Hercule Poirot is dandy little detective with the egg- shaped head, an immense moustache and a pair of intelligent watchful eyes. He is a retired Belgian police officer with a growing reputation in London as a detective. However, he is initially mistaken for a hairdresser by his neighbour, Dr Sheppard. Owing to his foreign origin, he speaks in a distinctive franglaise which sometimes produces a comic effect. He likes order in things and is obsessed with the minutest details. People feel comfortable with him and trust him with their darkest secrets. Often, he plays the matchmaker. He proudly describes his job as a study of human nature, claiming to use his grey cells and psychoanalysis to deduce people’s lies and secrets and the events leading to a crime. He is almost always considered snobbish, grandiose and strange by anyone who meets him for the first time. However, this quickly turns into admiration. He has a strong sense of truth and justice that doesn’t always correspond to the state’s definition of the two. Though unsympathetic to the murderer, he has the sensitivity to mete out a punishment that ensures justice is delivered without causing too much pain or embarrassment to the surviving relative.
