Agatha Christie her service in September 1918. After the war, Agatha and Archie Christie settled in a flat at 5 Northwick Terrace in St. John's Wood, northwest London. Christie had long been a fan of detective novels, having enjoyed Wilkie Collins's "The Woman in White" and "The Moonstone", as well as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's early Sherlock Holmes stories. She wrote her own detective novel, "The Mysterious Affair at Styles", featuring Hercule Poirot, a former Belgian police officer noted for his twirly large "magnificent moustaches" and egg-shaped head. Poirot had taken refuge in Britain after Germany invaded Belgium. Christie's inspiration for the
Agatha Christie (usually Hercule Poirot). This occurs in "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd", "Death on the Nile", "Dumb Witness", "Crooked House", "The Hollow", "The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side", "Cat Among the Pigeons", "Peril at End House", "Nemesis", "Appointment with Death", "The Secret Adversary", and "Curtain". In the last of these ("Curtain"), no fewer than three culprits die during the course of the story. In "The A.B.C. Murders", the murderer has killed four innocent people and attempted to frame an unstable man for the crimes. Hercule Poirot, however, prevents this easy way out, ensuring a trial and hanging. In "And Then