find oneself making decisions about food and wine, for Poirot loved to eat with friends in restaurants.

  This bonhomie notwithstanding, in really important matters Poirot was a loner. The only truly close friend he seems to have had – at least in England – was Hastings, and devoted to Hastings though Poirot undoubtedly was, he seldom made him his real confidant, as Hastings frequently pointed out with chagrin. Poirot always had a hidden agenda.

  No one knew this better than little ‘ferret-faced’ Inspector Jimmy Japp of Scotland Yard, Poirot’s companion-in-arms and rival from the days of Styles to the eve of the Second World War. Indeed, their association went back even further, for the two of them had hunted together in Poirot’s former preserve of Belgium. In 1904 Inspector Japp, with Poirot’s help, had run down the famous forger Abercrombie in Brussels, and later in Antwerp they had ‘nailed’ ‘Baron’ Altara, a criminal who had ‘eluded the clutches of half the police in Europe’.

  It must have come as something of a shock to Japp to find Poirot of the Belgian police turning up as a private detective in his own backyard, and by the same token it must have seemed strange to Poirot to suddenly find himself without the resources of his own police department. In this situation both men, like clever cats, fell on their feet. For his part Japp learned to tolerate more or less gracefully the intrusion of Poirot into many a Scotland Yard case, and in return he received the best professional advice in Europe. Japp generally got the official credit for the results of these unorthodox collaborations, a fact that always annoyed Hastings. ‘He always was an offensive kind of devil,’ he said of Japp in The ABC Murders, and in Lord Edgware Dies he wrote:

  I had not the indulgence for Japp that Poirot had. It was not so much that I minded his picking Poirot’s brains. After all, Poirot enjoyed the process, it was a delicate flattery. What did annoy me was Japp’s hypocritical pretence that he was doing nothing of the kind. I liked people to be straightforward. I said so, and Poirot laughed.

  ‘You are the dog of the bulldog breed, eh, Hastings? But you must remember that the poor Japp, he has to save his face. So he makes his little pretence. It is very natural.’

  In exchange for this uncharacteristic self-effacement, Poirot craftily enjoyed an unfettered call on the resources of Scotland Yard for almost a quarter of a century. Could these greasy fingerprints be of significance? – ‘We will send them to our good friend Inspector Japp of Scotland Yard.’ How did Poirot gain admittance to a perfectly strange household? – ‘It was most simple. I called, presented a fictitious card and one of Inspector Japp’s official ones.’ Was a local inspector inclined to be timid? – ‘I assure you that if you can get through to Scotland Yard you will receive full authority.’

  Though indulgently fond of the Inspector,1 Poirot never ceased to deplore the misled school of detection to which he belonged. In ‘The Plymouth Express’:

  ‘That good inspector believes in matter in motion,’ murmured Poirot as our friend departed. ‘He travels; he measures footprints; he collects mud and cigarette-ash! He is extremely busy! He is zealous beyond words! And if I mentioned psychology to him, do you know what he would do, my friend? He would smile! He would say to himself: ‘Poor old Poirot! He ages! He grows senile!’ Japp is ‘the younger generation knocking on the door’. And ma foi! They are so busy knocking that they do not notice that the door is open!’

  That invariably Poirot bested him in every case did nothing to discourage Japp’s belief that he himself was the smartest bear in the woods. Wrote Hastings in ‘The Plymouth Express’:

  Japp was an old friend of ours, and greeted Poirot with a sort of affectionate contempt.

  ‘And how are you, monsieur? No bad feelings between us, though we have got our different ways of looking at things. How are the “little grey cells”, eh? Going strong?’

  Poirot beamed upon him. ‘They function, my good Japp; assuredly they do!’

  Though ‘jaunty and dapper’ with his friends, when in charge of a case, ‘a kind of wooden shutter of officialdom came down from Japp’s expressive countenance’, much to Poirot’s amusement. In court he gave evidence ‘succinctly and briefly’; behind the scenes he was apt to jump to conclusions and bully suspects. ‘That is the severity of your official demeanour, my good Japp,’ Poirot would protest, as he intervened to save his friend yet again from disastrous conclusions based upon circumstantial evidence.

  Though Japp appears in twenty-one of Poirot’s cases, and lends the services of Scotland Yard offstage in several more, he seldom spoke of his private life. A rare glimpse of him at leisure is provided by Hastings in ‘The Market Basing Mystery’:

  ‘After all, there’s nothing like the country, is there?’ said Inspector Japp, breathing in heavily through his nose and out through his mouth in the most approved fashion.

  Poirot and I applauded the sentiment heartily. It had been the Scotland Yard inspector’s idea that we should all go for the weekend to the little country town of Market Basing. When off duty, Japp was an ardent botanist, and discoursed upon minute flowers possessed of unbelievably lengthy Latin names (somewhat strangely pronounced) with an enthusiasm even greater than that he gave to his cases.

