Characters in The Affair at the Victory Ball

Supporting characters

• Hercule Poirot

  Methodical and precise, he prizes order and pattern over physical investigation, deducing the solution largely from his armchair.

  Also in The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Murder on the Links, Poirot Investigates, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, The Big Four, Mystery of the Blue Train, Black Coffee, Peril at End House, Lord Edgware Dies, Murder on the Orient Express

• Captain Hastings

  Earnest and literal-minded, he relays events and serves as the foil whose assumptions Poirot gently overturns.

  Also in The A.B.C. Murders, The Under Dog and Other Stories, Poirot's Early Cases, Double Sin and Other Stories

• Inspector Japp

  Brisk and practical, he brings the case to Poirot's attention and favours the obvious reading of the evidence.

  Also in The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Poirot Investigates, The Big Four, Black Coffee, Lord Edgware Dies, Death in the Clouds, The Under Dog and Other Stories, Poirot's Early Cases

• Lord Cronshaw

  Disapproving of drug use, he is found stabbed after a visible quarrel with his fiancee earlier in the evening.

• Coco Courtenay

  Estranged from Cronshaw on the night, she dies of a cocaine overdose, her fate echoing a real Jazz-Age scandal.

• Christopher Davidson

  An actor of about the dead man's height, his place in the evening's events proves central to Poirot's solution.

• Eustace Beltane

  A member of the masquerade party whose costume and movements form part of the puzzle of the night.