The Little Four

There is a mystery of sorts to solve in The Little Four, a pastiche of Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot novels, but that’s not really the point. Instead, it’s a gentle slice-of-life piece showing a rainy day in the life of Arthur Hastings, Hercule Poirot, Hastings’s four children (whom Hastings sometimes refers to as “ours” rather than “mine”), and their dog.

The writer has massaged the timeline of the books somewhat so that Hastings’s wife’s death both occurs when his children are young and is not closely followed by Poirot’s, and so that Poirot and Hastings are the same age. The premise is that the widowed Hastings has moved in with Poirot—ostensibly to another flat in the same building, but as the game goes on it becomes clear that Hastings really lives in Poirot’s flat rather than the one that is supposed to be his. Poirot cooks for the family and has taken an interest in the education and general well-being of the children.

The casual intimacy between the two men and their domestic life together are easily read as romantic, especially with Poirot being described as a “confirmed bachelor” (although, as the author’s blog of sources shows, the portrayal of their relationship is thoroughly grounded in the canon). Certainly, at any rate, something is being concealed by Hastings’s initial insistence that he is merely staying in Poirot’s guest bedroom rather than living in Poirot’s flat. Whether this is denial on the part of Hastings, a veil of plausible deniability for the friends for whom Hastings is writing, or just an attempt to avoid the appearance of impropriety where there actually is none is ambiguous. Romantic or not, they are partners of some sort, in life and not just in crime-solving.

The piece mainly consists of exploring the two flats, examining objects (which helpfully appear in boldface if unexamined and in italics if examined) to get reminiscences about Hastings’s life, ruminations on his hopes for his children and the vagaries of middle age—and, of course, thoughts of Poirot. The writer’s imitation of Hastings’s narrative voice is spot-on, and the portrayal of all of the relationships involved (including that of Hastings and his late wife) is natural and sweet without being cloying.

There is one puzzle, a minor mystery that Poirot engineers to entertain Hastings’s eldest child, but it isn’t very difficult. The point is merely to revel in this moment of quiet domestic happiness for two men, four children, and a dog, all of whom have seen some hard times before (even the dog has been a murder suspect!) and, as the frame narration lightly alludes to, soon will again (this is an inter-war story, but Hastings is writing it down post-World War II).