Miss Esmee Farquhar approaches Hercule Poirot to prove her fiancé, Philip Ridgeway, innocent of theft of a million dollars from his emplyer London and Scottish Bank.
An enjoyable short story. ( )

This short story was first published in The Sketch magazine in the UK on May 2,1923. In the US, it was published in The Blue Book magazine in April 1924.

This is a very short, but enjoyable, Poirot mystery. A substantial amount in bonds from a London bank are stolen on board a ship bound for New York. The young banker in charge of the bonds declares his innocence and says it's like the bonds just disappeared into thin air. The package disappeared from a trunk tightly fastened with a lock....which was still locked when the ship arrived at port. So, who took the bonds?? And how?? Poirot is on the case!

Great story, despite being the shortest so far! Amazing what interesting mysteries Christie could scrunch into just a few pages. :)

The television show, Agatha Christie's Poirot, adapted this story for television (Series 3, episode 2). The script had to make quite a few changes/additions for this one to be full episode length. But they did a great job as usual! I didn't mind the changes and David Suchet was fantastic as Poirot!

On to the next story: The Adventure of the Cheap Flat!

I am having a great time reading Christie's writings in publication order! I am reading The Man in the Brown Suit while also reading these early Poirot short stories. Agatha Christie has been my favorite author since I was 9 years old and read my first Hercule Poirot book! It might take me awhile to read all of her writings -- 66 novels, 165 short stories, several plays and various other writings -- but I'm going to love every minute of it! ( )

When a young banker is suspected of stealing one million dollars in Liberty Bonds on a transatlantic journey to New York, his fiancée seeks the help of Detective Hercule Poirot to clear the banker's name in The Million Dollar Bond Robbery by author Agatha Christie.

When I picked up this classic short, I just needed a quick win to read about. The mystery is narrated by Poirot's frequent sidekick, Captain Arthur Hastings, whose jabs at his friend's liberal self-praise add a dash of comedy to this old-fashioned little read. Plus, it's refreshing when mysteries aren't always about murder.

A clever and entertaining interlude, this was. ( )

Rating: 3.8* of five

The Publisher Says: A young banker is suspected of stealing one million dollars in Liberty Bonds on a transatlantic journey to New York, and appeals to Hercule Poirot to clear his name. Poirot learns the identities of the three people who hold keys to the locked trunk, but it won't be as easy to identify the true thief…

My Review: A third season Agatha Christie's Poirot episode and a 99¢ Kindle Single combination again. Christie's powers of puzzle creation are always well deployed in service of financial skulduggery.

Again there are many expansions of the story in the series, making the experience of watching the tale unfold more satisfying. Quite a lot of detail gets added, including an accomplice for the miscreant who robs the bank who is quite poor at faking an American Southern accent.

But more than anything else, the demands of making an hour-long episode out of 20pp or so of story mean that the characters of Poirot and Hastings are more fully fleshed, and still keep to the spirit of Christie's vision for them. She used quick and deft strokes to evoke Hastings and Poirot in her stories; on the screen, the demands of filling screen time enable what feel like a collection of tics to flesh out into a relatable character.

The secondary players also have some heft to them on screen, whereas they're merely names and dashed off relationships in the story. It's another reason I enjoy the shows so much. The secretary/junior executive/manager relationships are much more satisfying. A very enjoyable outing!


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