History Literature / TheLaboursOfHercules

* TreatedWorseThanThePet: In "The Nemean Lion", Poirot investigates the kidnapping of a [[MisterMuffykins Pekingese dog]] belonging to the wife of a businessman, after said dog was returned for a ransom. Lady Hoggin, the distressed moth... err, owner, treats her husband as a nuisance and abuses verbally of Amy Carnaby, her companion, although the latter is still suffering with BSOD because the dog was kidnapped when she was walking with it. [[spoiler: It is a sham: Ms. Carnaby abducted the pet, as part of a kidnapping ring she created with other women exploited by petty rich women that treat their dogs better than people. Poirot sympathizes with her, especially because she uses the ransons to support her invalid sister; he not only makes them a donation but promises to convince the Hoggets to drop the charges, as long as Ms. Carnaby returns their money and stops the scheme.]]

* ReligiousAndMythologicalThemeNaming: Hercules (and Achilles) Poirot were named for Greek heroes, and Poirot himself takes great satisfaction in considering himself a vanquisher of evil like Hercules (though he notes that his mythic counterpart is more savage and uncivilized).

* TheWoobie: InUniverse, Harold is furious at how unfair life has been to Elsie. [[spoiler:It's all an act on her part.]]

Literature/HerculePoirot, near retirement, is visited by a Dr. Burton, and their meandering conversation touches on Hercule's unusual name. It inspires him to look into Myth/ClassicalMythology, only to leave him appalled by the discovery that, by his standards, his namesake is nothing more than a brutish criminal. Still, he finds resemblance in the twelve labours, where Hercules was instrumental to overcoming each threat to society. Thus, he resolves to become the "modern Hercules", taking on twelve more cases before retiring:

* RacialFaceBlindness: A pretty racist comment in "The Nemean Lion", where Amy Carnaby says that most people think one Pekingese is very much like another, "just as we think the Chinese are."
** Perhaps less racism on Christie's part and more Lampshading racism inherent in the English culture of the time.

* HidingBehindTheLanguageBarrier: [[spoiler:Mrs. Rice]] exploits Harold's inability to speak Polish; she passes off what was actually an innocuous conversation with the two Polish ladies as a blackmail demand.

* WeNeedADistraction: Poirot pulls this off on a ''country-wide level'' in "The Augean Stables": since there's no way to get the ''X-Ray News'' to pull their upcoming piece about John Hammett's true nature as a crook, the detective realizes that he needs to give them another story too juicy to pass up and then expose it as a fake. He does so with the help of Dagmar Ferrier, the current Prime Minister's wife: they find a woman who closely resembles Dagmar and arrange for her to be photographed in various unseemly places across France and England. The ''X-Ray News'' takes the bait and publishes the photos, writing about how Dagmar is a libertine; everyone in the UK turns against her; and then, in a show trial, the truth is revealed, the Ferriers vindicated, and the ''X-Ray News'' utterly destroyed.

** The Augean Stables are known for being ''literally'' full of horseshit, like Hammett was by pretending to be an upstanding statesman while embezzling millions of pounds, and Poirot must keep his record officially clean by discrediting a tabloid that was going to publish the story.
** The Stymphalian Birds are a flock of man-eaters who terrorized the countryside in search of food, and were driven off with the clanging of magical bells. In this case, they're a pair of women who harass Elsie and Harold for blackmail money. [[spoiler: The stymphalian bird analogues are actually Elsie and Mrs. Rice, who are plotting to steal Harold's money by claiming they need it for bribes (saying Elsie killed her abusive husband and they need the money to get her off) and later blackmail (claiming that two Polish women they talked to were the blackmailers). Poirot comes along at the end and drives them off by figuring out their scheme.]]

* HigherUnderstandingThroughDrugs: Exploited by [[spoiler: Dr. Anderson, who injects his followers with an extract of marijuana that causes a euphoria which they interpret to be a spiritual awakening.]]

* HigherUnderstandingThroughDrugs: Exploited by [[spoiler: Dr. Anderson, who injects his followers with an extract of marijuana that causes a euphoria that they mistake for a spiritual experience.]]

* IdenticalStranger: [[InvokedTrope Invoked]] and [[ExploitedTrope exploited]] by Poirot in "The Augean Stables." He goes searching for someone who closely resembles Dagmar Ferrier, the Prime Minister's wife, and finds a nearly exact duplicate in a woman named Thelma Andersen. He then hires a journalist friend of his to pretend to be an agent of the ''X-Ray News'' and pay Thelma to appear as a "stand-in" for a famous actress; everyone who sees the photos thinks it's Dagmar.

* ChubbyChaser: It turns out Poirot has a weakness for bigger ladies, as the Countess Rossakoff proves. It's also a case of OppositesAttract, as the narration remarks that "it is the misfortune of small, precise men to hanker after large, flamboyant women."

* DisguisedInDrag: In "The Stymphalean Birds", Mrs. Rice disguises herself as her daughter Elsie's fake "husband" as part of the blackmail plot.

