The Adventure of the Italian Nobleman: A Short Story

Hercule Poirot #0.17

by Agatha Christie

Previously published in the print anthology Poirot Investigates.

An Italian count telephones his doctor, screaming, but when help arrives at his hotel room, he is already dead.

Genres: Mystery, Agatha Christie, Short Stories, Fiction, Crime, Audiobook, Classics

29 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1923

About the author

Agatha Christie also wrote romance novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott, and was occasionally published under the name Agatha Christie Mallowan.

Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, DBE (née Miller) was an English writer known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. She also wrote the world's longest-running play, the murder mystery The Mousetrap, which has been performed in the West End of London since 1952. A writer during the "Golden Age of Detective Fiction", Christie has been called the "Queen of Crime". She also wrote six novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. In 1971, she was made a Dame (DBE) by Queen Elizabeth II for her contributions to literature. Guinness World Records lists Christie as the best-selling fiction writer of all time, her novels having sold more than two billion copies.

This best-selling author of all time wrote 66 crime novels and story collections, fourteen plays, and six novels under a pseudonym in romance. Her books sold more than a billion copies in the English language and a billion in translation. According to Index Translationum, people translated her works into 103 languages at least, the most for an individual author. Of the most enduring figures in crime literature, she created Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple. She atuhored The Mousetrap, the longest-running play in the history of modern theater.

Associated Names:
Agata Christie
Agata Kristi
Агата Кристи (Russian)
Агата Крісті (Ukrainian)
Αγκάθα Κρίστι (Greek)
アガサ クリスティ (Japanese)
阿嘉莎·克莉絲蒂 (Chinese)

Reviews

[Anne]

Count Foscatini has been coshed over the head!
But who is Count Foscatini? And why should we care if he got his head coshed in?
Poirot and Hastings get pulled into this murder mystery because they were having dinner with their friend and neighbor, Dr. Hawker when he got a desperate call from the Count telling him he had been attacked.
Help! <--says Foscatini



By the time they arrive, he's dead. Although, he apparently took the time to replace the phone on the receiver before dying.
That's pretty sus.
Is this guy even a real Count?



Don't worry. Poirot's got this shit and nobody is getting away with murder on his watch.


Originally published in The Sketch magazine in 1923.
Read as part of the short story collection The Early Cases of Hercule Poirot.

[Mai]

Okay...

She's doing a decent job when she includes the reader in the investigation and when the outcome of it is realistic and based on materialistic evidence.

[Janete on hiatus due health issues]

In 2020, I watched this short story with David Suchet as Hercule Poirot and I liked it quite much. But the original text is not so good. There is little action, it isn't thrilling at all and the end is abrupt. Unlike the TV series, which was very interesting and pleasant.

[Julie]

This early Hercule Poirot short story was first published in The Sketch magazine in the UK in October 1923. US publication followed in The Blue Book magazine in December 1924.

Poirot and Hastings are dining with a friend when their meal is interrupted by an urgent phone call for help. When they arrive at Count Foscatini's lodgings, the man is dead. Who killed the Count?

I found this story to be a bit cliche (mafia, corrupt officials, etc), but it was written nearly 100 years ago...so not so cliche back then. Interesting case! Poirot as usual solves the case based on the smallest of clues. Chalk another one up to his fabulous little grey cells!

Agatha Christie's Poirot adapted this story for television (Season 5, episode 5). The show makes quite a few changes and embellishments to fill an hour time slot...but the episode remains basically true to the original story.

I'm enjoying these brief Poirot stories. Christie wrote the first few Hercule Poirot short stories while on a round the world trip. She led such an interesting life! Just as authors today put out short stories and novellas to pull in readers for their novels, Christie published more than 20 of these short Poirot cases after publication of her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles. I wish I could get ahold of a copy of The Sketch or The Blue Book magazine just to see all the stories from various authors of the day, advertisements, etc.

I'm on a reading journey to enjoy all of Christie's writing in publication order. She has been my favorite author for decades...and I've always wanted to read every book and every story. So, finally doing it!! Having a great time!

