![]() Poirot places advertisements in the newspaper enquiring as to the whereabouts of Eliza and several days later he is successful in locating her when she visits Poirot's rooms. Struck by this coincidence as he is, Poirot cannot see a connection between an absconding bank clerk and a missing cook. The other occupants of the house are Mr Todd, who works in the City, and their lodger, Mr Simpson, who works in the same bank at which Mr Davis worked. Interviewing the maid in the house, Poirot finds out that the trunk was already packed, meaning that Eliza had planned to leave even though her departure was swift. Eliza Dunn, a middle-aged woman, walked out of her job and the Todds' house in Clapham two days ago without working her notice and has not communicated with her employer since, except for sending for her trunk that day. Challenged, he decides, with some humour and to avoid an argument, to take the seemingly trivial case. He is put on the spot though when visited by a Mrs Todd who is determined that he investigate her missing cook. These include a bank clerk (Mr Davis) who disappears with fifty thousand pounds of securities, a suicidal man and a missing typist. Poirot is not interested in investigating some of the cases which appear in the newspapers and which Hastings tries to bring to his attention. Main article: The Adventure of the Clapham Cook (short story) ![]() His motive was self-preservation as it was he who had been supplying Courtenay with drugs and Cronshaw was on the point of finding out and exposing him. He did not stay there as he claimed but returned immediately. Davidson killed Cronshaw earlier, hid the body in the curtained recess, then took Courtenay home where he fed her an overdose of the drug. It could not have been Beltane as his costume was too elaborate to change quickly. The stiffness of the body meant he had been dead for some time and not killed in the ten-minute interval between being seen in the box and then being found dead on the floor, therefore the figure seen as Harlequin was one of the others. Poirot reveals that the strength with which the knife was plunged into Cronshaw meant that a man was responsible for the crime. Davidson leaps forward and curses Poirot but is quickly arrested by Japp. Underneath Pierrot's loose garb is that of the slimmer-fitting Harlequin. He arranges a get-together of the people involved at his flat where he puts on a shadowed presentation across a back-lit screen of the six costumes but then reveals that there were actually five. Poirot starts to investigate, finding out to everyone's puzzlement that Cronshaw was emphatically opposed to drugs, that Beltane's costume had a hump and a ruffle and that a curtained recess exists in the supper room. Coco Courtenay is found dead in her bed from an overdose of cocaine at the inquest that followed, it was found that she was addicted to the drug. He was found ten minutes later on the floor of the supper room, stabbed through the heart with a table knife, his body strangely stiff. Cronshaw left the box to join them but then disappeared. When they had gone, a friend of Cronshaw's spotted Harlequin in a box looking down on the ball and called up to him to join them on the main floor. The latter was crying and asked Chris Davidson to take her home to her flat in Chelsea. ![]() ![]() The night went badly from the start when it was obvious to the party that Cronshaw and Miss Courtenay were not on speaking terms. In the roles of Pierrot and Pierrette were Mr and Mrs Christopher Davidson (he being a stage actor) and finally, Miss "Coco" Courtenay, an actress rumoured to be engaged to Lord Cronshaw, was Columbine. Lord Cronshaw was Harlequin, his uncle, the honourable Eustace Beltane, was Punchinello and Mrs Mallaby, an American widow, was Punchinella. A group of six people, headed by the young Viscount Cronshaw, attended dressed in the costume of the Commedia dell'arte. Plot summaries "The Affair at the Victory Ball" Ĭhief Inspector Japp asks Poirot to assist Scotland Yard in the strange events which took place at a recent costumed Victory Ball. All the stories had first been published in periodicals between 19. In the collection, Christie charts some of the cases from Hercule Poirot's early career, before he was internationally renowned as a detective. Although the stories contained within the volume had all appeared in previous US collections, the book also appeared there later in 1974 under the slightly different title of Hercule Poirot's Early Cases in an edition retailing at $6.95. Poirot's Early Cases is a short story collection written by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by Collins Crime Club in September 1974.
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