“‘If I were writing a story,’ I said lightly, ‘I should weave this in with your latest idiosyncrasy and call it The Mystery of the Big Four’” (10).
Hercule Poirot meets James Bond! Initially written as a series of short stories, The Big Four marks a significant departure from Agatha Christie’s classic English country house whodunnit mystery novels. Seemingly foreshadowing the pulpy works of Ian Fleming, this globe-trotting espionage thriller tends to be poorly regarded by fans of the Poirot series, though it does have its defenders. In my research, critics have often accused The Big Four for being little more than a cheap thriller and Agatha Christie, herself, once dubbed it “that rotten book” penned “just for the sake of money coming in.” And in some respects I agree with the criticism, but as a guilty-pleasure reader of the James Bond novels, admittedly I still had some fun with The Big Four. Agatha Christie wrote it during a difficult period in her life –she was facing a collapsing marriage with her first husband Archibald “Archie” Christie (with whom she had her only child, Rosalind), along with the death of her mother, and all of these tragedies occurred around the time of her famous “disappearance” for eleven days at a hotel under her husband’s name (the novel was published shortly after she re-emerged). Thus, with her dreaded publishing deadline looming, Christie turned to her soon-to-be-ex-brother-in-law Campbell Christie who suggested that she avoid drafting a whole new novel and instead simply combine several short stories together into a single cohesive novel.
Almost akin to a pastiche or parody of pulp adventure serials, The Big Four lacks much of the wit and sophistication of her classic whodunnit mystery novels. Being a somewhat haphazard collection of twelve episodic short stories –loosely connected and a bit fragmented– The Big Four stands out as unique in the Poirot series. Once again narrated by the delightful dullard Captain Arthur Hastings, we begin with Hastings sailing back to England in order to surprise the “little man with an egg-shaped head and green eyes” –his dear friend Hercule Poirot– after living for a blissful year and a half on his ranch in the Argentine with his wife. However, upon arrival Hastings finds that Poirot has been summoned to Rio by one of the secretaries of the richest man in the world, Abe Ryland (the “American Soap King” who is said to be even richer than Rockefeller) to solve a “hocus-pocus going on in connection with a big company in Rio.” This comes in spite of the fact that Poirot is now a “consulting detective” like a Harley Street physician.
But before Poirot can depart for Rio, a disheveled and emaciated man covered in dust and mud suddenly appears in his flat (Poirot’s flat is apparently located at 14 Farraway Street). This strange man can barely speak but he scribbles “4” over and over on a sheet of paper, much to the concern of Poirot’s housekeeper Mrs. Pearson. And by the time Dr. Ridgeway arrives, the group finds that the mystery man has suddenly died of asphyxiation. Poirot surprisingly phones up Inspector Japp for help just as a burly man from the Hanwell Asylum arrives (or as Mrs. Pearson calls it the ‘Anwell ‘Sylum) and he claims this man was an escapee who was connected to secret societies in China. Then Japp shows up and recognizes the dead man as Mayerling –a secret service chap, not English, who went to Russia five years ago. They notice the open window and Poirot deduces that Mayerling was murdered by inhaling a strong prussic acid, and the murderer had then left all the windows open. By now, the man from the asylum has mysteriously disappeared, and when Poirot phones up the asylum, he learns that there has been no escape –the burly man was clearly involved in the murder of Mayerling.
This compelling hook leads Hastings and Poirot on a wild, rollicking adventure throughout the novel as they slowly uncover a series of dangerous clues leading to a mysterious international organization called “The Big Four” which is allegedly bent on world domination. Finance professionals might be forgiven for mistaking “The Big Four” as the four major accounting firms, but in Agatha Christie’s novel, “The Big Four” refers to a shadowy gang of international criminals who secretly sow chaos, even as their true diabolical aims are never actually made clear in the book. Are they planning to ignite a war? Are they hoping to steal money? Or assume political power? Or conquer the world? Or simply cause widespread destruction? Answers are never really provided but The Big Four are simply a group of caricature-esque evil puppeteers influencing the global order. At any rate, Poirot and Hastings visit a man who “knows most of the underground life in China” –John Ingles, a retired civil servant of “mediocre intellect.” He knows of a villainous figure named Li Chang Yen, a chief figure behind all the global unrest, “a force behind the scenes which aims at nothing less than the disintegration of civilization.” Ingles is convinced he is the man behind Lenin and Trotsky in Russia. “a disease that has attacked great brains from the time of Akbar and Alexander to Napoleon –a lust for power and personal supremacy.” With unlimited wealth, he controls people like “marionettes” from his palace in Peking, four men have been killed trying to publicly oppose him. He is revealed to be Number One of The Big Four (each leader in The Big Four is represented by a corresponding number, hence four numbers, perhaps not unlike the numerical leaders of SMERSH in Ian Fleming’s novels). Number Two of The Big Four is represented with a dollar sign –an “S” with two lines through it; Number Three is a French woman; and Number Four is only known as “The Destroyer.” But who are these people?
