Author's Note:
This is of course a work of fanfiction, and I do not own Hercule Poirot, Sherlock Holmes, Captain Hastings or Dr John Watson. All characters too numerous to list herein are (c) to their respective creators.
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Chapter 1 – Watson
It had been three grim and desolate years since Holmes and I had tackled the nefarious German spymaster Von Bork and closed down his perfidious nest of spies. We were now into the spring of 1917. Holmes had once again retired to his cottage on the Sussex Downs, and I had gone over to France to serve King and Country in the field hospitals, tending the wounded.
However, I wish to take a slight detour before beginning the story proper. In the early summer of 1916, I became slightly acquainted with a young lieutenant who fell into my charge, one Arthur Hastings. He had taken shrapnel to the leg and suffered a damaged tendon. Not enough to disable him, but enough to impair movement to a limping walk. Running across No Man's Land and dodging the German bullets was quite out of the question.
I had the utmost sympathy for the boy, as I myself had come down with a similar injury back in '86 during the Afghan campaign. However, I was sure that his own case was not as serious as my own had been, and that he would soon be fully healed after a long convalescence.
We bonded over our similar fates and I assured him that although my leg had seen me packed off to England, it had had its compensations. My forced return to London ensured that I ended up sharing rooms with a man who became my dearest friend and staunchest ally.
His eyes positively sparkled and became round as saucers. "Good lord!" he ejaculated, sitting up in bed. "You don't mean to say that you're the Dr Watson! I had no idea."
I murmured something offhand about it being a common name and that there was also a Sister Watson (no relation) on the 5th floor dispensary.
Hastings struggled a little more, so I helped to sit him up and adjusted his pillows into a more comfortable position.
"I must say," the young man went on, "I read all of your stories when I was a lad. The mater wouldn't let me buy The Strand Magazine, so I had to borrow it from my chum John Cavendish in the playground at school. Ever since reading that case about that American who sought revenge against his Mormon tormentors, I have always wanted to be a detective."
I shifted a little uncomfortably in my chair. But then I decided not to be shamefaced. After all, plenty of schoolboys also want to become engine drivers, but that doesn't mean that every lad is allowed to be one. "Is that what you'll do, after the war, Lieutenant? Become a private detective?"
Hastings grinned at me, a little mischievously. "I'd like to give it a go. Do you know, before the war, round about...oh 1912 I think it was, I was in Belgium. I was a private secretary to a heavy machinery contractor back then. My employer had gone to some farming conference or other in Brussels. I found myself with bags more free time than I had first thought I would. I biffed about a bit with friends and we went on a shooting party somewhere in the Ardennes. The host ended up shot dead, and somehow or other, I ended up being suspected of murder before it even got dark the same evening."
"Murder!" I exclaimed, finding myself hanging on his every word. "Must have been a pretty unpleasant experience."
"It was rather something of a hole," Hastings agreed quite cheerfully, "but I was soon pulled out of it. There was a detective on the Belgian police force who worked out that although my gun was almost identical to the murder weapon, it was not the actual murder weapon after all."
I nodded sagely. "Bullet analysis."
"Oh of course, you'd know all about it. I must say though, I was awfully lucky the detective knew about it. First class brain. He's almost like a Belgian version of that Jeeves chappie in those books by PG Wodehouse. Have you ever read them, by any chance?"
I admitted that I have not the patience for modern novels.
"Oh dear. Well I'm happy to lend you one, by all means. Now this Belgian chap, I have always wished to meet him again. I've always felt, you know, that if there was one mind on the planet that could equal your Mr Holmes, it was my friend Monsieur Poirot."
Outwardly I said nothing, but inwardly I scoffed. The only brain to rival Sherlock Holmes had been Professor James Moriarty, who had fallen off a ledge into the torrential Reichenbach Falls in '93.
That was my first encounter with Arthur Hastings, but as I was soon to learn, it was not my last.