50 Fun Facts About Hercule Poirot

What nationality is Hercule Poirot?

Belgian, because Christie borrowed him from the refugees living in her home town of Torquay during the First World War. Characters in the books keep taking him for a Frenchman.

What phrase does Poirot use for the brainpower he relies on to solve cases?

The little grey cells are his answer to detectives who crawl about hunting footprints and cigarette ash. He mocks one such rival as a "human foxhound".

In which novel did Poirot make his first appearance?

The Mysterious Affair at Styles was finished in 1916, then sat unpublished for four years while publisher after publisher turned it down.

In Cards on the Table, a party host is murdered while his guests play which game?

Bridge is both the alibi and the evidence: four suspects were playing in the room where their host was stabbed, and Poirot reads each one's character from the way they kept the score.

What is the title of the novel in which Poirot dies?

Curtain was written during the Second World War and locked away for over thirty years as a gift for Christie's daughter. It came out in 1975, a few months before the author died.

Which American newspaper ran a front-page obituary for Poirot in 1975, before his final case reached shops?

The New York Times ran it on 6 August as straight news, down to the line "His age was unknown."

Which actor played Poirot in the ITV series that ran from 1989 to 2013?

David Suchet prepared by reading the stories with a notebook, compiling a dossier of 93 of the detective's traits, from his family history to his favourite drinks.

Which director cast himself as Poirot in Murder on the Orient Express (2017)?

Kenneth Branagh's film did well enough to earn two sequels, Death on the Nile and A Haunting in Venice, the second of which moved Hallowe'en Party to Italy.

In Dumb Witness, what kind of animal is the witness of the title?

A dog: Bob, a wire-haired terrier whose ball on the stairs takes the blame for his owner's fall. Christie dedicated the novel to her own terrier, Peter.

What is the name of Poirot's impeccably English valet?

George arrives in The Mystery of the Blue Train, an intensely English and rather wooden-faced manservant. His employer insists on calling him Georges.

What is the name of Poirot's fearsomely efficient secretary?

Miss Lemon's great ambition has nothing to do with detection: she dreams of perfecting a filing system beside which all others would "sink into oblivion".

Which crime novelist, a self-caricature of Christie herself, is a recurring Poirot ally?

Ariadne Oliver has "a strong dash of myself", Christie admitted in 1956. She swears by her feminine intuition, though it is far from infallible.

What shape does Hastings famously compare Poirot's head to?

An egg, in the narrator's first sketch of him, which adds that a speck of dust would have caused him more pain than a bullet wound.

What was Christie's one complaint about the 1974 film of Murder on the Orient Express?

Poirot's moustache was too small for her: she had written that he had the finest moustache in England, and thought it a pity the film did not give him one. Otherwise she called it well made.

What footwear is a frequent source of misery for the fastidious Poirot when it gets damaged?

Patent leather shoes: in the Egyptian desert he wails that the sand is inside them, "which is painful", and outside them, "which outrages the eyesight".

Which drink does Poirot take to his bed when he is ill or overwrought?

A tisane, or herbal tea: he sips one through a bout of influenza, and camomile is called a drink of which he is "inordinately fond". His narrator finds the brew "particularly noxious".

What is the address of Poirot's London flat?

Whitehaven Mansions, which he picked "entirely on account of its strictly geometrical appearance and proportions". On television the block is played by Florin Court in Charterhouse Square.

Which star played the murder victim in the 2017 film of Murder on the Orient Express?

Johnny Depp played the shady American who tries to hire Poirot as a bodyguard, is turned down, and is found dead in his compartment. The other three were all among the suspects.

What name does Poirot give the twin brother he invents to help trap a criminal gang?

Achille, from parents with a taste for Greek heroes. All celebrated detectives, he tells his friend, have a brother who would be more celebrated still but for laziness, a wink at Mycroft Holmes.

What was Poirot's job before he set up as a private detective?

Policeman: he was a celebrated member of his country's force before war drove him to England as a refugee. A village neighbour later takes him for a retired hairdresser.

Which short story reveals what Poirot considers his only true failure?

The Chocolate Box has Poirot admit he settled on the wrong man until the real poisoner confessed to him. He asks Hastings to murmur the title whenever he grows conceited.

To which South American country do Hastings and his wife Dulcie emigrate?

Argentina, where the couple run a ranch. The move takes the narrator out of most of the later books: Hastings appears in only eight Poirot novels.

Which glamorous jewel thief, supposedly a Russian aristocrat, did a smitten Poirot let escape?

Countess Vera Rossakoff, unmasked in The Double Clue, hands back the jewels and leaves London, and the police never hear of it. "A remarkable woman," sighs Poirot, sure he will meet her again.

According to Poirot, why is speaking broken English an "enormous asset"?

It leads people to underestimate him. He admits he can speak exact, idiomatic English, and that he boasts on purpose too, so people write him off and drop their guard.

What were Poirot's last recorded words, spoken to Hastings?

"Cher ami!" is all he says as Hastings leaves his room; by morning he is dead. His real goodbye comes later, in a manuscript that explains the whole case.