* ''Literature/TheLaboursOfHercules'': Miss Pope runs a very exclusive girls' school. While explaining how the school works so Poirot can figure out how a student was kidnapped with no one noticing, she realizes she's drifting into her talking-to-parents voice and reverts to a tone that's less of a sales pitch.

* BrokenPedestal: What new Prime Minister Edward Herriot fears in "The Augean Stables". It turns out the old PM, John Hammett, a highly respected statesman, was actually a crook. Herriot is desperate to stop this from coming out.

* ConMan: In "The Augean Stables," the recently-retired Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, John Hammond, is revealed as one; he's described as "a gigantic confidence trickster" who convinced the public that he was an upstanding, kindly politician while he was busy stealing millions of pounds from Party funds.

* DamnedByFaintPraise: [[InvertedTrope Inverted]] in "The Augean Stables." When Poirot first meets Edward Ferrier, the new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, he recalls that his old friend Professor [=MacLeod=], a scientific genius who testified in a murder case, once remarked "Ferrier was one of my students. He's a sound man." While it doesn't seem like much of a compliment, Poriot knows that it's enormous praise coming from [=MacLeod=], and indeed takes up Ferrier's case on those words alone: "If [=MacLeod=] called a man sound it was a testimonial to character compared with which no popular or press enthusiasm counted at all."

* FictionalPoliticalParty: The late John Hammett and his successor Edward Herriot belong to the "People's Party". What's weird about this is that in the last story, "The Capture of Cerberus", a character mentions both Labor and the Tories by name. It's possible that the People's Party is intended to stand in for the British Liberal Party, whose ministers including PM H.H. Asquith were implicated in an [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marconi_scandal insider trading scandal]] in the 1910s that led to a libel suit against the publisher similar to the one in the story (unfortunately for the ministers without the distraction provided by Hercule Poirot.)

** This is a running theme in "The Augean Stables"--as news of Dagmar Herriot's exploits spread across London, more and more citizens become convinced she's a drunk and sex maniac. Each new section of the story begins with "People were talking."

* IdenticalStranger: [[InvokedTrope Invoked]] and [[ExploitedTrope exploited]] by Poirot in "The Augean Stables." He goes searching for someone who closely resembles Dagmar Herriot, the Prime Minister's wife, and finds a nearly exact duplicate in a woman named Thelma Andersen. He then hires a journalist friend of his to pretend to be an agent of the ''X-Ray News'' and pay Thelma to appear as a "stand-in" for a famous actress; everyone who sees the photos thinks it's Dagmar.

* KitschyThemedRestaurant: Countess Rossakoff's nightclub, "Hell," is jam-packed with Underworld imagery from various cultures: the stairs leading to it are written with well-meaning phrases as "the good intentions that pave the road to Hell"; customers must cross a small pond guarded by a ferocious black dog named Cerberus; the waitstaff wear red tuxedos, tails, and horns; and the walls are painted with elaborate frescoes representing various gods and myths of underworlds from across the planet. Unlike most examples of this trope, though, it's ''not'' kitschy--Madame Rossakoff spent a fortune decorating the place and consulted with various experts to ensure that it was accurate and fun (that said, one of these experts complains that she got the myths for the murals wrong). It also helps that, at the time, such an elaborately-themed club would have been groundbreaking.

* MisterMuffykins: "The Nemean Lion" is about a kidnapping ring that specializes in snatching yappy little Pekingese dogs. Sir Joseph complains that his wife's dog is "a damned yapping little brute that’s always getting under your feet anyway!".

* NoHoldsBarredBeatdown: Poirot narrowly avoids getting thrashed by Edward Herriot for [[spoiler:dragging his wife's name through the mud]]. Only Dagmar telling her husband that she quite enjoyed the peace and quiet for a few weeks saves Poirot.

* SpannerInTheWorks: In "The Girdle of Hippolyta," the art thieves who steal a priceless Rubens concoct an elaborate scheme to ship it across the Channel in a schoolgirl's trunk, figuring that customs won't both to look for it there. The plan almost works -- except that Miss Pope, the headmistress of the school they chose as a cover, always does a thorough inspection of every girl's luggage upon its arrival. She thus finds the painting (crudely covered with other watercolors) and hangs it in her office before the crooks can recover the goods.

* VillainBall: In "The Stymphalean Birds," [[spoiler: Mrs. Rice and her daughter Elsie are able to bilk Harold out of lot of money, and would have succeeded had they settled for that much. But they noticed his fear of the mysterious Polish women at their resort and get greedy, deciding to pretend that they need even ''more'' cash to avoid blackmail. Their avarice ends up getting them arrested, as Poirot has a chance meeting with Harold and easily figures out the scheme.]]

