Hercule Poirot met his lifelong friend, Captain Arthur Hastings, and solved the first of his cases to be published, "The Mysterious Affair at Styles". It is clear that Hastings and Poirot are already friends when they meet in Chapter 2 of the novel, as Hastings tells Cynthia that he has not seen him for "some years". Particulars such as the date of 1916 for the case and that Hastings had met Poirot in Belgium, are given in "Curtain: Poirot's Last Case", Chapter 1. After that case, Poirot apparently came to the attention of the British secret service and undertook cases for the
Recurring characters in the Hercule Poirot stories detective in four of Christie's books; he was introduced in "The Man in the Brown Suit", published in 1924. He featured as Hercule Poirot's good friend in "Cards on the Table" (1936) and "Death on the Nile" (1937}. He also appears in "Sparkling Cyanide" (1945), and like his first appearance, Poirot is not a character in the novel. He is known for his patience, composure, and ability to detect facts quickly without anyone else noticing. Although rather conventional in his deductive thought processes, he has an exceptionally open mind regarding possibilities and theories, and while he is amazed by some