Editing Hercule Poirot (section)

=== Post–World War II ===
{{Blockquote | He, I knew, was not likely to be far from his headquarters. The time when cases had drawn him from one end of England to the other was past. |  Hastings{{Sfn |Christie|2004b|loc = Chapter 1}}{{Page needed | date = August 2014}}}}

Poirot is less active during the cases that take place at the end of his career. Beginning with ''Three Act Tragedy'' (1934), Christie had perfected during the inter-war years a subgenre of Poirot novel in which the detective himself spent much of the first third of the novel on the periphery of events. In novels such as ''Taken at the Flood'', ''[[After the Funeral]]'', and ''Hickory Dickory Dock'', he is even less in evidence, frequently passing the duties of main interviewing detective to a subsidiary character. In ''Cat Among the Pigeons'', Poirot's entrance is so late as to be almost an afterthought. Whether this was a reflection of his age or of Christie's distaste for him, is impossible to assess. ''[[Crooked House]]'' (1949) and ''[[Ordeal by Innocence]]'' (1957), which could easily have been Poirot novels, represent a logical endpoint of the general diminution of his presence in such works.

Towards the end of his career, it becomes clear that Poirot's retirement is no longer a convenient fiction.  He assumes a genuinely inactive lifestyle during which he concerns himself with studying famous unsolved cases of the past and reading detective novels. He even writes a book about mystery fiction in which he deals sternly with [[Edgar Allan Poe]] and [[Wilkie Collins]].{{sfn|Christie | 2011c |loc =Chapter 1}}{{Page needed | date = August 2014}}  In the absence of a more appropriate puzzle, he solves such inconsequential domestic riddles as the presence of three pieces of orange peel in his umbrella stand.{{sfn|Christie | 2006a |loc=Chapter 14}} {{Page needed | date = August 2014}}

Poirot (and, it is reasonable to suppose, his creator){{efn | In ''The Pale Horse'', Chapter 1, the novel's narrator, Mark Easterbrook, disapprovingly describes a typical "Chelsea girl"{{Sfn | Christie |1961}}{{Page needed | date = August 2014}} in much the same terms that Poirot uses in Chapter 1 of ''Third Girl'', suggesting that the condemnation of fashion is authorial.{{Sfn | Christie | 2011c}}{{Page needed | date = August 2014}}}} becomes increasingly bemused by the vulgarism of the up-and-coming generation's young people. In ''Hickory Dickory Dock'', he investigates the strange goings-on in a student hostel, while in ''Third Girl'' (1966) he is forced into contact with the smart set of Chelsea youths. In the growing drug and pop culture of the 1960s, he proves himself once again but has become heavily reliant on other investigators, especially the [[private investigator]], Mr. Goby, who provide him with the clues that he can no longer gather for himself.
{{Blockquote | ''You're too old''.  Nobody told me you were so old. I really don't want to be rude but – there it is. ''You're too old''. I'm really very sorry. | Norma Restarick to Poirot in ''Third Girl'', Chapter 1{{Sfn |Christie | 2011c|loc=Chapter 1}}{{Page needed | date = August 2014}}}}

Notably, during this time his physical characteristics also change dramatically; by the time Arthur Hastings meets Poirot again in ''Curtain'', he looks very different from his previous appearances, having become thin with age and with obviously dyed hair.