Poirot Scrabble

Mysterious things can happen in these days of quarantine…

“An interesting study in the laws of probability,” said Poirot. “The mathematical chances against that happening would be high, I fancy.”
-Sad Cypress

The painted miniature books (11)

I’ve got two little lots of miniatures left to cover. I’ll call this one “moments of truth.” What they share in common is a close-up of the title character in the process of making some startling discovery.

As I’ve mentioned before, I didn’t want my miniature Poirot books to simply be a series of straight mug shots. That would have gotten boring in a hurry. But now and then, I found episode stills that featured a clear close-up of the character in which he was still obviously interacting with, say, a clue of some sort. Of course, the great benefit of using close-ups for miniatures is that the portraits tend to be a good deal easier to paint than if, say, the portrait is a scant 1/4″ across. The shots I used for these three miniatures fall into that category; for Hercule Poirot’s Christmas, the image is of Poirot having discovered the dead man’s missing diamonds.

Sad Cypress is a wonderful book and lovely episode. The quote is a favorite one. The image chosen involves Poirot with the clue that turns the tide of the story: the thorn-less rose.

Speaking of “turning the tide” (and Shakespeare quotes, which Sad Cypress is as well), the cover of Taken at the Flood also shows Poirot having discovered a formidable piece of evidence. He’s so delighted by his deduction that he doesn’t even seem to care that one of his hands is dirty.

Only three more miniatures left to document…  😉