Cards on the Table

Did You Know?

• The novel contains a foreword by the author explaining that the deduction must be entirely psychological.
• The UK edition retailed at seven shillings and sixpence (7/6) and the US edition at $2.00.
• The book was first serialized in the US in The Saturday Evening Post with illustrations by Orison MacPherson.

Plot

Mr Shaitana, a flamboyant collector, meets Hercule Poirot at an art exhibition and boasts of collecting criminals who have evaded justice. He invites Poirot to a dinner party to meet them. The guests include three other crime professionals: Colonel Race, Ariadne Oliver, and Superintendent Battle, along with four people Shaitana believes are murderers: Dr Roberts, Mrs Lorrimer, Anne Meredith, and Major Despard. Shaitana taunts his suspects with pointed comments.

After dinner, the professionals play bridge in one room while the suspects play in another where Shaitana relaxes by the fire. At the party's end, Shaitana is found stabbed with a stiletto from his own collection. All suspects moved during the evening, so none can be ruled out. Battle agrees to put his cards on the table and let the other professionals investigate.

Poirot uses bridge scores to deduce each suspect's personality. The investigators examine past deaths: a patient of Dr Roberts died of anthrax after accusing him; a botanist with Despard was rumored shot; Anne's elderly companion died after mistaking hat paint for syrup of figs; Mrs Lorrimer's husband died twenty years earlier. Mrs Lorrimer, diagnosed with a terminal illness, tells Poirot she wishes to confess to killing her husband and Shaitana.

Poirot believes she is protecting Anne. She reluctantly admits she saw Anne commit the murder but feels sympathy for the young girl. The next day, Despard, Roberts, and Anne receive a suicide note and confession from Mrs Lorrimer. Battle informs Poirot that Dr Roberts rushed to her house, but she had died of an overdose.

Literary significance and reception

The Times Literary Supplement review by Caldwell Harpur on 14 November 1936 stated that Poirot scores again, noting the book as Christie's twentieth novel and praising her continued skill. In The New York Times Book Review on 28 February 1937, Isaac Anderson found the story ingenious but noted loose ends, concluding it was not quite up to Christie's best work. In The Observer on 15 November 1936, Torquemada wrote that Christie made a brilliant comeback after Murder in Mesopotamia, praising her improvement in humour, composition, and subtlety, and calling Cards on the Table perhaps the most perfect of the little grey cells. The Scotsman on 19 November 1936 wrote that Poirot was in very good form, describing the plot as simple but brilliant, and calling Mrs Oliver one of Christie's most amusing creations.

Adaptations

The book was adapted as a stage play in 1981 without Poirot, opening at London's Vaudeville Theatre on 9 December 1981 with Gordon Jackson as Superintendent Battle. ITV adapted it for the series Agatha Christie's Poirot, starring David Suchet and Zoë Wanamaker, with significant differences from the novel; it aired in the US in December 2005 and in the UK in March 2006. The novel was also adapted as a 2014 episode of the French series Les Petits Meurtres d'Agatha Christie. In 2016, the Bengali film Chorabali was based on the storyline, with Barun Chanda as Poirot. A radio adaptation for BBC Radio 4 featured John Moffatt as Poirot, Donald Sinden as Colonel Race, and Stephanie Cole as Ariadne Oliver.

Publication history

The first UK edition was published by Collins Crime Club on 2 November 1936, and the US edition by Dodd Mead and Company in 1937. Subsequent editions include a 1949 Dell Books paperback, a 1951 Pan Books paperback, and a 1957 Fontana Books paperback. A large-print edition appeared in 1969, and a facsimile of the 1936 UK first edition was published by HarperCollins in 2007. The novel was first serialized in the US in The Saturday Evening Post from 2 May to 6 June 1936.