Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 26, No. 4. Whole No. 143, October 1955

Agatha Christie’s “The Six China Figures” is a very special story. It is the very first short story that Agatha Christie wrote about her bombastic Belgian bloodhound, Hercule Poirot. You will recall that Poirot made his debut in print in a novel, THE MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR AT STYLES. This was in 1920, that glorious gumshoe year when so many other manhunters first appeared in book form — H. C. Bailey’s Mr. Reggie Fortune, “Sapper’s” (Cyril McNeile’s) Bull-dog Drummond, Arthur Train’s Mr. Tutt, Sax Rohmer’s Moris Klaw, and William Le Queux’s Raoul Becq. It took Agatha Christie three years — from 1920 to 1923 — to divert Poirot from full-length investigations to short-story inquiries. For the record, the first Poirot short story was published in the British periodical called “The Sketch,” March 7, 1923, under the title, “The Affair at the Victory Ball.”

Other famous firsts in the short-story field? Well, of course, the first first of all was Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Murders in the. Rue Morgue,” introducing the world’s first modern detective, C. Auguste Dupin. And the first Sherlock Holmes short story was A. Conan Doyle’s “A Scandal in Bohemia.” The first Arsène Lupin short story? Probably Maurice Leblanc’s “The Arrest of Arsène Lupin” (ironic title!) which appeared in the United States under the curious magazine title of “An Idyll on a Steam-Packet.” The first Hildegarde Withers short story? Stuart Palmer’s “The Riddle of the Dangling Pearl.” The first Ellery Queen short story — “The Adventure of the One-Penny Black.”

A fascinating ’tec topic... and we promise to dig deeper for you. In fact, you may consider this the inauguration of a new department — Famous Firsts — with some amazing discoveries due to come your way...

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Pure chance led my friend Hercule Poirot, formerly chief of the Belgian police force, to be connected with the Styles Case. His success brought him notoriety, and he decided to devote himself to the solving of problems in crime. Having been wounded on the Somme and invalided out of the Army, I finally took up my quarters with him in London. Since I have a first-hand knowledge of most of his cases, it has been suggested to me that I select some of the most interesting and place them on record. In doing so, I feel that I cannot do better than begin with that strange tangle which aroused such widespread public interest at the time. I refer to the affair at the Victory Ball.

Although perhaps it is not so fully demonstrative of Poirot’s peculiar methods as some of the more obscure cases, its sensational features, the well-known people involved, and the tremendous publicity given it by the press, make it stand out as a cause célèbre, and I have long felt that it is only fitting that Poirot’s connection with the solution should be given to the world.

It was a fine morning in spring, and we were sitting in Poirot’s rooms. My little friend, neat and dapper as ever, his egg-shaped head tilted slightly on one side, was delicately applying a new pomade to his mustache. A certain harmless vanity was a characteristic of Poirot’s and fell into line with his general love of order and method. The Daily Newsmonger, which I had been reading, had slipped to the floor, and I was deep in thought when Poirot’s voice recalled me.