foreword

by captain arthur hastings, o. b. e

in this narrative of mine i have departed from my usual practice of relating only those incidents and scenes at which i myself was present. certain chapters, therefore, are written in the third person.

i wish to assure my readers that i can vouch for the occurrences related in these chapters. if i have taken a certain poetic license in describing the thoughts and feelings of various persons, it is because i believe i have set them down with a reasonable amount of accuracy. i may add that they have been vetted' by my friend hercule poirot himself.

in conclusion, i will say that if i have described at too great length some of the secondary personal relationships which arose as a consequence of this strange series of crimes, it is because the human and personal element can never be ignored. hercule poirot once taught me in a very dramatic manner that romance can be a by—product of crime.

as to the solving of the a. b. c. mystery, i can only say that in my opinion poirot showed real genius in the way he tackled a problem entirely unlike any which had previously come his way.