A letter from a man named Jonathan Whalley in Hoppaton leads Poirot and Hastings to the West Country, to a small village on the fringe of the moorland. But they are too late! A mysterious figure disguised as a butcher has already arrived before them and killed Mr. Whalley (leaving behind a leg of mutton), while the local Inspector Meadows is left searching for clues from the groundskeeper Robert Grant and the housekeeper Betsy. However, after the two employees are acquitted, Poirot and Hastings meet captain Kent of the United States Secret Service alongside Inspector Japp which leads to an investigation into a scientist who disappeared in Paris (at this point, Giraud the “human foxhound” from The Murder on the Links is briefly referenced again), and they are led to a reclusive female scientist named Madame Olivier (Quite possibly the greatest scientist in the world), before meeting an old antagonist, the Countess Vera Rossakoff who previously engineered a jewelry heist in London (she apparently appears in a short story called “The Double Clue” later published in Poirot’s Early Cases), but she is now known as Inez Veroneau. To avoid being blackmailed, she leads them to a man named John Halliday, but Hastings is attacked by a mystery man, and a brown leather pocketbook is left behind carrying two receipted bills from M. Felix Laon, and a paper that reads “The next meeting of the council will be on Friday at 34 rue des Echelles at 11 a.m.” –an obvious ploy to entrap Poirot. Meanwhile, radium has been stolen from Madame Olivier’s lab, and Poirot and Hastings pretend to flee back to England, but they are suddenly bound and gagged by a group of ten men and led to a tall Frenchwoman –Number Three of The Big Four—who is surprisingly revealed to be none other than Madame Olivier. But Poirot, having been caught off guard, rather ingeniously threatens her with a curare poison, a rare south American poison dart hidden inside his cigarette, which allows for he and Hastings to escape.
Next, Hastings goes undercover as Arthur Neville to infiltrate The Big Four –but as it turns out, he is merely being used by Poirot as a decoy to entrap the wealthiest man in the world, Abe Ryland –Number Two of The Big Four– and Mr. Ryland’s shady footman escapes but he is apparently believed to be the missing Number Four. After Poirot rescues Hastings, his cohort of police allies arrest Ryland, and Poirot is summoned for a new case, the “Mystery of the Yellow Jasmine,” which again sees an appearance of the elusive Number Four, this time as Dr. Quentin, the culprit in the murder of Mr. Paynter while attempting to frame his “Chinaman” Ah Ling (once again, The Big Four displays a familiar brand of casual Orientalist racism that was so prevalent in the post-World War I literature). And next, we jump to a murder at a worldwide chess tournament as chess grandmaster Gilmour Wilson dies of heart failure while participating in a match with Russian refugee Doctor Savaronoff. Once again, Poirot deduces that Number Four (now a doctor called “Ivan”) is behind the killing by using an elaborate method of electrocution through a metal rod when moving a bishop piece to a silver square on the board. And now a picture starts to become clear in these disjointed mysteries: Number Four is believed to be a man of many disguises and he has appeared numerous times throughout the book thus far –”Lunatic asylum keeper, the butcher’s young man, the suave doctor, Ivan –all number four.”
“I see the hand of the Big Four everywhere…” (92).
Having exposed the identities of the Number One, Two, and Three, Poirot sets out to uncover the truth of the man of many disguises: Number Four. “As I said just now –I am beginning to know and understand his methods. You may smile, Hastings –but to penetrate a man’s personality, to know exactly what he will do under any given circumstance –that is the beginning of success. It is a duel between us, and whilst he is constantly giving away his mentality to me, I endeavor to let him know little or nothing of mine. He is in the light, I in the shade. I tell you, Hastings, that every day they fear me the more for my chosen inactivity” (121).
