1924: Poirot Investigates

Publisher: John Lane, 1924 (UK); Dodd, Mead & Co., 1925 (US)

Series: Hercule Poirot

Category: Short story collection

Cross refs: The Murder on the Links; The Sittaford Mystery

Warning, spoilers!

Following The Mysterious Affair at Styles, the popularity of Hercule Poirot gained momentum. Writing in her autobiography, Agatha Christie commented:

One of the people who liked Poirot was Bruce Ingram, editor at the time of The Sketch. He got in touch with me, and suggested that I should write a series of Poirot stories for The Sketch … He also had a fancy drawing made of Hercule Poirot which was not unlike my idea of him, though he was depicted as a little smarter and more aristocratic than I had envisaged him.[1]

‘He also had a fancy drawing made of Hercule Poirot which was not unlike my idea of him.’

Christie did go on to write a number of short stories for The Sketch, and the accompanying image of Poirot (fig. 1), drawn by the British artist William Smithson Broadhead (1888–1960), came to be the accepted portrayal of the character, both in books and in other media. It was Broadhead’s image of Poirot that was used on the cover of Poirot Investigates, Christie’s first short-story compilation, published in March 1924 in the UK by John Lane, and the iconic nature of this image warrants a brief note on the artist.

Though educated in Britain – at Sheffield School of Art and later at the Royal College of Art, London –  William Smithson Broadhead spent much of his early career as an illustrator working in Canada and North America.[2] At the outbreak of the First World War he returned to his home nation, joining the 1st King Edward’s Horse regiment. Following the war, he worked in London, primarily as a portraitist of jockeys and their horses, regularly exhibiting at the Royal Academy.[3] It was during this period that he received the commission from The Sketch to create a portrait of Hercule Poirot. It has been suggested that Ingram may already have been acquainted with Broadhead, perhaps explaining this otherwise unexpected choice of artist by The Sketch’s editor to depict the fictional Belgian detective.[4] Whatever the reason for the commission, the result was a triumph. Broadhead returned to America in 1934 where he worked for magazines including Harper’s Bazaar, Cosmopolitan and Good Housekeeping. Perhaps surprisingly for the creator of the most widely accepted image of Hercule Poirot, the artist remains better known as one of the most celebrated equestrian portrait painters of his day.

Christie stories for The Sketch date from March 1923 to December 1924. Those that feature in Poirot Investigates were published variously between March 1923 and October of the same year, a date span accounting for several chronological disparities between the narratives of these stories and that of the preceding novel. In The Murder on the Links, Poirot refers back, a number of months previously, to the ‘intricate little affair of the Yardly diamond’, which relates to the short story, ‘The Adventure of “The Western Star”’, published here. Moreover, given Hasting’s romance in the previous book, it is perhaps notable that ‘Cinderella’ is not mentioned at all in this volume, while he regularly observes how attractive a number of the women featured are, his ‘penchant for auburn hair’ being remarked upon by Poirot. Here also, Hastings expresses surprise at Poirot’s sea sickness, and the latter explains the Laverguier method, something already established in The Murder on the Links where Poirot remarks:

Is it that you have forgotten the method most excellent of Laverguier? His system, I practise it always. One balances oneself, if you remember, turning the head from left to right, breathing in and out, counting six between each breath.

Yet, with a series of short stories, these are all discrepancies that can be forgiven. Timeline aside, this collection fully establishes the dynamic between Poirot and Hastings, as well as Poirot’s (order and) method and the pre-eminence of his little grey cells.  

He shot a quick glance at us. ‘It is not so that the good detective should act, eh? I perceive your thought. He must be full of energy. He must rush to and fro. He should prostrate himself on the dusty road and seek the marks of tyres through a little glass. He must gather up the cigarette-end, the fallen match? That is your idea, is it not?’

His eyes challenged us. ‘But I – Hercule Poirot – tell you that it is not so! The true clues are within – here!’ He tapped his forehead.

 ‘I – Hercule Poirot – tell you ... the true clues are within – here!’ He tapped his forehead.

