In the novels, Hastings's literary function changes with Poirot's method. In the earlier phase of his career, Hastings is valued for his imaginative approach to cases, inevitably giving rise to fanciful hypotheses that Poirot gently mocks. Poirot himself characterised Hastings thus in "The Mystery of the Spanish Chest" (1932): "How my dear friend, Hastings, would have enjoyed this! What romantic flights of imagination he would have had. What ineptitudes he would have uttered! Ah "ce cher" Hastings, at this moment, today, I miss him..." Later in her career, Christie's apparatus is less fanciful and the opportunity for wild speculation much diminished. When the need for a sidekick arises in the later novels and stories it is either as: