Eleven cases from the early career of the World’s Favourite Golden Age Sleuth, Poirot Investigates (1923) offers a chance to revisit a collection I’ve not read in, oh, twenty years. Lovely stuff.

Agatha Christie is hardly known, of course, as the doyenne of the short story, her talents being much more readily on display in her novel-length mysteries. And yet I remember these being fun, even if I didn’t quite have the appreciation I have now of the shorter form, and a chance to indulge in a bit of fun is to be seized in these uncertain days, especially by someone like me who has been known to take their reading of detective fiction perhaps a little too seriously at times.

And so, let us navigate the early career of Hercule Poirot’s smaller cases…

‘The Adventure of “The Western Star”‘ (1923) sees film star Mary Marvell’s eponymous diamond come under threat from a mysterious Chinaman — we’re pre-Knox, naturally — before its sister, similarly of dubious origin, comes under threat from possibly the same quarter. The solution requires a leap or two, but this is fun and light and as a newspaper story not poor fare at all. Hell, if we got this sort of thing in newspapers today I’d buy more newspapers.

The spirit of Victorian detective fiction looms large over ‘The Tragedy at Marsdon Manor’ (1923), with the death of that house’s owner called into question by the company who insured his life and Poirot despatched to investigate. I’m not sure the “little discrepancy” really tells as much as Poirot thinks, and the detection through word association and then some amateur theatrics doesn’t feel like any of it belongs in this new age of rationalism. The death is a good one, though, and deserved a more rigorous story in whose arms it could become enwrapped.

The ludicrous notion of affordable property in Knightsbridge confronts us next in ‘The Adventure of the Cheap Flat’ (1923). Gosh, but Poirot’s active in these early stories, isn’t he? Lowering himself in a coal lift, sneaking into properties in the middle of the night, racing across London in a taxi, playing around with firearms…not much for the little grey cells here. Instead we have espionage, the Mafia, and international politics; very much a sense of the genre trying to find its feet.

When the obligatory bearded stranger shoots a nobleman, a flu-stricken Poirot sends Hastings to Derbyshire (“Rather the case of the cart without the horse…” quips Inspector Japp) to investigate ‘The Mystery of Hunter’s Lodge’ (1923). Interesting historical touches — Hastings has a portable camera for photographing the scene, but ballistics cannot yet tell which gun a bullet was fired from — and Poirot on sassy form via telegram all elevate this, and the plot’s not bad, either.

We’re presented with a borderline impossibility in ‘The Million Dollar Bond Robbery’ (1923): how can bearer bonds locked in a truck sealed with a key only one man has access to be a) stolen and b) on sale in New York before the boat carrying them arrives? It’s a light little puzzle, all the more enjoyable for the little moments of psychology shared by Poirot and Hastings (“I observe that there are times when you almost detest me! Alas, I suffer the penalties of greatness!”). Minor, but fun.

Anticipating Christie’s involvement in the archaeological digs of her second husband, ‘The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb’ (1923) brings Poirot to Egypt, where a Stage 3 Pharaoh’s Curse seems to be accounting for the members of an expedition. It’s not an especially interesting story, with too many characters and too much reliance on information we don’t have, but it’s fun to see Christie again predict the future in suggesting the plot to her own ‘The Idol House of Astarte’ (1928) by a few years.

‘The Jewel Robbery at the Grand Metropolitan’, a.k.a. ‘The Curious Disappearance of the Opalsen Pearls’ (1923) might be the most classically Christie story in here yet: a large hotel, a theft, Poirot on birdlike, very foreign form, a canny deduction about dust, some miscreants easily uncovered. Good to see the author getting in a complaint about tax early in her career — it would become a fixation with many GAD luminaries — and even some dry humour:

“Poirot,” I cried, “I see –“

“You see nothing, my friend,” he replied quickly. “As usual, nothing at all! It is incredible — but there it is.”

Light, fast, and difficult not to enjoy.

‘The Kidnapped Prime Minister’ (1923) sees Poirot’s stock on the rise, as that statesman, in a time crucial to international peace, is first shot at and, later, taken away bodily and the little Belgian is entreated by high-ranking government officials to help. The solution is fun, and demonstrates the benefits of sittin’ and thinkin’ over running around, with the important factor of the seemingly contradictory attacks needing to be resolved. A great mini-example of this genre of ‘Ah, but when seen from this angle…’ story that demonstrates the sort of solid detection which is often neglected when our sleuths go out ‘n’ about.

When a financier vanishes just as a heavily bearded business associate is due to arrive for a meeting, you suspect that the age of ‘The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim’ (1923) is showing in its lack of ingenuity. However, persist. Not only is the story sprightly and funny — Poirot’s crack about sparrows is excellent — it displays in a lovely, compact way the ingenuity that sees Christie’s popularity persist over a century later. I did, though, spend a depressingly long time wondering what “scarfpins” might be slang for. Not my brightest moment.

There’s rather too much surmise in ‘The Adventure of the Italian Nobleman’ (1923) for it to be more than lightly enjoyable, but the classic setup — a phone call from a man claiming to have just been murdered, causing a rush to his flat to discover him dead — would go on to become very familiar in the Golden Age. It’s one of those cases where a small clue is brazenly flung at the reader, too, which is always lovely to encounter. But as one of Poirot’s triumphs it lacks for pazzaz and, as such, I won’t remember it by the time this post goes out.

Finally, ‘The Case of the Missing Will’ (1923), wherein a young woman must prove her wits against that of a dead relative and find the will the deceased man hid in his house that probably leaves her his vast fortune. I’m not sure Poirot’s reflection that the lady in question technically did use her wits by employing someone else to find the will for her is quite the rallying cry towards female emancipation that Christie thought it was in 1923, but no matter. John Thorndyke would refute our beneficiary’s claim in half a page.

A Top 5, then:

1. ‘The Mystery of Hunter’s Lodge’ (1923)
2. ‘The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim’ (1923)
3. ‘The Kidnapped Prime Minister’ (1923)
4. ‘The Million Dollar Bond Robbery’ (1923)
5. Er…

I normally try to share some overall feelings about the collection in these closing paragraphs, but, in all honesty, I don’t know quite what to say about Poirot Investigates. I didn’t remember the stories especially clearly before this reread, and I can see why: they’re fun, light, and pretty forgettable, showing one of the titans of the genre finding her feet and not yet exerting her full potential upon both a story form and a character that would come to be such a large part of a rightly very successful career.

And…that’s fine, right? We know what Christie would go on to achieve, and seeing her establishing herself in the genre is a necessary part of celebrating the many and varied successes she would enjoy in the decades ahead. I’d say “this won’t be anyone’s favourite Christie”, but someone on Facebook really loves Destination Unknown (1954) and who am I to judge? Christie means so many things to so many people who love these books and the firmament of GAD they proved to be an entry into, so I’m just glad that she clearly learned much from writing these and went on to do what she did. But I do hope that my next reread of hers is a little more memorable.