The Million Dollar Bond Robbery: a Hercule Poirot Short Story

Philip Ridgeway, a young banker, is suspected of stealing one million dollars in Liberty Bonds on a transatlantic journey to New York. His fiancé appeals to Hercule Poirot to prove his innocence and clear his name.

Ridgeway is the nephew of Mr. Vavasour, the joint general manager of the London and Scottish Bank. A million dollars of bonds have gone missing whilst in his care.

Poirot meets Ridgeway at Cheshire Cheese to hear the facts of the case; he was entrusted by his uncle and the other general manager, Mr. Shaw, with taking the bonds to New York to extend the bank's credit line there.

Poirot learns the identities of the three people who hold keys to the locked trunk, but it won't be as easy to identify the thief…

This story originally appeared in the May 2, 1923 issue of "The Sketch" magazine.

Librarian's note: this entry is for the story, "The Million Dollar Bond Robbery." Collections of short stories by the author can be found elsewhere on Goodreads. Individual entries, including the characters and settings, for all 51 Poirot short stories, plus a 52nd, "Hercule Poirot and the Greenshore Folly" which was discovered in 2014, can be found by searching Goodreads for: "a Hercule Poirot Short Story."