* WeNeedADistraction: Poirot pulls this off on a ''country-wide level'' in "The Augean Stables": since there's no way to get the ''X-Ray News'' to pull their upcoming piece about John Hammond's true nature as a crook, the detective realizes that he needs to give them another story too juicy to pass up and then expose it as a fake. He does so with the help of Dagmar Herriot, the current Prime Minister's wife: they find a woman who closely resembles Dagmar and arrange for her to be photographed in various unseemly places across France and England. The ''X-Ray News'' takes the bait and publishes the photos, writing about how Dagmar is a libertine; everyone in the UK turns against her; and then, in a show trial, the truth is revealed, the Herriots vindicated, and the ''X-Ray News'' utterly destroyed.

** After defeating the Nimean Lion, Hercules wore its skin. After solving the Pekingese kidnapping ring (with Amy Carnaby helpfully pointing out that, according to legend, Pekes are descended from lions) [[spoiler: Poirot says he wants Augustus's "mantle of invisibility", which turns out to mean making Sir Joseph feel that, if he continues to poison his wife, Poirot will ''know''.]]

** The Augean Stables are known for being ''literally'' full of horseshit, like Hammond was by pretending to be an upstanding statesman while embezzling millions of pounds, and Poirot must keep his record officially clean by discrediting a tabloid that was going to publish the story.

** Sir Joseph in "The Nimean Lion" reminds Poirot of a man he arrested back in Belgium for poisoning his wife. [[spoiler: Shortly after he casually mentions this to the man, his wife notices her tonic doesn't have a bitter aftertaste any more...]]

* TheWomanWearingTheQueenlyMask: Dagmar Hammett-Ferrier, wife of Prime Minister Edward Ferrier, is described in this way in "The Augean Stables." She very carefully cultivates an image of the perfect English spouse: stylish but not ostentatious, dedicated to charities and public events, and making sure to only focus on "those aspects of public life which were generally felt to be proper spheres of womanly activity." But behind the mask, she's an anxious woman who knew her beloved father's true character as a con man and has been dreading its inevitable reveal for years. Poirot outright calls her "Caesar's wife" when he first speaks to her.

* TheCon: In "The Stymphalean Birds" [[spoiler:Mrs. Rice and her daughter Elsie]] cook up a complicated blackmail scheme in which [[spoiler:they fake a murder, then tell Harold]] that they need his money to bribe the police to keep it quiet.

* ItRunsInTheFamily: Hugh Chandler's grandfather went mad, and it seems to have skipped a generation, with Hugh killing sheep in the night. [[spoiler:It turns out that he isn't the biological son of Admiral Chandler, but Admiral Chandler certainly is mad.]]

* TreatedWorseThanThePet: In "The Nemean Lion", Poirot investigates the kidnapping of a [[MisterMuffykins Pekingese dog]] belonging to the wife of a businessman, after said dog was returned for a ransom. Lady Hoggin, the distressed moth... err, owner, treats her husband as a nuisance and abuses verbally of Amy Carnaby, her companion, although the latter is still suffering with BSOD because the dog was kidnapped when she was walking with it. [[spoiler: It is a sham: Ms. Carnaby abducted the pet, as part of a kidnapping ring she created with other women exploited by petty rich women that treat their dogs better than people. Poirot sympathizes with her, especially because she uses the ransons to support her invalid sister; he not only makes them a donation but promises to convince the Samuelsons to drop the charges, as long as Ms. Carnaby returns their money and stops the scheme.]]

** After defeating the Nimean Lion, Hercules wore its skin. After solving the Pekingese kidnapping ring (with Amy Carnaby helpfully pointing out that, according to legend, Pekes are descended from lions) [[spoiler: Poirot says he wants Augustus's "mantle of invisibility", which turns out to mean making Mr Saumelson feel that, if he continues to poison his wife, Poirot will ''know''.]]

** Mr Saumelson in "The Nimean Lion" reminds Poirot of a man he arrested back in Belgium for poisoning his wife. [[spoiler: Shortly after he casually mentions this to the man, Mrs Samuelson notices her tonic doesn't have a bitter aftertaste any more...]]

* TreatedWorseThanThePet: In "The Nemean Lion", Poirot investigates the kidnapping of a [[MisterMuffykins Pekingese dog]] belonging to the wife of a businessman, after said dog was returned for a ransom. Mrs. Samuelson, the distressed moth... err, owner, treats her husband as a nuisance and abuses verbally of Amy Carnaby, her companion, although the latter is still suffering with BSOD because the dog was kidnapped when she was walking with it. [[spoiler: It is a sham: Ms. Carnaby abducted the pet, as part of a kidnapping ring she created with other women exploited by petty rich women that treat their dogs better than people. Poirot sympathizes with her, especially because she uses the ransons to support her invalid sister; he not only makes them a donation but promises to convince the Samuelsons to drop the charges, as long as Ms. Carnaby returns their money and stops the scheme.]]

** After defeating the Nimean Lion, Hercules wore its skin. After solving the Pekingese kidnapping ring (with Amy Carnaby helpfully pointing out that, according to legend, Pekes are descended from lions) [[spoiler: Poirot says he wants Augustus's "mantle of invisibility", which turns out to mean making Mr Saumelson feel that, if he continues to poison his wife, Poirot will ''know'.]]