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
Hercule Poirot childhood in or near the town of Spa, Belgium: "But we did not go into Spa itself. We left the main road and wound into the leafy fastnesses of the hills, till we reached a little hamlet and an isolated white villa high on the hillside." Christie strongly implies that this "quiet retreat in the Ardennes" near Spa is the location of the Poirot family home. An alternative tradition holds that Poirot was born in the village of Ellezelles (province of Hainaut, Belgium). A few memorials dedicated to Hercule Poirot can be seen in the centre of this village. There