Hercule Poirot available to solve mysteries at an English country house. At the time of Christie's writing, it was considered patriotic to express sympathy towards the Belgians, since the invasion of their country had constituted Britain's "casus belli" for entering World War I, and British wartime propaganda emphasised the "Rape of Belgium". Poirot first appeared in "The Mysterious Affair at Styles" (published in 1920) and exited in "Curtain" (published in 1975). Following the latter, Poirot was the only fictional character to receive an obituary on the front page of "The New York Times". By 1930, Agatha Christie found Poirot "insufferable", and, by
Hercule Poirot away..." At the end, Poirot usually reveals his description of the sequence of events and his deductions to a room of suspects, often leading to the culprit's apprehension. Christie was purposely vague about Poirot's origins, as he is thought to be an elderly man even in the early novels. In "An Autobiography," she admitted that she already imagined him to be an old man in 1920. At the time, however, she had no idea she would write works featuring him for decades to come. A brief passage in "The Big Four" provides original information about Poirot's birth or at least