Hercule Poirot of Police of Brussels, until "the Great War" (World War I) forced him to leave for England. (In "The Mysterious Affair at Styles" Poirot had retired at age 55 in 1905) I had called in at my friend Poirot's rooms to find him sadly overworked. So much had he become the rage that every rich woman who had mislaid a bracelet or lost a pet kitten rushed to secure the services of the great Hercule Poirot. During World War I, Poirot left Belgium for England as a refugee (although he returned a few times). On 16 July 1916 he again
Hercule Poirot perhaps, Madame, tell you a little more about myself. I am "Hercule Poirot"." The revelation left Mrs Summerhayes unmoved. "What a lovely name," she said kindly. "Greek, isn't it?" Poirot is less active during the cases that take place at the end of his career. Beginning with "Three Act Tragedy" (1934), Christie had perfected during the inter-war years a subgenre of Poirot novel in which the detective himself spent much of the first third of the novel on the periphery of events. In novels such as "Taken at the Flood", "After the Funeral", and "Hickory Dickory Dock", he is even