Golden Age of Detective Fiction

The Labors of Hercules is a collection of twelve short stories starring Hercule Poirot. Hercule Poirot is entertaining an old friend who is interested in the classics. Together, the friends discuss Greek mythology, and it soon becomes apparent that while Hercule Poirot (and his brother Achilles) are named after Greek heroes, he is woefully ignorant about his namesake and Greek mythology. After his friend leaves, he reads Greek mythology for three days. Like his namesake Hercules, he decides to take on twelve cases of labor before retiring and moving to the countryside to grow better-tasting vegetable marrows.

The Lernaean Hydra

Dr. Charles Oldfield comes to Hercule Poirot to help him dispel gossip that he poisoned his wife, which is ruining his medical practice and standing in his village. 

Mrs. Oldfield dies of gastric trouble, which is arsenical poisoning. After her death, she left her husband’s property at 30,000 pounds. She was an invalid and very demanding and told acquaintances Dr. Oldfield would be happier when she was dead to her nurse companion, and servants circulated rumors. Reluctantly, Dr. Oldfield admits that the rumors are circulating because people believe he killed his wife to be with his dispenser, Jean Moncrief, whom his wife was jealous of. Hercule Poirot confronts Dr. Oldfield about whether he loved his wife, and he admits that while he was a good husband, he did not love his wife and has been in love with Jean Moncrief for some time.

Hercule Poirot goes to the country to find the source of the rumors and kill them. He interviews the watchful and despondent Jean Moncrief, who knows that none of the old biddies will admit to telling rumors. She believes he should sell his practice and move away. When Hercule Poirot asks if she plans to marry Dr. Oldfield, she says she’s choked them off, hoping it would quell the rumors, but admits that she would love to marry the doctor. Hercule Poirot tells her to ask the Home Office to exhume the body and to do an autopsy, thus bringing home the truth of Mrs. Oldfield’s death. Surprisingly, Jean Moncrief responds that an autopsy, even if it does show that Mrs. Olfield did of gastric problems, might be noncommittal in their findings, leaving tongues to way more.

Jean Moncrief introduces HP to Mrs. Leatheren, one of the worst gossips, and goes to her house for tea, where he pretends to be from the Home Office and investigates Mrs. Oldfield’s death and whether there is a sufficient case for exhumation. 

Mrs. Leatheran believes that Dr. Oldfield has been acting strange since the death of his wife and relates to Poirot that the Oldfields were not on loving terms. She further recounts her suspicions about an affair between the doctor and Jean Moncrief. She also expinds that Dr Oldfield also fired the maid after his wife’s death, and she suspects the maid knew too much when he tells Mrs. Leatheran’s maid that he is investigating Mrs. Oldfield’s death. She tells him that Nurse Harrison and the fired maid suspect Dr. Oldfield of killing his wife.

Nurse Harrison, working for another family now, says that she wishes the rumors would end and there would be no medical foul play. However, relations between Dr. Olfield and his wife were cordial but not loving. She blamed Mrs. Oldfield for exaggerating her illnesses. When pressed about the rumors, Nurse Harrison blames the maid Beatrice for starting the rumors because she overheard Jean Moncrief talking to the doctor about how much longer his wife had left, and he responded about three weeks, and by this time next year, they would be married. Nurse Harrison insists they were just talking about her declining health and not planning to do away with Mrs. Oldfield. Nurse Harrison agrees that an autopsy will help Dr. Oldfield clear his name.

Hercule Poirot calls in a favor from the Home Office and tracks down Oldfield’s maid, Beatrice King, who denies overhearing anything or knowing anything. When HP asks if she knows anything about arsenic poisoning, she says Jean Moncrief refilled the medicine and brought the tea to Mrs. Oldfield, but Nurse Harrison took it down again and remade it. Beatrice believes that Jean Moncrief filled the prescription with poison. Mrs. Oldfield’s body is exhumed, and her autopsy reveals that she was poisoned with arsenic. 

Nurse Harrison alleges that she saw Jean Moncrief put powdered poison in her pink compact case. The police find the compact in the back of Miss Moncrief’s bureau and the white powder inside; however, it has only been manufactured for a few months at Woolworth’s, and one of the clerks says it was Nurse Harrison who bought the compact. A detective watched her plant it in Miss Moncrief’s bureau. Nurse Harrison has been with Dr. Oldfield for three years and had hoped to marry him; she believed if she poisoned Mrs. Oldfield, she would marry the doctor after Mrs. Oldfield died. However, she soon realizes Dr. Oldfield loves Jean Moncrief and decides to destroy them with the poison rumor.

The Review

Rumor is The Lernaean Hydra, Agatha Christie’s version, and I liked her clever analogy. I think she was able to take the mythological creature of the Hydra and make it relatable, insidious, and dangerous. This story dipped back into Christie’s well of small-town gossip wreaking havoc on lives, which is usually the penchant of Miss Marple (like she does in The Moving Finger), so it was a change of pace seeing Hercule Poirot match wits with a more domestic drama.

In The Lernaean Hydra, the reader can easily observe Hercule Poirot’s interview and investigate. He does not bother with a clumsy cover story about a book or try to lie his way into confidence like in Dumb Witness. He takes the rumors of Mrs. Oldfield’s poisoning seriously and, as a matter of fact, interrogates them on their versions of events, which he synthesizes into a complete picture. Christie provides several credible suspects and double bluffs, which are not always present in short stories.

Despite this story being well-trodden ground for Christie- several husbands are suspected of poisoning their wives with arsenic in her oeuvre-it was never dull or trite. I enjoyed discovering who killed Mrs. Oldfield and found the mystery familiar and comforting. If you want Christie but can’t commit to a whole novel, this short story will satisfy,

You can read my review of the first short story in The Labors of Hercules here.