The Affair at the Victory Ball
![](https://agathachristie.imgix.net/hcuk-paperback/254405-2_POIROTS-EARLY-CASES_PB_RI.jpg?auto=compress,format&fit=clip&q=65&w=400)
At a costume ball, young Lord Cronshaw is murdered, and his fiance, Coco, dies of a cocaine overdose. From Poirot’s Early Cases and The Under Dog and Other Stories.
More about this story
Agatha Christie’s first published short story, here she collects many of her favourite themes; the arrogant omniscience of her detective, a murder in a country house, and the characters of the Commedia dell’ Arte.
It first appeared in book form the US collection The Under Dog and Other Stories in 1951. It was not until 1974 that the story featured in a UK collection, Poirot’s Early Cases.
'The Affair at the Victory Ball' was dramatized as a one-hour adaptation of Series Three of Agatha Christie's Poirot starring David Suchet in 1991.