The Mystery of the Spanish Chest

by Agatha Christie

A party for six people.

Five chat, enjoy the food, the drink and the atmosphere, the music.

One lies dead in a large Spanish chest at the end of the room.

Hercule Poirot is asked to investigate. And he is more than willing. The mystery and all its 'impossible' detail had already caught his eye as he read through the newspapers.

This is the kind of mystery that Poirot can enjoy getting to grips with...

A very good short story, with the same theme of tragic romance that runs through Christie's Five Little Pigs. But where Five Little Pigs has meaningful references to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, with The Mystery of the Spanish Chest the best comparison with Shakespeare is with the tortured tale of Othello and Desdemona - a work that is referred to more than once in this story.

Short stories need pace and readily understandable personalities. Christie delivers on both counts. The thing missing here is the meticulous method and investigation that we usually expect from Poirot.

Poirot produces a convincing solution, but one that relies too much on supposition and guesswork.

The story seems to end before it really begins.

The Mystery of the Spanish Chest is read by Hugh Fraser and published along with the forgettable Adventure of the Christmas Pudding as part of HarperCollins' Hercule Poirot Mysteries series.