The Mystery of the Hunters Lodge by Agatha Christie. Short summary

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The second son of a baronet, Roger Havering asks Hercule Poirot to find the murderer of his uncle, who has just been shot dead. The detective himself is ill, but his comrade, Captain Hastings, is sent to Derbyshire.

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A story in the Hercule Poirot series. Hercule Poirot is approached by Roger Havering to investigate the murder of his uncle, Harrington Pace. But the famous detective is ill and Poirot’s friend and partner, Captain Hastings, will go to the scene of the crime.

In a hunting lodge on the marshes of Derbyshire Hastings meets Inspector Japp of Scotland Yard. Mrs. Middleton’s housekeeper tells him that a visitor with a black beard came to Pace, and a short time later the servants heard a shot. Mr. Pace was dead and the gun was missing from the study. The missing gun was soon found discarded in Ealing.

Hastings relays all the facts to Poirot. The detective sends back instructions to arrest Mrs. Middleton immediately, but the woman managed to escape. It turns out that the housekeeper is a disguised Mrs. Zoe Havering, the wife of Roger Havering. The Haverings are the sole heirs of their uncle’s estate. There is no proof of Roger Havering and his wife’s guilt, but they soon die in a car accident.