  Japp was a sociable fellow and during Poirot’s early years in England he dropped by regularly. ‘Ah, here is Japp! I recognize his knock,’ Poirot would say, and ‘Here I am Moosior Poirot,’ Japp would reply, bounding into the room with some heavy-handed joke – ‘Just going to have breakfast, I see’ was his greeting in Lord Edgware Dies. ‘Not got the hens to lay square eggs for you yet, M. Poirot?’ Food was always a critical element in Poirot’s and Japp’s relationship. ‘We will go now to the Cheshire Cheese where Japp meets us for an early dinner,’ said Poirot to Hastings in Peril at End House. ‘Upon my word, you take the cake!’ cried Japp to Poirot in ‘Murder in the Mews’. ‘Come out and have a spot of lunch?’ A delightful breakfast scene occurred during their Market Basing weekend:

  … we sat down to breakfast on Sunday morning in the parlour of the village inn, with th
e sun shining, the tendrils of honeysuckle thrusting themselves in at the window, we were all in the best of spirits. The bacon and eggs were excellent, the coffee not so good, but passable and boiling hot.

  ‘This is the life,’ said Japp. ‘When I retire, I shall have a little place in the country. Far from crime, like this!’

  In due course Japp apparently did retire – presumably to sun and honeysuckle and his ardent botanical pursuits – and Poirot went on detecting for three more decades, an irony in view of Japp’s remarks over the years about Poirot’s advanced age. ‘Old friend of mine,’ he explained to a fellow inspector in ‘Murder in the Mews’. ‘Not half as balmy as he looks, mind you. All the same he’s getting on now.’

  In Peril at End House Hastings recorded a mellowing Japp:

  ‘I let you in on some pretty good cases in the old days, didn’t I?’ This, I realized, was Japp’s way of acknowledging indebtedness to Poirot who had solved many a case which had baffled the Inspector.

  ‘They were the good days – yes.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind having a chat with you now and again even in these days. Your methods may be old-fashioned but you’ve got your head screwed on the right way, M. Poirot.’

  At Scotland Yard Japp was outranked by another friend of Poirot’s, Superintendent Battle. In Cards on the Table, when introductions were being performed:

  A big, square, wooden-faced man moved forward. Not only did an onlooker feel that Superintendent Battle was carved out of wood – he also managed to convey the impression that the wood in question was the timber out of a battleship.

  Superintendent Battle was supposed to be Scotland Yard’s best representative. He always looked stolid and rather stupid.

  ‘I know M. Poirot,’ said Superintendent Battle.

  And his wooden face creased into a smile and then returned to its former unexpressiveness.

  This ‘solid, comfortable-looking man with a broad red face and a large handsome moustache’ (a moustache that even Poirot viewed with respect) came into Mr Shaitana’s drawing-room with a well-documented reputation of his own. Two lively books, The Secret of Chimneys and The Seven Dials Mystery, had already recorded two of Superintendent Battle’s cases and, after his collaboration with Poirot in Cards on the Table, Murder is Easy2 and Towards Zero were to record two more.

  Of all the police officers he met over his long career, Superintendent Battle was probably the one Poirot admired most. ‘What is your style, Superintendent?’ he once asked him, and back came a reply from a detective equally astute:

  ‘A straightforward, honest, zealous officer doing his duty in the most laborious manner – that’s my style. No frills. No fancy work. Just honest perspiration. Stolid and a bit stupid – that’s my ticket.’

  Battle’s deceptively simple demeanour made him one of Scotland Yard’s trump cards. To him were assigned cases of the most ‘delicate political nature’. He was especially good, in his soothing, yeomanlike way, at coping with the aristocracy. In The Seven Dials Mystery, for example, he absorbed with equanimity the fact that a murder suspect had bought a pistol at Harrods. In The Secret of Chimneys he explained:

  ‘Well, you see … most of my work has lain amongst these people. What they call the upper classes, I mean. You see, the majority of people are always wondering what the neighbours will think. But tramps and aristocrats don’t – they just do the first thing that comes into their heads, and they don’t bother to think what anyone thinks of them.

  In Poirot’s world it seems to have been almost de rigueur that detectives and police officers were bachelors, but Superintendent Battle was an exception to this convention. He and Mrs Battle were the parents of five children. Their youngest, Sylvia, played a small but important part in events in Towards Zero, and Colin Lamb, the brilliant young secret service agent who shared honours with Poirot in The Clocks, was almost certainly their son operating under an assumed name. No doubt Superintendent Battle also served as a role model for his nephew, James Leach, who became a provincial police inspector.

  ‘Never give in. That’s my motto,’ he once declared. ‘The good square Superintendent Battle,’ Poirot said of him admiringly. Battle, in turn, had great respect for Poirot. ‘I wish I knew what keeps putting Hercule Poirot into my head,’ he mused when events in Towards Zero took a perplexing turn. ‘You mean that old chap – the Belgian – comic little guy?’ asked his nephew.