Using his various friends and allies, like Lord Aldington (who previously helped secure stolen submarine plans), Poirot finally learns that Number Four is actually an obscure actor named Claud Darrell. And in order to capture him, Poirot stages one of his most elaborate hoaxes yet –he fabricates his own death and furnishes his replacement with a previously unknown twin brother named Achille Poirot who lives near Spa in Belgium. As the plot unfolds, Hastings receives a telegram from Bronsen (his South American ranch manager) informing him that his wife “Cinderella” has been kidnapped by The Big Four. But this leads to his capture, a bomb detonation in Chinatown, and the death of Mr. Ingles, the death of Miss Flossie Munro (a friend of Claud Darrell) as well as a discussion with the French Premier Monsieur Desjardeaux and the The Right Honourable Sydney Crowther, His Majesty’s Secretary of State for Home Affairs, followed by a false voyage to South America, and an entrapment scenario involving the governments of France, England, and Italy, but once Poirot secretly shows himself to be alive, he and Hastings join forces again. In the end, it is a bread trick that gives away the real man known as Number Four. He approaches Poirot and Hastings on a terrace. In a friendly manner, he offers a light to Poirot for his pipe before a pungent smell suddenly emerges, and both men are whisked away to the secret Italian lair of The Big Four situated in the Dolomite mountains, but while imprisoned Poirot manages to bargain with a familiar face –the Countess Rossakoff. In doing so, Poirot reveals a photograph of her long-lost child whom she long believed was dead (Poirot arranged for the young man’s rescue), and together, Poirot and Hastings escape the lair just as it is detonated to explode (Hastings then faints again and awakens inside a hospital in what feels like the sixth or seventh time in the novel) as this rather ridiculous James Bond-esque novel comes to a close. In conclusion, Li Chang Yen commits suicide abroad, while the other three members of The Big Four are killed in the Italian mountainside explosion (Number Four’s head is blown to pieces and is entirely unrecognizable, much to Poirot’s chagrin). As The Big Four ends, Poirot speculates about retiring and focusing on growing vegetable marrow, along with perhaps even settling down and getting married (recall that in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Poirot is retired and growing vegetable marrow, though still unmarried).
In summary, the various disjointed mysteries in The Big Four offer some terrific albeit scattered pulp fiction adventures, despite collectively being a stark departure from Agatha Christie’s traditional whodunnit murder mysteries. The Big Four clearly shows us a fearsome enemy lurking in the shadows, hiding in foreign places abroad –in other words, in this case, the culprit is not hiding in plain sight. The Big Four echoes the anxieties of the postwar period with fears of untrustworthy Chinese agents and wealthy foreign architects of war who are determined to engineer global events (in some respects, I was reminded of Fritz Lang’s Dr. Mabuse films). Anyway, I am inclined to agree with at least some of the popular criticism leveled against The Big Four, particularly its farcically ridiculous plot that sees Poirot and Hastings stumbling into an international espionage ring filled with secret mountainside lairs and plenty of explosions and gadgets, yet somehow none of The Big Four manage to lay a finger on either Hastings or Poirot. Additionally, the structure of The Big Four comes across as a discontiguous kaleidoscope of half-finished stories –all the different tales give the impression of being hastily cobbled together to satisfy publishing demands. But fans of espionage thrillers are sure to find some redemptive qualities in this one, and at least there are several points of narrative continuity with other Poirot novels (i.e. with the appearance of Inspector Japp). In The Big Four, Hastings displays his usual credulousness and conservative temperament which is lacking in both intellect and imagination –“As I have frequently told you, Hastings, you have a nature so beautiful and so honest that unless you are yourself deceived, it impossible for you to deceive others” (82)—and, unsurprisingly, Poirot likewise displays his usual air of unflappable confidence (a disposition which often borders on arrogance) even if he is uncharacteristically outmaneuvered by The Big Four throughout the novel. While I had some fun with The Big Four, this is undoubtedly a mediocre adventure when contrasted with Dame Agatha Christie’s better novels.
“Poirot has his virtues but modesty is not one of them” (118).
Christie, Agatha. The Big Four. Vintage Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, NY, NY, 2023 (originally published 1927).