This first volume of Agatha Christie's collected short fiction contains all Hercule Poirot's appearances in this smaller format. The bulk of the stories with Poirot as detective were written during the 1920s, and mainly in 1923, when Christie was commissioned to write a whole bunch of short stories for the magazine Sketch.
The first 24 stories here (as well as "Christmas Adventure" that appears a bit later) were first published in that magazine during 1923. They were thus written during Christie's early period as a writer, when her enthusiasm was at the highest level. (Remember that this should not be confused with Christie being at the top of her powers - that came later.) The stories have a fairly uniform and consistent quality, but obviously some stand out as more inspired than the rest. They are also of similar length.
In this volume the stories are ordered as they occurred in Poirot's career (according to "The Life and Times of Hercule Poirot" by Anne Hart). And therefore, the first story here is "The Chocolate Box", where Poirot tells his friend Arthur Hastings about his greatest failure. A somewhat slight story that sets a tone for what's to come.
Next is "The Kidnapped Prime Minister" which takes place just after the first novel, "The Mysterious Affair at Styles". Christie's attempt at misdirection works well as long as you do not think too hard about things, because that will give you the only possible solution.
In "The Lemesurier Inheritance", Christie succeeds better with her misdirection. Many readers will reach the same false solution as Hastings does.
After that we get to "The Affair at the Victory Ball", one of the highlights of the collection. With just a few pages at her disposal, Christie still manages to cram the story with action.
"The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim" is an obvious homage to Sherlock Holmes where Christie uses exactly the same solution as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did. So, not too hard to see through for the experienced mystery reader.
With "The Plymouth Express" Christie returns to her highest levels. This short story would later be expanded and rejigged into the novel "The Mystery of the Blue Train" (which not as successful as this shorter version, to be honest).
Then we come to "The Adventure of the Cheap Flat" where we get one of those special Christie things - the detective attach importance to a minor detail that no one else finds important.
"The Submarine Plans" is another one of those short stories that Christie later decided to reformat. In this case it was rewritten into the novella "The Incredible Theft". We'll return to that later in this collection.
Poirot accepts a case that appears quite banal at first sight in "The Adventure of the Clapham Cook", but when we reach the end it turns out that a much more dastardly crime has been solved through his contribution.
In "The Cornish Mystery", Poirot arrives too late to avert the tragedy he has already seen a glimmer of. A clever example of the least likely suspect.
It was likewise impossible to avert "The Tragedy at Marsdon Manor", since Poirot is not called in until after the fact. The 20s' emerging fascination for psychology gets an appearance here.
"The Mystery at Hunter's Lodge" is reminiscent of the previous tale in some respects, and the reader should be able to steer his suspicions in the right direction if he reads them immediately after each other.
The 20s weren't only the decade of emerging psychology, but also the decade of egyptology. In "The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb", even Poirot has to solve one of the many Egyptian curses that seem to strike the poor archaeologists. The solution is somewhat far-fetched, and Poirot has to produce a couple of rabbits from his hat.
In "The Jewel Robbery at the Grand Metropolitan", Poirot needs to figure out who stole mrs Opalsen's pearls. Because surely it cannot be the only suspect, the maid!
Next is the shortest of all these tales, "The Market Basing Mystery". This is yet another story that was extended by Christie. The longer version, "Murder in the Mews", comes later in this volume.
The next story is "The King of Clubs", where Hastings's reasoning as usual is wrong. On the whole, a clever little tale.
In "The Adventure of the Italian Nobleman" Poirot gets tangled in typical 20s prejudices and gets to clean them up a bit. Now, a couple of decades later, this story appears a bit slight.
"The Double Clue" is our first encounter with Hercule Poirot's nemesis, the Countess Vera Rossakoff, who will appear later in both the novel "The Big Four" and the short story "The Capture of Cerberus". The salient clue is a fairly common one, and a reader who's well versed in mystery history shouldn't find it too hard to find the villain of the piece before Poirot does.
Just like Ellery Queen did, Agatha Christie wrote her own kidnap story where a young boy is kidnapped. "The Adventure of Johnnie Waverly" is surely a better tale than Queen's attempt, "Child Missing."
Hastings's sense of fair play gets a small rebuke in "The Case of the Missing Will". Surely we all agree with Poirot in his supposition towards the end? A clever treasure hunt where Poirot as usual gets to excel.
In "The Lost Mine", Poirot tells Hastings about an earlier case. There are heaps of sinister Chinamen and opium dens, and no one in their right mind would call this one of the highlights of this collection.
"The $1,000,000 Bond Robbery" is one of Christie's all too few forays into impossible crimes, but she acquits herself well here. Poirot has to solve a case where the bonds have disappeared even though they were watched every second.
Poirot has to investigate a case of blackmail in "The Case of the Veiled Lady". He gets to show his sleight of hand and cleverness on the way to a surprising dénouement.
In "The Adventure of the Western Star" Hastings tries to show off with expected results. The short story is possibly a bit too slight for its own good, but there's still something charming about how Christie uses small means to toy with the reader's expectations.
"Double Sin" is the first short story that isn't from the large batch commissioned by Sketch. The astute reader will pick up on this because Hastings no longer shares a flat with Poirot. Nevertheless, they go on a coach trip and end up investigating a theft which Poirot solves impressively. This is the last story featuring Hastings for quite a while.
