Hercule Poirot Trivia
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50 free Hercule Poirot trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Hercule Poirot appeared in 33 novels and dozens of short stories over 55 years, and when Agatha Christie finally killed him off he became the only fictional character to get a front-page obituary in The New York Times. This quiz covers the whole of that career: his refugee arrival at Styles, the famous cases on the Orient Express and the Nile, his obsessive habits and egg-shaped head, the friends and foils around him, and the long line of actors from Charles Laughton to David Suchet and Kenneth Branagh who have worn the moustache. It is built for Christie readers and Poirot binge-watchers alike. The opening questions are the ones any fan can get; the later ones reach into Poirot's shadowy police career in Brussels, his preferred bank balance and the plays and films most people have never heard of. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the character, the major novels and the ITV series, and each question carries the sentence that supports it. If you enjoy this, our Agatha Christie quiz covers the author herself.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What nationality is Hercule Poirot?
Belgian
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.
Q 02What phrase does Poirot use for the brainpower he relies on to solve cases?
The little grey cells
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".
Q 03In which novel did Poirot make his first appearance?
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
The Mysterious Affair at Styles was finished in 1916, then sat unpublished for four years while publisher after publisher turned it down.
Q 04In Cards on the Table, a party host is murdered while his guests play which game?
Bridge
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.
Q 05What is the title of the novel in which Poirot dies?
Curtain
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.
Q 06Which American newspaper ran a front-page obituary for Poirot in 1975, before his final case reached shops?
The New York Times
The New York Times ran it on 6 August as straight news, down to the line "His age was unknown."
Q 07Which actor played Poirot in the ITV series that ran from 1989 to 2013?
David Suchet
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.
Q 08Which director cast himself as Poirot in Murder on the Orient Express (2017)?
Kenneth Branagh
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.
Q 09In Dumb Witness, what kind of animal is the witness of the title?
A dog
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.
Q 10What is the name of Poirot's impeccably English valet?
George
George arrives in The Mystery of the Blue Train, an intensely English and rather wooden-faced manservant. His employer insists on calling him Georges.
Q 11What is the name of Poirot's fearsomely efficient secretary?
Miss Lemon
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".
Q 12Which crime novelist, a self-caricature of Christie herself, is a recurring Poirot ally?
Ariadne Oliver
Ariadne Oliver has "a strong dash of myself", Christie admitted in 1956. She swears by her feminine intuition, though it is far from infallible.
Q 13What shape does Hastings famously compare Poirot's head to?
An egg
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.
Q 21Which short story reveals what Poirot considers his only true failure?
The Chocolate Box
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.
Q 22To which South American country do Hastings and his wife Dulcie emigrate?
Argentina
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.
Q 23Which glamorous jewel thief, supposedly a Russian aristocrat, did a smitten Poirot let escape?
Countess Vera Rossakoff
Q 14What was Christie's one complaint about the 1974 film of Murder on the Orient Express?
Poirot's moustache was too small
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.
Q 15What footwear is a frequent source of misery for the fastidious Poirot when it gets damaged?
Patent leather shoes
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".
Q 16Which drink does Poirot take to his bed when he is ill or overwrought?
A tisane
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".
Q 17What is the address of Poirot's London flat?
Whitehaven Mansions
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.
Q 18Which star played the murder victim in the 2017 film of Murder on the Orient Express?
Johnny Depp
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.
Q 19What name does Poirot give the twin brother he invents to help trap a criminal gang?
Achille
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.
Q 20What was Poirot's job before he set up as a private detective?
Policeman
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.
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.
Q 24According to Poirot, why is speaking broken English an "enormous asset"?
It leads people to underestimate him
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.
Q 25What were Poirot's last recorded words, spoken to Hastings?
"Cher ami!"
"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.
Q 26In his final case, Poirot fakes his need for what, to seem more infirm than he is?
A wheelchair
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.
Q 27In which novel does Poirot fake his own death and funeral to ambush a criminal gang?
The Big Four
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".
Q 28Who turns out to be the killer in Murder on the Orient Express?
All the suspects
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.
Q 29Under what title did Christie's Orient Express novel first appear in the United States?
Murder in the Calais Coach
Murder in the Calais Coach kept the book clear of a Graham Greene thriller that had just been sold to Americans as Orient Express.
Q 30What stops the train in Murder on the Orient Express, trapping the killer on board?
Heavy snowfall
Heavy snowfall really did strand the Orient Express for days in Turkey in 1929, and Christie borrowed the idea for her plot.