European Reading Challenge #13

I read Hercule Poirot #9 for  the 2024 European Reading Challenge.

Lord Edgware Dies aka Thirteen at Dinner – Agatha Christie

We are in London in the early 1930s.  Our narrator is Captain Arthur Hastings, sidekick to private eye extraordinaire Hercule Poirot. Hastings feels the time is right to reveal all about a case of burning interest to the general public, which calls to mind when Conan Doyle would tantalize readers with juicy titles of Holmes’ cases. The reason for such a public fascination is quickly explained: the victim is George Alfred St. Vincent Marsh, fourth baronet of Edgware, a milord so prominent as to arouse keen interest among the curious.

Before arriving at the demise of the hateful milord, however, we witness the meeting between Our Dynamic Duo and the actress Jane Wilkinson, wife of Lord Edgware. In a busy restaurant where anybody can hear, she requests Poirot’s assistance in getting rid of her husband. These indiscreet intentions of hers land her at the top of the list of suspects as soon as Lord Edgware's body is found only a couple of days later in the library.

The cast is once again made up of intriguing characters in the insular worlds of the aristocracy, actors and people who think of nothing save getting rich. Among the players, Jane Wilkinson stands out in the role of the widow who is easily consolable since she has her eyes on another peer. Other characters are the American comedian Carlotta Adams and heir to the Edgware lands goods and chattels Captain Ronald Marsh. The secondary characters that are very well-drawn are Bryan Martin (an actor); Miss Caroll (Lord Edgware’s secretary); the Dowager Duchess of Merton; Ellis (Jane Wilkinson’s Assistant); Geraldine Marsh (Lord Edgware’s daughter) and Jenny Driver (hat shop owner).

Plot and incident flow pleasantly and steadily. From the beginning the solution seems clear enough but as we’d expect of Christie not everything is as it appears and so we find ourselves in the familiar situation in which everyone seems guilty but everyone has an alibi that they wave in front of Poirot and Inspector Japp.

Poirot and Hasting play again one of the more pleasant friendships in light literature, up there with Jeeves and Wooster, since Hastings plays the Bertie part of the dimbulb gentleman. Poirot frankly tells Hastings that Hastings is most valuable when he is spouting conventional wisdom, thus indicating to Poirot what the crook is trying to make his crime look like to the mediocre mind. Poirot will tease Hastings for failing to keep up with high-level reasoning. On some occasions, unduly influenced by overly confident Inspector Japp, Hastings is even doubts that Poirot is quite in his right mind.

Hastings is an Englishman of action and cannot stand Poirot's confident inertia during the investigation. I liked the way of the English gentleman in which the novel is narrated, such has Hastings’ embarrassment at Poirot making a spectacle of himself by standing stock still in thought in the middle of a busy London street. Hastings is also scandalized at Poirot reading the letters of other people, another “not done,” or “not playing the game” thing.

Oddly enough, I had a sneaking suspicion of the reveal so I think I may have read this in the mists of adolescence 50 years ago and forgotten it. Re-read or not, I enjoyed this complex and well-articulated mystery.