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A character in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

Hercule Poirot

The retired Belgian detective next door, mistaken by Caroline for a hairdresser, who has been trying to grow vegetable marrows and hates it.

What they want

The truth, however ugly, which he says is always beautiful to the person looking for it.

The book

The Murder of Roger AckroydAgatha Christie, 1926

A village doctor tells the story of his neighbour's murder, and tells it honestly. That is the trick.

View the book

At a glance

In the book
The detective, living at The Larches next to the Sheppards
Home
Retired to King's Abbot from London
Where he appears
From Chapter 3 to the end

Who they are in the book

Spoiler-free

Poirot has retired to King's Abbot under a false impression of the pleasures of gardening. He is first seen throwing a vegetable marrow over the fence in disgust. He is Belgian, a retired officer of the Brussels police, small, exact and vain about his moustache, and nobody in the village knows who he is until Flora Ackroyd asks him for help.

He works by listening, and by collecting small things that do not fit: a chair moved, a ring in a pond, a telephone call nobody made. He tells Sheppard early that once he begins he will go on to the end, whatever it is. The book holds him to it.

How Hercule Poirot Is Portrayed

Appearance, manner, and tone — as the book sketches them, in our words.

  • The marrowThrown over the garden wall in a rage; his retirement has not suited him.
  • The hairdresserCaroline decides from his moustache that he is a retired hairdresser, and he is amused.
  • The conditionHe tells Flora that once engaged he goes on to the end, and asks her to be sure she wants that.
  • The chairHe notices that a chair in the study was pulled out from the wall and pushed back, and will not say why it matters.
  • The reunionHe gathers the household, produces Ralph Paton, and tells the room he knows who did it.
  • The mercyHe speaks to the murderer alone and gives him a night.

Hercule Poirot quotes

Lines spoken by or about Hercule Poirot, each verified verbatim against the text and located in the book.

The truth, however ugly in itself, is always curious and beautiful to the seeker after it.
— Hercule Poirot (dialogue) · Agatha Christie, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926), Chapter 12
Their ending, and the commentary — spoilers aheadHow the book leaves them, what happened after, and what the record says. Open when you're ready.

Poirot identifies Sheppard from the ten-minute gap, the moved chair, the missing dictaphone and the telephone call from Liverpool. He tells him privately and offers him the night, for Caroline's sake, before going to the police. Sheppard takes it.

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