Poirot replies that the last time was 28 years ago, probably a reference to The Chocolate Box, a short story from Poirot's Early Cases.

Another detail is Poirot's reference to a trip to Egypt for his health.

She is also the only one in Poirot's universe to have noted that " It ’ s not natural for five or six people to be on the spot when B is murdered and all have a motive for killing B.

Poirot's first appearance was in The Mysterious Affair at Styles ( published 1920 ) and his last in Curtain ( published 1975, the year before Christie died ).

Most of the cases covered by Poirot's private detective agency take place before his retirement to grow marrows, at which time he solves The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

The two remain friends right up to Poirot's death, although there is little evidence regarding their possible meetings between 1937 and 1975, but we know that Hastings at least saw Poirot a year before the latter's death.

Hastings narrates the majority of the short stories featuring Poirot, but appears in only eight of the novels, all of which were written before 1940 ( except Curtain: Poirot's Last Case ).

He locked the room with a duplicate key that Hastings knew Poirot to possess ; both Hastings and the reader would have assumed that the duplicate key was to Poirot's own room, but Poirot had said that he had changed rooms before Norton's arrival, and it was to this previous room that he had the key.

In the collection, Christie charts some of the cases from Hercule Poirot's early career, before he was internationally renowned as a detective.

Poirot offers him twenty-four hours escape if he signs the confession before he hands it over to the police and dupes the man into thinking that Poirot's flat is being watched.

* German: Poirots erste Fälle ( Poirot's First Cases ) Mord auf dem Siegesball ( Murder at the Victory Ball ) Köchin gesucht ( Cook Wanted ) Die mysteriöse Angelegenheit in Cornwall ( The Mysterious Case in Cornwall ) Poirot und der Kidnapper ( Poirot and the Kidnapper ) Ein Indiz zuviel ( One Evidence Too Much ) Die Abenteuer des Kreuzkönigs ( The Adventure of the King of Clubs ) Das Erbe der Familie Lemesurier ( The Inheritance of the Lemesurier Family ) Die verlorene Mine ( The Lost Mine ) Das Geheimnis des Plymouth-Express ( The Secret of the Plymouth-Express ) Die Pralinenschachtel ( The Chocolate Box ) Die U-Boot-Pläne ( The Submarine Plans ) Tod im dritten Stock ( Death in the Third Floor ) Die Doppelsünde ( The Double Sin ) Stille vor dem Sturm ( The Calm Before a Storm ) Das Wespennest ( The Wasp's Nest ) Poirot geht stehlen ( Poirot Goes Thieving ) Eine Tür fällt ins Schloss ( A Door Falls Shut ) Der verräterische Garten ( The Taletelling Garden )

There have been a number of radio adaptations of the Poirot stories, most recently twenty seven of them on BBC Radio 4 ( and regularly repeated on BBC 7 ), starring John Moffatt ( Maurice Denham and Peter Sallis have also played Poirot on BBC Radio 4, Mr. Denham in The Mystery of the Blue Train and Mr. Sallis in Hercule Poirot's Christmas ).

* Agatha Christie's Murder in Mesopotamia ( 1936 ), Hercule Poirot's Christmas ( 1938 ), And Then There Were None ( 1939 )

** Hercule Poirot's Christmas

Colonel Johnson alludes to the events of this story in part 3, section V of Hercule Poirot's Christmas.

Hercule Poirot's Christmas is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on December 19, 1938 ( although the first edition is copyright dated 1939 ).

In The Observer of December 18, 1938, " Torquemada " ( Edward Powys Mathers ), a stated admirer of Christie, finished his review by stating defensively, " Is Hercule Poirot's Christmas a major Christie?

* Czech: Vánoce Hercula Poirota ( Hercule Poirot's Christmas )

* German: Hercule Poirots Weihnachten ( Hercule Poirot's Christmas )

* Hungarian: Valaki csenget ... ( Someone is Ringing a Bell ...), Poirot karácsonya ( Poirot's Christmas )

* Italian: Il Natale di Poirot ( Poirot's Christmas )

* Japanese: ポアロのクリスマス ( Poirot's Christmas )

* Romanian: Crăciunul lui Poirot ( Poirot's Christmas )

* Russian: Рождество Эркюля Пуаро (= Rozhdestvo Erkyulya Puaro, Hercule Poirot's Christmas )

* Hercule Poirot's Christmas at the official Agatha Christie website

* Poirot's Christmas on youtube

la: Hercule Poirot's Christmas

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Robert Barnard: " Hercule Poirot's Christmas, transported to Egypt, ca 2000 B. C.

Poirot's appearance, regarded as fastidious during his early career, is hopelessly out of fashion later in his career.

Among Poirot's most significant personal attributes is the sensitivity of his stomach:

" I suppose you know pretty well everything there is to know about Poirot's family by this time ".

Perhaps this is enough evidence to suggest that Poirot's police career was a successful one.

The history of the Countess is, like Poirot's, steeped in mystery.

There is a great deal of confusion about Poirot's retirement.

There is specific mention in " The Capture of Cerberus " to the fact that there has been a gap of twenty years between Poirot's previous meeting with Countess Rossakoff and this one.

It is therefore better to assume that Christie provided no authoritative chronology for Poirot's retirement, but assumed that he could either be an active detective, a consulting detective or a retired detective as the needs of the immediate case required.

One thing that is consistent about Poirot's retirement is that his fame declines during it, so that in the later novels he is often disappointed when characters ( especially younger characters ) recognize neither him nor his name:

In Cat Among the Pigeons Poirot's entrance is so late as to be almost an afterthought.

Towards the end of his career it becomes clear that Poirot's retirement is no longer a convenient fiction.

It is also revealed that the " window cleaner " was actually an actor in Poirot's employ, though Poirot brags that he did " witness " Roberts kill Mrs. Lorrimer in his mind's eye.

Poirot's focus is upon a wasp that has been seen in the compartment and which provided evidence for the original theory of the cause of death.

The novel is set in England during World War I at Styles Court, an Essex country manor ( also the setting of Curtain, Poirot's last case ).

It is generally believed that Christie wrote Curtain ( Hercule Poirot's last mystery, which concludes the sleuth's career and life ) and Sleeping Murder during World War II to be published after her death, and that Sleeping Murder was most probably written sometime during the Blitz, which took place between September 1940 and May 1941.

It is narrated by Dr. James Sheppard, who becomes Poirot's assistant ( a role filled by Captain Hastings in several other Poirot novels ).

He then lays out a completely reasoned case that the murderer is in fact Dr. Sheppard, who has not only been Poirot's assistant, but the story's narrator.

One is Poirot's use of ratiocination, the other is the channel of gossiping, practised by almost all inhabitants of King's Abbott, in particular, Caroline.

In this adaptation Japp — not Sheppard — is Poirot's assistant, leaving Sheppard as just another suspect.

However, the device of Dr. Sheppard's journal is retained as the supposed source of Poirot's voice-over narration and forms an integral part of the dénouement.