HERCULE POIROT

Childhood Years
Police Years
Career as a Private Detective
Retirement
Post-War World
Death
The Age Controversy

   Poirot is remarkable for his small stature and egg-shaped head, his cat-like green eyes, his meticulous moustache and his dandified dressing habits. He appears in over thirty biographical novels and over fifty short stories. Agatha Christie, his biographer, has noted that he is her most famous client.

CHILDHOOD YEARS

    Hercule Poirot was born in Spa, Belgium. Not much is know of Poirot�s childhood other than he once claimed in Three Act Tragedy to have been from a large family with little wealth. In Taken at the Flood, he then claimed to have been raised and educated by Nuns, suggesting he and his siblings where orphaned.

Nothing is known of his siblings, or relatives.

   In The Murder of Rodger Ackroyd, he creates a mentally disabled nephew as an excuse to investigate the local mental homes. In Dumb Witness, he regales us will stories of his elderly invalid mother as a pretence to investigate the local nurses. His biggest creation, however, was his twin brother Achille Poirot who was actually Poirot in disguise [first mentioned in The Big Four]. He also mentioned a sister called Yvonne in The Chocolate Box, who was never mentioned again.

^Index

POIROT'S POLICE YEARS

    As an adult, Poirot joined the Belgian police force and apparently had a distinguished Career. Again there is no real information that can be considered canon on this period of Poirot�s life. We do know that he had his only real failure while in the police force as told in The Chocolate Box. Poirot did say, in the same novel, that he has had other failures but they were caused by events beyond his control such as ill health forcing him to drop a case or another policeman solving the case before him and he believes [rightly or wrongly] that these don�t count.

   It was also in this period that Poirot killed his first man who was on a rooftop and shooting the public below. Not much is know about this event or its aftermath other than that Poirot killed the man right there and then in order to save lives and was never sure afterwards whether or not what he did was right.

   It was also during his police days that he first met Chief Inspector James Japp. In The Mysterious Affair at Styles he mentions that they first met in 1904 during the Abercrombie Forgery and later that year joined forces again to hunt down a criminal known as Baron Altara. Unfortunately we hear nothing more about these events. Poirot finally retired in 1914 but events conspired against him and he was forced to face the wrath of the invading German army.

^Index

Career as a private detective

    During the first world war, Poirot was forced to flee Belgium for Britain. It hurt Poirot badly to have been driven from his home and forced to live as a refugee. However it was here that he met his lifelong friend, Captain Arthur Hastings and began his new life after solving The Mysterious Affair at Styles. After that case Poirot apparently came to the attention of both MI6 and MI5 and did undertake cases for the British government. Its presumably at this time of his life that he foils a German attempt to abduct the Prime Minister in the short story The Kidnapped Prime Minister.

   After the war Poirot became a free agent and began undertaking civilian cases. He moved into what became both his home and work address, 56B Whitehaven Mansions, Sandhurst Square, London W1.

   The building used in the series can be found on Charterhouse Square - City of London. Also known as, 28 Whitehaven Mansions

   It was chosen by Poirot for its symmetry. His first case was The Affair at the Victory Ball, which saw Poirot enter the high society and begin his illustrious career.

   Between the first and second world wars, Poirot traveled all over Europe and the Middle East investigating crimes and murders. The main bulk of his cases happened during this period. The Murder On the Links saw the Belgian pit his grey cells against a French murderer. In the Middle East he solved The Murder on the Orient Express, the Death on the Nile and the Murder in Mesopotamia with ease and even survived An Appointment with Death. However he did not travel to the Americas or Australia, probably due to his mal de mer.

   It was during this time he met the Countess Vera Rossakoff, a glamorous jewel thief. Poirot later became smitten with the woman and allowed her to escape justice. He then returned to mainland Europe to solve the Mystery of the Blue Train and faced Death in the Clouds.

   Poirot was then to face the biggest threat of his life, a gang called The Big Four who were bent on world domination. It was during this ongoing battle that he again encountered Vera Rossakoff. She had made a deal with Poirot�s unholy enemy. However, Poirot was able to convince the countess to betray her dark masters, in exchange for her long lost son who Poirot had found. With her help, Poirot overcame the Big Four and achieved international fame. After this he did contemplate marriage to the Countess, but finally let Rossakoff go. Poirot was never to see her again for twenty years and was sadly, never to marry.

^Index

Retirement

    After the case of The Big Four ended Poirot decides to retire. He retires at least five times but is to much of a workaholic to give up his work. He retired from the police force but is drawn into private investigation. He retires and moves to the county to grow vegetable marrows but then The Murder of Roger Ackroyd takes place right on his door step. He then retires but is drawn back into the detective business when he hears that Mrs. McGinty's Dead. He becomes a book reviewer but became involved in another crime when he heard about The Clocks. In the Labor of Hercules he agrees to take on twelve more cases before retirement, but the retirement never happens.

^Index

Post-war world

    After the war, as he got older, he apparently became more of an armchair detective and traveled less and less. His absolute obsession with order and neatness, his disdain for detective methods that include crawling on hands and knees and looking for clues and his egomania also grew to outrageous levels. He once even bet his friend and Scotland Yard's Chief Inspector Japp, that he could solve a case simply by sitting in an easy chair and using his "little grey cells."

He also became increasing amused and baffled by the vulgarism of the up and coming generations young people. In Hickory Dickory Dock, Poirot investigates the strange goings on in a student hostel. And when he met the Third Girl, Poirot was forced to face facts and admit that he was getting older and no longer understood the new modern youngsters and the growing drug and pop culture.

^Index

Death

    Towards the end of his life Poirot began suffering from heart problems and arthritis. He then came across a man called Norton who had perfected a means of getting other people to kill for him, the greatest murder method yet devised.

    Poirot, his health failing and knowing that the only way to stop Norton was to kill him as he could never be brought to justice legally, pursued Norton to Styles where he and his old friend Arthur Hastings hunted down this one last murderer together before Poirot died peacefully in his sleep on the 6th of August 1975.

^Index

THE AGE CONTROVERSY

    Taken at face value it appears that Poirot was over 125 years old when he died. This is due mostly to confusion over what is canonical and what is not. Although the majority of the Hercule Poirot novels are set between the wars, the latter novels set them in the 1960s [Which is contemporary with the time Agatha Christie was writing]. However, the many TV and movie adaptations do not show this. Many people believe that Poirot retired from Police work at around 50, but this is untrue, because as shown in the short story The Chocolate Box, he retired at around 30. This can explain why Poirot is around for so long. He was in his nineties when he died.

^Index