The stories selected for this volume were: ‘The Adventure of “The Western Star”’ (first published 11 April 1923); ‘The Tragedy at Marsdon Manor’ (18 April 1923); ‘The Adventure of the Cheap Flat’ (9 May 1923); ‘The Mystery of Hunter’s Lodge’ (16 May 1923); ‘The Million Dollar Bond Robbery’ (2 May 1923); ‘The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb’ (26 September 1923); ‘The Jewel Robbery at the Grand Metropolitan’, first published under the title ‘The Curious Disappearance of the Opalsen Pearls’ (14 March 1923); ‘The Kidnapped Prime Minister’ (25 April 1923); ‘The Disappearance of Mr Davenheim’ (28 March 1923); ‘The Adventure of the Italian Nobleman’ (24 October 1923); and ‘The Case of the Missing Will’ (31 October 1923).

The American edition of the book, published the following year, included three further stories, also previously published in The Sketch: ‘The Chocolate Box’, first published under the title ‘The Clue of the Chocolate Box’ (23 May 1923); ‘The Veiled Lady’, first published under the title ‘The Case of the Veiled Lady’ (3 October 1923); and ‘The Lost Mine’ (21 November 1923).

The stories themselves are entertaining, though perhaps not Christie’s best. That said, they demonstrate her ability to capture a mystery in a scarcity of words. As the reviewer for the Observer noted:

The short story is a sterner test of the ‘detective’ writer than the full-grown novel. With ample space almost any practised writer can pile complication upon complication … But to pack mystery, surprise and a solution into three or four thousand words is to achieve a feat.[5]

I will save you a synopsis of each tale, but a handful of observations do leap out.

Here we again enjoy the almost absurd success of various elaborate disguises: an imposter posing as the Prime Minister; a woman doubling as her own maid; a man living a double life as businessman and petty thief, his own wife seemingly unaware of the false beard he is sporting; and hardened criminals masquerading as domestic staff – something that we will see again in later works. Here too, the significance of a will, and the making and remaking of such, takes prominence.

We also see here Christie’s interest in the power of superstition, not only to manipulate victims but also to expose criminals. In ‘The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb’, for example, Poirot observes: ‘I, too, believe in the force of superstition, one of the greatest forces the world has ever known.’ At the time, Hastings believes that Poirot is declaring himself to be superstitious, but as the case is resolved Poirot clarifies:  

You misunderstood me, Hastings. What I meant was that I believe in the terrific force of superstition. Once get it firmly established that a series of deaths are supernatural, and you might almost stab a man in broad daylight, and it would still be put down to the curse, so strongly is the instinct of the supernatural implanted in the human race. 

Parallels have been made between this story and that of The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902) by Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) – an author of whom Christie was fond and to whom she was compared by contemporaries (see also The Sittaford Mystery (1931)). The Hound of the Baskervilles likewise made use of the power of superstition as a shield for calculated murder.[6] 

‘The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb’ also drew on contemporary interest in the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun the previous year, and the so-called ‘mummy’s curse’. Sparked by the sudden death in Cairo of keen amateur Egyptologist and sponsor of the Tutankhamun excavation George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon (1866–1923) (fig. 2), the newspapers soon whipped their readers into a frenzy. This was brought to fever pitch when Arthur Conan Doyle publicly suggested that Carnarvon’s death had been caused by ‘elementals’ created by Tutankhamun’s priests to guard the royal tomb.[7]

In Christie’s story, this press frenzy is echoed on the discovery of the tomb of King Men-her-Ra, when Hastings remarks: ‘The more sensational newspapers immediately took the opportunity of reviving all the old superstitious stories connected with the ill luck of certain Egyptian treasures.’ The power of superstition and suggestion were elements that Christie would go on to use again.

[1] Christie 2011, pp. 281–2.

[2] ‘W. Smithson Broadhead’, Anthony Woodd Gallery, n.d., https://www.anthonywooddgallery.com/boradheas-smithson-w [accessed 5 March 2025].

[3] David Morris, ‘Insights: The Artist Behind the Iconic mage of Hercule Poirot’, Collecting Christie, 26 September 2021, https://www.collectingchristie.com/post/broadhead [accessed 5 March 2025].

[4] Morris 2021, n.p. 

[5] Observer, 30 March 1924.

[6] Catherine Wynne, ‘How Sherlock Holmes: Ancient Egypt and a Mysterious ‘Curse’ Inspired Agatha Christie’, University of Hull, 1 November 2023, https://www.hull.ac.uk/work-with-us/more/media-centre/news/2023/how-sherlock-holmes-ancient-egypt-and-a-mysterious-curse-inspired-agatha-christie [accessed 20 March 2025].

[7] James Hamilton-Paterson and Carol Andrews, Mummies: Death and Life in Ancient Egypt (London, 1978), pp. 197–8.