On to the next story: The Case of the Missing Will!

[Razvan Banciu]

It's far more difficult to write a short story than a novel, as you have to prove your skills on a narrow space.
Here Poirot is smart enough on at least two occasions, so the story is quite a good one.

[Jack Heath]

4 Stars. A good one. It seems to me that, when we didn't have the internet, television, or even popular radio, BBC started only in 1922 and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation not until 1936, people visited each other more often! Poirot and Hastings were entertaining a neighbour, Dr. Hawker, one evening when they were interrupted by his frantic housekeeper. A call had come in for the doctor, "Help. It's Foscatine (sic), Regent's Court." Hawker rushes to the home of his patient Count Foscatini with Poirot and Hastings in tow. This short story, fourteen pages, is from Sketch in 1923 and was collected in 1924 in Poirot Investigates. Back to the story. There's no answer at the door. The manager is called and they are told that the butler, Mr. Graves, had been seen leaving earlier. They soon gain entry and find the remains of a meal for three at the table and Foscatini dead in a chair to the side with his head bashed in. Now the police are called. When the butler returns, he is stunned and tells a story about two visitors the previous day returning for dinner this evening. Who was Signor Ascanio and the other man? Indeed, who was the Count? (Au2020/Jun2026)

[Richard Derus]

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A classic Agatha Christie short story, available individually for the first time as an ebook.

Dr Hawker receives a distressing call from a dying man who is then found bludgeoned to death in his flat. Poirot and Hastings accompany the doctor to the scene and find the remains of dinner for three, but where have the dining companions gone?

My Review: A 99¢ Kindle Single and fifth season episode of Agatha Christie's Poirot.

Hastings buys an Italian sports car, Miss Lemon gets an admirer, and Poirot gets a case. All three of these things are causally linked, and in some ugly ways. No one emerges from a brush with organized crime unscathed. It's a very sad story on many levels. The simple outlines of the case are simple: Blackmail, cover-up, murder, more cover-up, and surprisingly little time spent on what the blackmail was all about.

But for all that, a tale of the most involving and an episode most pleasurable.

Oh good gravy, I'm starting to sound like Poirot.


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

[William]

Entertaining mystery listening 🎶🔰

This kindle e-book novella is from Amazon for $0.99

Hercule Poirot is called on another adventure investigation. He finds out the truth.

I would recommend this novella and author to 👍 readers of British 🏰 mystery novels and fans of Agatha Christie. 2024

[Tom]

Boy! Piorot can surely pull the answer out of his hat every time. To think that not drawing the drapes was an important clue to him and no one else.

[Dystopian]

Christie's vivid descriptions, intriguing characters, and surprising twists make this a good-read for mystery lovers.

[Lovely Day]

4⭐️

[Carolyn F.]

Audiobook, part of Poirot Investigates

Sort of a cliche on who did it. An okay story.

[Saman]

Poirot was right. He always is, confound him!

[C.J. Daley]

“Endeavour to have the common sense.” “Never, never will you use the brains the good God has given you.” Hastings is a punching bag I don’t know why he sticks around.

I liked how this one started with Captain Hastings recounting how their neighbor, a doctor, liked to stop by for intelligent conversation with Poirot. Even he himself doesn’t realize he’s an idiot by design. This is one story that is short but sweet. I enjoyed the simple twist as opposed to the many seen in some of the other ones.

[Tio]

Those curtains, God dammit!!!!

[mairiachi]

fsr I really like the story, it's a good ending and it's interesting all the way through and it's not too long. I don't know why I'm rating it five stars because it wasn't amazing - but all of Agatha Christie's short stories are 2 to 3.5 stars and maybe I'm just tired of giving them low ratings. The lowest I would give is a 4.

[itsdanixx]

4 stars. Pretty enjoyable.

[Diana Long]

One of the stories in The Collection by Agatha Christie

[Richard]

The Adventure of the Italian Nobleman is a short story written by Agatha Christie, which was first published in The Sketch in October 1923 in the U.K.

