Recurring characters in the Hercule Poirot stories

Did You Know?

• The detective novelist Ariadne Oliver is Agatha Christie's self-insert caricature; like Christie, she is not overly fond of the detective she is most famous for creating.
• Ariadne Oliver has authored at least 56 novels and greatly dislikes people modifying her characters.
• She is the only one in Poirot's universe to have noted that it is not natural for five or six people to be on the spot when B is murdered and all have a motive for killing B.

Captain Arthur Hastings

Hastings, a former British Army officer, first meets Poirot during the detective's years as a police officer in Belgium, shortly before both arrive in England. He becomes Poirot's lifelong friend but appears in only eight of the Poirot novels and a number of short stories, and is completely absent from the series between 1937 and 1975. Poirot regards Hastings as a poor private detective, not particularly intelligent, yet helpful because he is easily fooled by criminals, sees things as the average man would, and tends to unknowingly stumble onto the truth.

Hastings marries Dulcie Duveen, a music hall performer half his age, after the events of Murder on the Links; they later emigrate to Argentina, leaving Poirot a very unhappy old man. He and Poirot reunite in The Big Four, Peril at End House, Lord Edgware Dies, The ABC Murders, and Dumb Witness, with Poirot noting that he always has his most interesting cases when Hastings is present. In Curtain, the seemingly-crippled Poirot asks Hastings to assist in his final case; when the killer nearly manipulates Hastings into committing murder, Poirot eliminates the man himself, describing in his farewell letter that the attempt on Hastings was the catalyst.

Hastings is capable of great bravery and faces death unflinchingly when confronted by The Big Four, though he initially chooses to betray Poirot to protect his wife before telling Poirot to escape.

Miss Felicity Lemon

Poirot's secretary, Miss Felicity Lemon, has few human weaknesses. Her only mistakes in the series are a typing error during Hickory Dickory Dock and the mis-mailing of an electricity bill, though she was worried about strange events surrounding her sister at the time. Poirot described her as unbelievably ugly and incredibly efficient, adding that anything she mentioned as worth consideration usually was. She is an expert on nearly everything and plans to create the perfect filing system.

Miss Lemon first appeared as Poirot's secretary in the 1935 short story How Does Your Garden Grow? A Miss Lemon also appears fleetingly as Parker Pyne's secretary in two 1932 short stories; there is friendly debate among Christie fans as to whether this earlier Miss Lemon is meant to be the same character. In the television series Agatha Christie's Poirot, Felicity Lemon was portrayed by Pauline Moran, where she was shown as efficient, prim and modest, but not remotely unbelievably ugly.

Chief Inspector James Harold Japp

Inspector Japp of Scotland Yard is a recurring figure in several of Hercule Poirot's cases. He is a loud, outgoing man who can be inconsiderate, and his friendship with the fastidious Belgian detective is an odd but enduring feature of Poirot's world. The two first crossed paths in Belgium in 1904 during the Abercrombie Forgery, and later that same year they worked together to capture a criminal known as Baron Altara. In England, Poirot frequently assists Japp, allowing him to take the credit in exchange for favors, usually the tip-off to another intriguing case.

Japp appears in seven of the nineteen Poirot novels written between 1920 and 1940, mostly in minor roles early on, and in fifteen short stories published from 1923 to 1947. He is also mentioned, though not seen, in a few other Christie novels, with the last reference occurring in 1948. In the original stories, Japp is a recurring but not constant presence, and he disappears from the series entirely for its final twenty-eight years. In the 1985 film Thirteen at Dinner, an adaptation of Lord Edgware Dies, the role of Japp was played by David Suchet, who later portrayed Poirot in the ITV television series.

Colonel Johnnie Race

Colonel Race is a wealthy former army officer who once led MI5's counter-intelligence unit, having inherited his fortune from Sir Laurence Eardsley. He appears as a detective in four of Christie's novels, first showing up in 1924's The Man in the Brown Suit. He later becomes a close friend of Hercule Poirot in Cards on the Table and Death on the Nile. His final appearance is in Sparkling Cyanide, a novel that, like his debut, does not include Poirot. David Niven portrayed Race in the 1978 film version of Death on the Nile, while James Fox played him in the 2004 television adaptation for Agatha Christie's Poirot. In ITV's adaptation of The Clocks, the character Colin Lamb is rewritten as Race's son.