Hastings brings 3 newspaper stories to Poirot's attention, trying to interest him in a new case: a bank clerk who disappeared with fifty thousand pounds of securities, a suicidal man, and a missing typist. Instead, he agrees to investigate Mrs Todd's case of a missing cook. ...
At Japp’s suggestion, Poirot and Hastings join him for the weekend in the small countryside town of Market Basing. While enjoying Sunday breakfast, the three are interrupted by the local constable, who requests Japp's help. Walter Protheroe, the reclusive owner of a local large mansion, has been found dead in his dilapidated house, supposedly by suicide. Or is it? ...
Poirot is called in to investigate the kidnapping of three-year-old Johnnie Waverlyfrom his home in Surrey. Evidence points to someone in the household, but the most likely suspect has an alibi. ...
A heavily veiled lady arrives and identifies herself as Lady Millicent Castle Vaughan, whose engagement to the Duke of Southshire was recently announced. At age sixteen she wrote an indiscreet letter to a soldier…a letter now in the hands of a blackmailer. Can Poirot retrieve it and save her reputation? ...
Hastings mentions his belief that Poirot had never known failure in his professional career. Poirot said that was not true and relates the one occasion when he failed to solve a crime, years earlier when he was a police detective in Brussels. ...
The Oglander family was playing bridge in the drawing room of their house in Streatham when the French windows burst open and a woman staggered in, blood on her dress. She managed to say, «Murder!» and then collapsed. Hercule Poirot is called in to solve the baffling case. ...
In the latter days of the First World War, Poirot and Hastings meet Captain Vincent Lemesurier and his uncle Hugo, a chemist. Cousin Roger rushes in with the news that Vincent's father has had a serious fall from a horse and is not expected to last the night. Vincent, the eldest and only of three sons to survive the war, has a strong reaction to the news – partly due to the Lemesurier curse. No first born son has lived to inherit the family ...
