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 1960, she felt that he was a "detestable, bombastic, tiresome, ego-centric little creep". Yet the public loved him and Christie refused to kill him off, claiming that it was her duty to produce what the public liked. Captain Arthur Hastings's first description of Poirot: Agatha Christie's initial description of Poirot in "The Murder on the Orient Express": In the later books, his limp is not mentioned, suggesting it may have been a temporary wartime injury. (In "", Poirot admits he was wounded when he first came to England.) Poirot has green eyes that are repeatedly described as shining "like a