The story was first published as a book in the collection Poirot Investigates, 1924, by Bodley Head.

Poirot and Hastings are having dinner with a friend Dr Hawker when the doctor receives an urgent message from his housekeeper. Count Foscatini, a patient, has called asking for help. "They've killed me!" he had said.
Synopsis from Agatha Christie Fandom.

A perfect locked room mystery for Hercule Poirot: a dead man, alone in a locked apartment, beside an eaten dinner laid for three.

I liked that Poirot’s looks at any mystery from all aspects rather than accepting what the criminal would want the observer to believe. We have facts presented in the case and remain baffled; even when he shares with Hastings problem areas that do not sit with the evidence we can’t make the jump and use our own little grey cells.

While Hastings gets frustrated we marvel at the solution presented and wonder how Agatha Christie could envisage such complex mysteries that thrill us a hundred years later.

[ᗩᗰIᖇᗩ ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚]

ما حبيت :(

[bella]

This is a review for The Adventure of the Italian Nobleman, which can be purchased as a Kindle single or part of the anthology Poirot Investigates.

Hercule Poirot, Captain Hastings and Doctor Hawker are together, when Hawker gets a call to come quickly to see a client that is feared dead. The client is Count Foscatini and he is indeed dead. It would appear he was having dinner with two friends and they have disappeared and he is dead at his writing desk. With no witnesses Poirot and Hastings must study the scene to find the killer.

These short stories sure are fun and pack a punch! I figured I'd have more luck solver shorter Agatha Christie mysteries, but I'm not having as much luck. I couldn't figure out who killed Foscatini. I thought maybe it was one of my guests but I was wrong. It's fun trying to figure it out along with Poirot and Hastings. Unfortunately I may be as inept as Hastings, but I'm having fun trying.

I'm looking forward to more Agatha Christie short stories.

[Merna Mousa]

رواية متوسطة تستحق نجمتين على الأكثر، ولكني سأقيمها بنجمة واحدة لسبب مهم

ما يشغلني هنا ليس مستوى الرواية بل شئ آخر ... ما غرض دار النشر أو المترجم أو أيا كان في وضع نبذة عبارة عن صفحة ونصف يفسد فيها الأحداث على القارئ !!!! ما نوع هذا السلوك؟

لا أعرف لماذا يستمتع كثير من المترجمين بمثل هذا الفعل الماسخ، بأن يحرق الأحداث في المقدمة وكأنه ينتقم من الكاتب أو من القراء، دائما ما أتجنب المقدمات ولكني لم أظن أبدا أن رواية 60 صفحة قد تفسدها صفحة ونصف معنونة بأنها "نبذة" ..على كلٍ لا يتعلم المرء دروسه بسهولة، سأتجنب هذه النبذات من الآن فصاعدا مع هذه السلسلة

[Hanna]

Method to the rescue again. It reminds me of those riddles where you can't work out the really obvious answer due to 'tunnel vision'. A kind of 'auditory illusion' :o
This is one of those puzzles where Poirot admires the method and order shown by the perpetrator, but of course the mind game is won by Poirot's little grey cells.

[Serena]

Poirot Investigates

My Rating System:
* couldn't finish, ** wouldn't recommend, *** would recommend, **** would read again, ***** have read again.

[Mike Lisanke]

I often wonder in books of authors' collections, if sometimes they find themself writing continuously for too long and have to urgently arise to make a potty stop (or break for lunch) or to take a nap? Some stories (in a section) seem to end more abruptly than many previous (in the collection). Just saying I've seen this a lot with several famous authors.

[Linda Collings]

I love Poirot!

[Pat]

Great story, but seemed to end too quick. Guess that's because I saw it as a screenplay on PBS first and that telling of the story added a bit more.

[Gabi Eagon]

A good Christie short story.

[Vin Vineeta]

Called it the instant the killer was first mentioned. Predictable but pretty cool.

[Meg]

I figured that it had to be the secretary. I just didn’t get the method correct. I thought that he was in on it with the visiting gentlemen but alas, I was wrong. Poirot, of course, was not.