The Adventure of Johnnie Waverly

Written before the internationally traumatic Lindbergh Kidnapping, which inspired the story for Murder on the Orient Express, this story of kidnapped Johnnie Waverly follows a similar arc. When a toddler is taken from a rich family and held for ransom, suspicions turns on the household.

This short story was first published in the UK in 1924 in The Sketch as part of the series The Grey Cells of M. Poirot II. It first appeared in book form in the US collection Three Blind Mice and Other Stories, 1950 and wouldn’t appear in a UK collection until 1974, in Poirot’s Early Cases.

This story was adapted for the TV series Agatha Christie’s Poirot in 1989 and starred David Suchet in the title role. He was accompanied by Captain Hastings (Hugh Fraser), Chief Inspector Japp (Philip Jackson) and Miss Felicity Lemon (Pauline Moran) in many of the cases, regardless of whether or not they appeared in the original text.