The Agatha Christie Estate Releases Rejected Facial Hair Styles for Hercule Poirot

The detective’s greatest mystery? Manscaping.

The Horseshoe

“Oh, Monsieur Poirot,” cried Dame Cordelia, “I am so glad you’ve come. It is always so exciting to have a detective in the house, though I do hope we shan’t have a murder!”

Hercule Poirot was a strange little man, renowned for his thick cowboy-like mustache which spread broadly across his upper lip and down the sides of his mouth. His worn lip-fringe was chestnut brown, but dappled through with grey like an old ranch horse. One might never guess from his shaggy face-arc that he had once been Chief of Police of Brussels. Murder followed the detective like a farm dog waiting for its dinner.

Our glamorous hostess gestured towards the dining room, “won’t you come meet the other guests?”

Poirot’s voice rolled out of his Belgian throat and past his shrouded bouche, rough as a dusty tumbleweed, “Mais oui, ma’am.”

The Soul Patch

The following morning we returned, eager for rest and a hot breakfast. We found Inspector Japp of Scotland Yard waiting for us at Poirot’s flat.

Poirot stroked the small, smooth patch of beard that adorned his chin, like an accent rug. “Japp, mon frere” recited the detective. He adjusted his stylishly slouched beret and picked a spot of lint from his black turtleneck. “What is shaking, as les enfants say?”

Japp furrowed his brow, “I’m afraid, Poirot, your client June Ewefield seems to have strangled her husband.”

Hercule pushed his tongue against his lower lip in thought, causing the ovular plot of fuzz to bulge and each follicle to stand on end. An unsettled Japp continued, “They found his body the next day.”

Poirot pursed his naked upper lip into a whistle. With eyes closed, he whispered in a husky tone reminiscent of smoke in a hazy nightclub, “ooh, c’est pas cool.”

The Viking

Leonora Dalton lay slumped on the ornate oriental rug, a pool of red forming an eerie halo around her fair hair. “My God!” exclaimed the Major. The room fell into stilted silence.

“What I mean is… she had been warning us that someone meant to murder her in Egypt…”

The Major glanced at the petite detective for a reply, but Poirot was busy lifting his enormous, ragged beard to dab at his face and neck with a handkerchief.

“Quoi? Oh, I do apologize mon ami. The sun here is so hot. The hair — she acts as a fluffy woolen blanket, and myself I am consumed with perspiration.”

His militant companion grimaced. “Alright, well… look down here! Someone has written-”

As Poirot stooped to view the peculiar scribble, his braided chin hairs brushed through the crimson puddle.

“Oh, I… you’ve got…. for god’s sake… never mind.”

The seasoned war veteran stifled a gag and tried to ignore the smell of blood mixed with beard sweat.

The Walrus

Superintendent Sugden shook his head.

“Nasty business. Stabbed through the heart, and on New Year’s Eve! It seems the victim was a Mister Simon Leominster; an older gent. Made his money by poaching in Africa — not a pleasant man it seems. Still, murder is wrong. Right, Poirot?”

Poirot, his face merely a home for the giant curtain of mustache that consumed it from nose to chin, seemed to mumble a reply

“Eh? Speak up, Hercule!”

Poirot attempted to repeat himself but, again, his thicket of bushy bristles stifled his words into unintelligible murmurs. Sugden shrugged, and the two sleuths stared at each other in perplexed silence.

The Glitterstache

Hercule Poirot stood before the assembled passengers. His upper lip was groomed into his iconic mustache: a neatly groomed bow waxed into two fine points at the tip. It was also covered in holographic sparkles reflecting all shades of the rainbow.

Poirot checked his reflection in a mirror, and quietly removed from his pocket a small case. He dipped a finger into the contents of the brass box and applied a spot of glitter to a dull spot on his cupid’s bow. Only then did the detective address the waiting suspects.

“As you all know, upon this journey has been a murder most incroyable.”

Madame Hilliard shifted her weight and anxiously and squinted, as the detective’s disco-ball lip decor sent flashes of light into her eyes. It was spellbinding.

“I have put before you my first solution; that the murderer is an unknown enemy of Monsieur De Conti’s past. Now I put to you my second solution.”

Professor Margolis attempted to focus his attention on the plot, but found himself drawn back to the mustache; it twinkled brighter with an unworldly sirenic shine. It lured his attention from the small detective, becoming no longer a part of the Belgian but its own entity. To his surprise, he thought he heard the faint sound of a heavenly choir. Surely, this was the king of all facial ornaments.

Hercule spoke with vigor, “The second solution is, of course, that you have all been a part of the murder of De Conti — ”

But here Poirot’s speech was overtaken by the godlike splendor of his mustache, whose beauty transcended the story, and defied even the written word. And so, it ends.

Gwen Coburn is a writer and comedian based in Boston. She has strong opinions about feminism, horses, and TikToks about gardening. Follow her @sadgrlsongsgwen on Twitter.

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