In his final case, Poirot fakes his need for what, to seem more infirm than he is?

A wheelchair: he admits afterwards that he could walk all along, with a limp. He had even sent his loyal valet away, because the man would have seen through the act.

In which novel does Poirot fake his own death and funeral to ambush a criminal gang?

The Big Four was stitched together from old magazine stories when Christie badly needed a book to sell. She later called it "that rotten book".

Who turns out to be the killer in Murder on the Orient Express?

All the suspects are in on it: twelve blows from a self-appointed jury settling an old score. Poirot hands the police a lone-intruder theory instead.

Under what title did Christie's Orient Express novel first appear in the United States?

Murder in the Calais Coach kept the book clear of a Graham Greene thriller that had just been sold to Americans as Orient Express.

What stops the train in Murder on the Orient Express, trapping the killer on board?

Heavy snowfall really did strand the Orient Express for days in Turkey in 1929, and Christie borrowed the idea for her plot.

What is the name of the murder victim aboard the Orient Express?

Samuel Ratchett had tried to hire Poirot as a bodyguard and was turned down with the words "I do not like your face." By morning he lay dead in the compartment next door.

Which real crime inspired the backstory of Murder on the Orient Express?

The Lindbergh kidnapping of 1932 became the fictional Armstrong case that drives the plot. The real mystery was still unsolved when Christie's book came out.

In which city does Poirot board the Orient Express in Christie's novel?

Istanbul, where a telegram calls him back to London almost as soon as he reaches his hotel. The train is full, so a friend who helps run the line finds him a berth.

Which Poirot novel was voted the best crime novel ever by the Crime Writers' Association in 2013?

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd won a poll of fellow crime writers, who also named Christie the best author ever. Its twist ending had helped to shape the whole genre.

What does the killer leave beside each victim in The ABC Murders?

A railway guide, the ABC timetable of the title, turns up by each body. The killer also writes to Poirot before every murder, daring him to stop it.

Which poison kills Emily Inglethorp in Poirot's first novel?

Strychnine came out of Christie's own wartime job in a hospital dispensary, where she learned her poisons. She gave the same job to a young woman living at the house.

In Hallowe'en Party, a girl who boasts of witnessing a murder is later drowned in what?

An apple-bobbing tub is where thirteen-year-old Joyce is found within hours of a boast nobody believed. Poirot must work out what, if anything, she really saw.

Which author was commissioned by the Christie estate to write new Poirot novels from 2014?

Sophie Hannah wrote The Monogram Murders, the first new Poirot novel the Christie estate ever approved. She gave him a new narrator, a young Scotland Yard man, instead of Hastings.

Who was the first actor ever to play Poirot, on the West End stage in 1928?

Charles Laughton was younger and stockier than the Poirot of the books, yet the play ran for 250 performances. Christie disliked its detective enough to write a Poirot play of her own.

Which actor is the only one to earn an Academy Award nomination for playing Poirot?

Albert Finney was in his thirties, so it took hours of make-up every morning to pass him off as the older detective. The Best Actor nomination followed, though not the win.

Which actor first played Poirot in the 1978 film Death on the Nile?

Peter Ustinov answered Christie's daughter, who protested that he was nothing like Poirot, with "He is now!" He kept the part for the next ten years.

The future ITV Poirot played which character in the 1985 TV film Thirteen at Dinner?

Inspector Japp was, by the actor's own account, probably the worst performance of his life. He gave it opposite another man's Poirot, four years before taking the lead himself.

Which actor played Poirot in the 2018 BBC adaptation of The ABC Murders?

John Malkovich played a fading Poirot whom the police now hold in contempt. Rupert Grint is the inspector who has taken over from his old ally at Scotland Yard.

How did the ITV Poirot's star produce the detective's rapid, mincing walk?

Clenching his buttocks was a trick borrowed from Laurence Olivier, who once minced across a stage with a penny held there. It forces short, quick strides.

Who played Captain Hastings in the ITV series Agatha Christie's Poirot?

Hugh Fraser's Hastings vanished from the later series, then came back for its final run in 2013 after more than a decade away.

Which design style gives the ITV series Agatha Christie's Poirot its distinctive look?

Art Deco and modernist buildings across Britain stand in for his world. From 2005 the designers moved him to a bigger, richer flat, and the stark early look softened.

Which Sherlock Holmes tradition did Christie admit she followed in creating Poirot?

Eccentric detective with a stooge assistant was her own blunt summary, down to a Lestrade-type man from Scotland Yard. The admission comes in her autobiography.

What does Poirot try to grow when he first retires to an English village?

Vegetable marrows so enraged him that he hurled one over the wall, where it landed at his neighbour's feet. A murder nearby soon ended the retirement.

How had Christie come to feel about Poirot by 1960?

She refused to kill him off anyway, saying it was her duty to produce what the public liked.

To win a five-pound bet, how does Poirot solve the disappearance of Mr Davenheim?

Without leaving his chair, he works out from facts brought to him that the missing banker is sitting in a police cell under a petty thief's name.