Golden Age of Detective Fiction

In the fifth short story of twelve collected in The Labors of Hercules, Hercule Poirot attempts to clean out “the Augean Stables” of the British government and save a prominent ex-prime minister from scandal.

The Story

Hercule Poirot is meeting with Home Secretary Sir George Conway and British Prime Minister Edward Ferrier, who explains that tabloid X-ray News will disclose a political scandal of corruption against the last prime minister, John Hammett, who used chicanery and financial wrongdoing to amass a private fortune. Hercule Poirot asks Ferrier why Hammett doesn’t sue the paper for libel, and Ferrier admits that the charges brought against Ferrier are accurate. These charges put the People’s Party in great danger due to the figurehead being a crook. Ferrier’s wife warned him against John Hammett’s, her father’s wrongdoing, but Ferrier did not listen. Ferrier fears the government will fall once the accusations get out and an election will happen. They fear that a firebrand dictator will be elected. They hope Hercule Poirot will somehow hush up the scandal without a political cleansing. Hercule Poirot says that if John Hammett were still in office, he would not help him, but he agrees to help Edward Ferrier since he is one of the greatest scientific minds of his time.

Soon after the meeting with Mr. Ferrier, his wife, Mrs Dagmar Ferrier, goes to Hercule Poirot’s residence to discuss the accusations against her father, John Hammett. After meeting with Mrs. Ferrier, Hercule Poirot goes to X-Ray News to see if he can bribe them so they do not publish the story. Still, the paper feels they must cleanse dirty politicians out of government with the water of public opinion.

Since X-Ray News declines to publish the story about John Hammett, Dagmar and Poirot decide to start rumors about her affair and whisper them into the ears of her enemies so that they can be reported in X-Ray News. However, alibis quickly thwarted these rumors, and Mrs. Ferrier successfully sued X-Ray News for libel and won. When the story about John Hammett breaks in X-Ray News, the public believes it is just more lies printed to undermine the Ferrier’s and the current government. The story is quickly forgotten, and Hercule Poirot checks off another of his twelve labors.

The Review

The entire premise of this story unsettles me, namely that Hercule Poirot would use deceit to keep a corrupt political party in power and shield a former politician who stole from the populace. Hercule Poirot’s ability to wield the press to manipulate public opinion so that the freedom of the media is eroded in favor of short-term political stability is gross. The Augean Stables highlights one of Agatha Christie’s most significant weaknesses: political plots. From The Big Four to Towards Zero are some of her biggest misses, and that’s because both books discuss politics with no reality or understanding of what makes or breaks a government, and her prescient fears of government falling due to communism and dictatorships, while not understanding how those things gain power.

A flawed premise is further damaged by a dull, almost non-existent mystery, which is given away from the start by Hercule Poirot’s wink to the audience about whether Dagmar is willing to take on the role of Caesar’s wife, and she readily agrees to performance of a lifetime. Furthermore, Hercule Poirot only takes this case because George Conway refers to the Augean Stables at the story’s beginning. The Augean Stables are mentioned later by the newspaper editor when he says he is cleaning out the dirty stables with public opinion, which is a much better analogy and better modern re-telling of the story than Hercule Poirot’s thought that using sex to clean out the stables.

Overall, if you haven’t read the original myth, I don’t know if you can follow the allusions the story is trying to make to the Augean Stables, and even with the allusions in…it’s pretty dull. This retelling is, unfortunately, a product of its time, country of origin, and Agatha Christie’s weak grasp of writing political mysteries.

The Labors of Hercules

Story 1: The Nemean Lion

Story 2: The Lernaean Hydra

Story 3: The Arcadian Deer

Story 4: The Erymanthian Boar