Steve R's Reviews > Hercule Poirot: The Complete Short Stories

Different from all the other Agatha works I have read recently in being a touch over eight hundred pages in length and including stories which I’d read before, I found this collection of fifty-one stories a thorough delight to read. I purposely read it much more slowly than I would otherwise, just to savour the pleasures of her intricate plot construction and character delineation. I also took notes on exactly what it was she actually said about her famous detective. The following represent my efforts to encapsulate Christie’s vision of Hercule Poirot.

Personal background:
- former chief of the Belgian police force
- acquainted with Hastings in Belgium before the war
- wounded on the Somme, invalided out of duty in World War I
- Ffom the very first stories (1923), seems to be old: refers to himself as ‘Papa Poirot’
- had a brother, Achille, who did not live long
- wants to cultivate tasty marrows during his retirement

Attitudes to England:
- Englishman ‘as linguists are deplorable’
- finds English provincial beds ‘a thing of horror’
- ‘The English are very stupid. They think that they can deceive anyone but that no one can deceive them. Because they are brave, but stupid, sometimes they die when they need not have.’

Character:
- at times, quite self-effacing: ‘I am not of an ardent temperament. It has saved me from many embarrassments’
- quite class conscious: ‘Poirot does not hunt down tramps’; reviews prospective clients by consulting Who’s Who to see their specific ranking in the aristocracy;
- when misdirecting is careful that ‘the lies I invent are always the most delicate’
- quite considerate and kind, or ‘As good as a woman in aiding females to recover from shock’.
- a good Catholic
- parsimonious: ‘We Belgians believe in thrift’; however, a generous tipper
- believes in the power of superstition, or at least in its power to influence the actions of others
- can be quite impatient
- ‘I am very strong on family life’
- 'his elderly soul revolted from the stress and hurry of the modern world'
- seems always to have been old: ‘I have reached the age of reflection’
- taste in art more bourgeois than opulent or flamboyant

Pride:
- excessively vain about his accomplishments: ‘All cannot be as Hercule Poirot. I know it well. When one is unique, one knows it.’ Hastings: ‘You’re so confoundedly conceited’; admits to having made ‘innumerable’ failures; feels he is well known and strongly feared by the criminal classes; ‘to be made a fuss of and treated as a lion suited him down to the ground’
- can berate himself excessively when having erred in judgment: ‘I have been thirty-six times an imbecile!’
- he doesn’t like Alice Cunningham since she is not impressed with him
- expects his name to be instantly recognized upon its being announced at a gathering
- ‘there is no question of failure: Hercule Poirot does not fail’

And Women:
- a steadfast bachelor: when flirted with by an attractive maid, replies: ‘I am of advanced years. What have I to do with such frivolities?’
- states that he once loved a young English girl who, unfortunately, could not cook
- fascinated by ‘Countess’ Vera Rassokoff: ‘it is the misfortune of small precise men to hanker after large and flamboyant women: the little bourgeois was still thrilled by the aristocrat’; Miss Lemon suspects he is in love with her after he blushes when she discovers he sent Vera red roses
- ‘women are a miraculous sex’
- after initially refusing due to age, does agree to dance with a professional dancer

Sartorial Customs
- a ‘dandified’ appearance; a ‘resplendent’ dressing gown, embroidered slippers
- his ‘faultless evening clothes, exact symmetry of his hair parting, the exquisite set of his white tie, the sheen of pomade on his hair, and the tortured splendour of his moustaches – all combined to paint the perfect picture of an inveterate dandy’.
- wears fine patent leather shoes when stout hiking brogues would be preferable
- he ‘was quite modest in his estimation of his personal attractions’
- feels that ‘to present a good appearance … is even more important when one has few natural advantages’

Characteristic Behaviours:
- always amiable, excessively polite, continually not wishing to ‘derange’ or ‘discommode’ others
- a green light comes not his eyes when he perceives a previously unknown truth
- quite a hypochondriac: ‘my feet are damp and I have sneezed twice’; when down with flu, muffles his head in a woollen shawl, sips ‘noxious’ tisanes, prefers travelling by train than by bus since the latter ‘have an overabundance of air’; has several medicine bottles, of course arranged by height
- often quite anxious about the weather; not a good traveller; initially refuses to leave London in the winter for fear of the cold; finds that excessive heat makes his moustaches go limp
- suffers from acute mal de mer, even on the short crossing of the Channel, attests to the efficacy of Laverguier’s technique of bending and breathing to deal with it
- his disgusted expression ‘Tchah’ sounds like a cat’s sneeze
- smokes tiny cigarettes

Gastronomical tendencies:
- prefers thick, sweet chocolate, or sirop to ‘your English poison’ (tea)
- rates culinary activities with a high regard: ‘in this country, you treat the affairs gastronomic with a criminal indifference’
- feels that ‘the stomach must not be ignored’
- likes sirop de cassis, made from black currants

Habitual possessions:
- a pocketbook, for entering notes
- a ‘large turnip of a watch’, later replaced by a ‘neat wristwatch’
- a small clothes brush
- a small mirror and small comb, with which to straighten his moustaches

Personal predilections
- love of ‘order and method’
- obsession with symmetry: demands his boiled eggs be of identical sizes; books on his shelves are arranged by size; when ill, medicine bottles arranged by height; his bank account holds 444 pounds, 4 shillings and 4 pence; prefers the electric bars of a radiator to a coal fire since the latter lacks symmetry
- his flat is ‘modern, square, chromium furnished’
- known to flick imaginary pieces of dust from his clothing

Physical appearance:
- egg-shaped head
- dapper appearance, excessively neat
- regards his moustache as ‘a thing of beauty’
- wears a nightcap at bedtime

Professional practices:
- quite taciturn: ‘I think of no one in particular until I am sure’ regarding his lack of willingness to name suspects until he is absolutely sure of their guilt
- usually as self-deprecating as he is totally lacking in humility: often lets Japp and/or other police officials take credit for crimes he has solved
- regards clues as having relatively minor importance in crime solving since ‘at most, one or two may be valid’ while thinking is much more important, ‘since the senses deceive you’
- feels himself to be a ‘consulting specialist’ and proves such by solving a crime simply by being provided with the evidence while never leaving his apartment or by sending Hastings to the scene while he stays in bed with the flu; states that one should ‘never do anything that others can do for you’
- is pleased when a case is ‘most obscure’ since this improves chances of its being solved: if everything seems simple, it ,means the criminal worked hard to obscure the true nature of events
- although hesitant to employ any ‘rough stuff’ can act when required: housebreaking, sticking a foot in a door to prevent its closing, jimmying locks
- berates himself when a client who felt they were threatened is indeed murdered
- believes it is essential that that a good detective must be a psychologist
- disappointed if a case appears too easy since this often indicates the criminal has adroitly arranged circumstances to hide the truth
- at times, can engage in physical feats in the pursuit of criminals; has learned the art of picking pockets
- takes his job seriously: ‘I do not approve of murder’

Mangling of expressions
- ‘the fur would jump about’
- ‘you are barking up the mistaken tree’
- the ‘wind rises’ in one upset about something [not: gets the wind up]
- ‘the dripping will be in the fire’
- ‘obvious, my dear Watson’

If it was possible to feel guilty about enjoying a literary indulgence to too extensive a degree, this work would do it.

Highly recommended, especially for the well-seasoned Agatha reader.