The Adventure of the Clapham Cook

  • Hercule Poirot
  • Short Story
  • 1951

Forced to take on the trivial case of a missing cook, Poirot soon spies connects with a larger more complex case. From Poirot’s Early Cases and The Under Dog and Other Stories.

More about this story

A trivial case of a cook who left her employer becomes more complex as Poirot connects coincidence with logic.

Published in the UK in 1924 in The Sketch as part of the series The Grey Cells of M. Poirot II . It first appeared in book form the US collection The Under Dog and Other Stories in 1951. It was not until 1974 that the story featured in a UK collection, Poirot’s Early Cases.

This story was filmed as the first episode of the TV series Agatha Christie’s Poirot in 1989 and starred David Suchet in the title role. He was accompanied by Captain Hastings (Hugh Fraser), Chief Inspector Japp (Philip Jackson) and Miss Felicity Lemon (Pauline Moran) in many of the cases, regardless of whether or not they appeared in the original text.

It was also adapted for the Japanese anime Agatha Christie's Great Detectives, as a two-part episode titled The Disappearing Cook. Poirot teams up with Miss Marple's great niece to solve the mystery.

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