Poirot concentrates on the psychology of the murderer. Leading the police investigation, Superintendent Battle agrees to put his “cards on the table” and to allow the other professionals to make their own enquiries. None of the suspects can be ruled out, as all had moved around during the evening. As the party breaks up, Shaitana is found to be dead – stabbed in the chest with a stiletto from his own collection. The guests retire to play bridge, the professionals playing in one room while the others play in a second room where Shaitana relaxes by the fire. Shaitana taunts his suspects with comments that each understands as applying only to them. Poirot’s fellow guests include three other crime professionals: secret serviceman Colonel Race, mystery writer Mrs Ariadne Oliver, and Superintendent Battle of Scotland Yard along with four people Shaitana believes to be murderers: Dr Roberts, Mrs Lorrimer, Anne Meredith, and Major Despard. He invites Poirot to a dinner party to meet them. Scoffing at the idea of collecting mere artefacts, Shaitana explains that he collects only the best exhibits: criminals who have evaded justice. Mr Shaitana, a flamboyant collector, meets Hercule Poirot by chance at an art exhibition and brags about his personal crime-related collection. She notes that the book is no less interesting for that since “when all is said and done it is the mind of the murderer that is of supreme interest”.

The novel contains a foreword by the author in which she explains that the novel has only four suspects and that since any of them, given the right circumstances, might have committed the crime, the deduction must be “entirely psychological”.

Identifying the murderer, according to the author, depends wholly on discerning the psychology of the suspects. At the end of the evening, Mr Shaitana is discovered murdered. The four detectives and four possible suspects play bridge after dinner with Mr Shaitana. The book features the recurring characters of Hercule Poirot, Colonel Race, Superintendent Battle, with the crime writer Ariadne Oliver making her first appearance in a Poirot novel.

The UK edition retailed at seven shillings and sixpence (7/6) and the US edition at $2.00.

Cards on the Table is a detective fiction novel by the English author Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 2 November 1936 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company the following year.

Cards on the table by agatha christie