The final tale from the Sketch batch is "Christmas Adventure", but no Hastings as far as we can see. Instead, Poirot is celebrating Christmas at a country manor. He runs into priceless jewels and mysterious deaths. An atmospheric story which would later be extended to almost double length, in the form of "The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding".
There's been a murder in "The Third Floor Flat" of the building where Poirot has his residence. He gets involved in the investigation, and of course easily finds the somewhat surprising culprit.
So far, all stories have been of more or less uniform length, but "The Under Dog" gives us a longer and meatier tale from Christie in the form of a novella. Poirot investigates the murder in the Tower Room and finds a surprising killer.
"Wasps’ Nest" has a somewhat different setup, where Poirot manages to prevent not only one but two deaths. A clever and atmospheric short story.
In "The Mystery of the Baghdad Chest", someone is found murdered inside the titular chest. Hastings makes a shortlived comeback here (this is his final appearance in a short story), and the entire story seems like a throwback to the format of the first short stories. The tale would later be extended and rewritten (and Hastings replaced by Poirot's secretary Miss Lemon) with a new title: "The Mystery of The Spanish Chest". This novella appears later in this volume.
"How Does Your Garden Grow?" is yet another one of those tales where Poirot receives a letter from someone asking for his help, but he arrives too late to prevent a death. A rather nifty little story where the reader might want to be well-versed in English nursery rhymes.
Another impossible mystery appears in "The Second Gong", where Poirot needs to solve a case where a country squire has been murdered in a locked room. A clever story with some fireworks in the solution. This is another short story that was later extensively rewritten into "Dead Man’s Mirror". (It appears later in this collection.)
"Problem at Sea" is the first of two short stories giving us a Poirot on holiday. This time he is out on a cruise. He has to solve an impossible crime where a woman is murdered in her locked cabin. The astute reader will probably not be fooled by Christie's little trick.
In the next tale, Poirot has apparently left the cruise. Instead, he has to deal with a "Triangle at Rhodes". As usual, not all is as it appears, and Poirot has to sort out the tangled webs of relationships after a woman has been poisoned. The question is if Christie doesn't go too far in her misdirections to hide the real relationships. You cannot blame a reader who isn't able to see through the tangle.
"Murder in the Mews" has already been mentioned as a longer version of "The Market Basing Tragedy". It is also one of Christie's experiments in impossible mysteries. This is clearly the better variant, and in this longer format Christie has the opportunity to get in more background to the plot than the rather shallow description we had in the earlier, shorter story.
We return to the shorter format with "Yellow Iris" (which was later rewritten into a novel not featuring Poirot - "Sparkling Cyanide"). Compared to this novel, the short story feels a bit truncated, and actually no crime is ever committed here - Poirot manages to prevent it. But the main plot idea is clever.
We continue to vary the length of stories with the novella "The Dream". Poirot gets to solve another impossible mystery - a crime where the victim had dreamed what was about to happen! The misdirection is not bad, but it has to be said that the murderer has some help from coincidence.
"Four-and-Twenty Blackbirds" is the last "regular" short story in this collection. Poirot is having dinner with an old friend, and one of the other dinner guests dies a short time later. Poirot suspects foul play and finds a surprising crime when he begins investigating.
"Poirot and the Regatta mystery" is a short story that would later be rewritten with another of Christie's series detectives, Parker Pyne, as the problem solver. These two variants are very similar - Christie more or less settled with only changing the names. The story itself is fairly clever - and features an impossible crime! - but one does have to wonder about those dinner guests' observation skills...
The following twelve short stories are all from the collection "The Labours of Hercules" and are a suite of tales with an overarching theme. Poirot decides to retire and to round off his career by figuratively following in his namesake Hercules's footsteps and solve twelve crimes in his spirit. The stories in question are written with a light hand and none of them can be described as a classic. But the main idea is solid, and obviously there's nothing wrong with Poirot's little grey cells.
This collection is rounded out by four tales that are "extended" versions of earlier short stories. "Dead Man’s Mirror" is the first and best of them. It's overall one of Christie's very best stories, with a clever impossible mystery and a correspondingly clever solution. It's also quite different from its precursor which means that they can both be read without one spoiling the other.
Next is "The Incredible Theft", a longer variant of "The Submarine Plans". As opposed to "Dead Man's Mirror", this story is very similar to its predecessor and thus doesn't give the reader much more despite the extra amount of pages.
"The Mystery of The Spanish Chest" has replaced the original Hastings with Miss Lemon. Otherwise, this story follows its predecessor "The Mystery of the Baghdad Chest" very closely.
And the final story of this collection is "The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding". This too is quite reminiscent of its earlier variant "Christmas Adventure" with the same main plot, but there is a larger focus on the Christmas atmosphere, which makes this version more charming.
Conclusion
Christie doesn't have too many impossible crimes in her oeuvre, but there's still a handful here: "The $1,000,000 Bond Robbery", "The Dream", "The Second Gong"/"Dead Man's Mirror", "Poirot and the Regatta Mystery", "Problem at Sea" and "The Tragedy at Market Basing"/"Murder in the Mews".
They are all fairly good (with "Dead Man's Mirror" being the outstanding story and "The Regatta Mystery" being the slightest). For the time being, I've decided to include them all in my impossible mystery project, and since Christie is at her best when she has more space I'll probably use the longer version in the two applicable cases.
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