  ‘Comic, my foot,’ said Superintendent Battle. ‘About as dangerous as a black mamba and a she-leopard – that’s what he is when he starts making a mountebank of himself! I wish he was here – this sort of thing would be right up his street.’

  In due course Superintendent Battle, like Inspector Japp, retired. ‘And how is my good friend, your father?’ asked Poirot of Colin Lamb in The Clocks:

  ‘The old man’s fine,’ I said. ‘Very busy with his hollyhocks – or is it chrysanthemums? The seasons go by so fast I never can remember when it is at the moment.’

  ‘He busies himself, then, with the horticulture?’

  ‘Everyone seems to come to that in the end,’ I said.

  ‘Not me,’ said Hercule Poirot. ‘Once the vegetable marrows, yes – but never again.’

  Another detective invited to Mr Shaitana’s party was Colonel Johnny Race:

  Poirot had not previously met Colonel Race, but he knew something about him. A dark, handsome, deeply bronzed man of fifty, he was usually to be found in some outpost of empire – especially if there were trouble brewing. Secret Service is a melodramatic term, but it described pretty accurately to the lay mind the nature and scope of Colonel Race’s activities.

  Though Poirot had never met Colonel Race before – outposts of empires were hardly his milieu – many of Agatha Christie’s readers had. In The Man in the Brown Suit3 its heroine, Anne Beddingfeld, on a voyage to South Africa, had gazed with a good deal of admiration upon one of her fellow passengers, the enigmatic Colonel Race:

  … a tall, soldierly-looking man with dark hair and a bronzed face which I had noticed striding up and down the deck earlier in the day. I put him down at once as one of the strong silent men of Rhodesia. He was about forty, with a touch of greying hair at either temple, and was easily the best-looking man on board.

  Colonel Race fell hopelessly in love with Anne but took her refusal of a proposal of marriage in the best traditions of strong, silent men. ‘I’ve still got my work,’ he said. Years later, while on a leave from his sensitive duties in the service of his country, he came to Mr Shaitana’s dinner party. He and Poirot took to each other at once, soon discovered that each played excellent bridge, and went on to cement their friendship by working together on the team of four that solved the Cards on the Table affair.

  A year later, in Death on the Nile, they met again and were soon enjoying a drink in the observation saloon of the Karnak – ‘Poirot ordered a whisky for the Colonel and a double orangeade full of sugar for himself’. Colonel Race confided that he was on the track of ‘one of the cleverest paid agitators that ever existed’, and Poirot confided that he was on holiday. Their cruise down the Nile, as it turned out, became a hunt for a murderer apparently bent on killing off the Karnak’s passengers, which left no time at all for the agitator, Poirot’s holiday, or even, for Colonel Race to fall hopelessly in love.

  ‘My friend, you and I understand each other to a marvel,’ Poirot declared to Race in the course of their investigations although, as with other colleagues over the years, he simply could not resist keeping Colonel Race in the dark – no mean feat when one considers that Race subsequently went on to head the Counter-Espionage Department at M15. Though Poirot’s very next case, Appointment with Death, was precipitated by a letter of introduction he carried from Colonel Race to Colonel Carbury in Transjordania, it is not recorded that Poirot and Race ever worked together again, though one can be almost sure that they kept in touch. In the 1940s, in Sparkling Cyanide,4 Colonel Race – still ‘a tall, erect, military figure, with sunburnt face, close
ly cropped iron-grey hair, and shrewd dark eyes’ – solved a murder case so extraordinarily similar to ‘Yellow Iris’, an investigation Poirot undertook in the 1930s, that one cannot help speculating that a good deal of discreet discussion must have gone on about it in the sitting-room at Whitehaven Mansions.

  An early different sort of friend was that diminutive social butterfly, Mr Satterthwaite, an associate of Poirot’s in Three Act Tragedy and a helpful purveyor of gossip in ‘Dead Man’s Mirror’. Like Superintendent Battle and Colonel Race, Mr Satterthwaite has a distinct place of his own on Christie bookshelves, for in 1930 there was published The Mysterious Mr Quin, a memorable collection of twelve short stories devoted to Mr Satterthwaite and the periodic visits he received from a mysterious commedia dell’arte figure, Harley Quin. Two other short stories published elsewhere, ‘The Love Detectives’ and ‘The Harlequin Tea Set’, tell even more of this strange period of Mr Satterthwaite’s life when he became the bewildered pawn and agent of Quin, an elusive benevolence determined to explore the riddles of death and right the misfortunes of lovers.

  These episodes were well behind Mr Satterthwaite by the time he became the friend of the rational Poirot, whose eyebrows, one suspects, would have risen very high indeed if ever told of these strange visitations and goings-on. A weekend guest of Sir Charles Cartwright in Three Act Tragedy, Mr Satterthwaite had, for some years, reverted to his natural vocation:

  He was, he felt, always in the stalls watching the play, never on the stage taking part in the drama. But, in truth, the role of onlooker suited him very well.