Hercule Poirot: The Complete Short Stories

28. Wasps’ Nest

29. The Third-Floor Flat

30. The Mystery of the Spanish Chest

31. Dead Man’s Mirror

32. How Does Your Garden Grow?

33. Problem at Sea

34. Triangle at Rhodes

35. Murder in the Mews

36. Yellow Iris

37. The Dream

38. Four-and-Twenty Blackbirds

39. The Labours of Hercules – Foreword

40. The Nemean Lion

41. The Lernean Hydra

42. The Arcadian Deer

43. The Erymanthian Boar

44. The Augean Stables

45. The Stymphalean Birds

46. The Cretan Bull

47. The Horses of Diomedes

48. The Girdle of Hyppolita

49. The Flock of Geryon

50. The Apples of the Hesperides

51. The Capture of Cerberus

Postscript: Poirot and the Regatta Mystery (#litres_trial_promo)

Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)

Appendix: Short Story Chronology (#litres_trial_promo)

Also in this Series: Agatha Christie

Poirot in the Orient

Poirot: The French Collection

Poirot: The War Years

Poirot: The Complete Battles of Hastings: Volume 1

Poirot: The Complete Battles of Hastings: Volume 2

Miss Marple Omnibus: Volume I

Miss Marple Omnibus: Volume II

Miss Marple Omnibus: Volume III

Also Available: Agatha Christie

The Mary Westmacott Collection: Volume One

The Mary Westmacott Collection: Volume Two

Also in this Series: Agatha Christie

The Complete Quin & Satterthwaite Love Detectives

Also Available: Agatha Christie

Come, Tell Me How You Live

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

Also by the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Introduction Enter Hercule Poirot (#ulink_2a40a327-7144-539a-b4cc-d973abea259b)

Who could I have as a detective? I reviewed such detectives as I had met and admired in books. There was Sherlock Holmes, the one and only – I should never be able to emulate him. There was Arsene Lupin – was he a criminal or a detective? Anyway, not my kind. There was the young journalist Rouletabille in The Mystery of the Yellow Room – that was the sort of person whom I would like to invent: someone who hadn’t been used before. Who could I have? A schoolboy? Rather difficult. A scientist? What did I know of scientists? Then I remembered our Belgian refugees. We had quite a colony of Belgian refugees living in the parish of Tor. Why not make my detective a Belgian? I thought. There were all types of refugees. How about a refugee police officer? A retired police officer. Not too young a one. What a mistake I made there. The result is that my fictional detective must really be well over a hundred by now.

Anyway, I settled on a Belgian detective. I allowed him slowly to grow into his part. He should have been an inspector, so that he would have a certain knowledge of crime. He would be meticulous, very tidy, I thought to myself, as I cleared away a good many untidy odds and ends in my own bedroom. A tidy little man. I could see him as a tidy little man, always arranging things, liking things in pairs, liking things square instead of round. And he should be very brainy – he should have little grey cells of the mind – that was a good phrase: I must remember that – yes, he would have little grey cells. He would have rather a grand name – one of those names that Sherlock Holmes and his family had. Who was it his brother had been? Mycroft Holmes.

How about calling my little man Hercules? He would be a small man – Hercules: a good name. His last name was more difficult. I don’t know why I settled on the name Poirot, whether it just came into my head or whether I saw it in some newspaper or written on something – anyway it came. It went well not with Hercules but Hercule – Hercule Poirot. That was all right – settled, thank goodness.