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
Agatha Christie's Poirot documentary (2013) in which David Suchet attempts to unravel the mysterious appeal of Hercule Poirot and how he portrayed him. It was broadcast in the United Kingdom on the same evening as the final episode "Curtain". Suchet visited Greenway, Agatha Christie's summer home, recollecting how he met her daughter Rosalind and her husband Anthony Hicks for their approval before he began filming. He now meets Christie's grandson Matthew Pritchard who recounts how his grandmother found the character amongst Belgian refugees in Torquay. A visit to the permanent Poirot exhibition at Torquay Museum to which he presented the cane he used