Superintendent Battle appears in five Christie novels, the above ones and Cards on the Table, alongside Hercule Poirot. He is the strong silent type, and unlike many police officers in these stories, he is never wrong.

He is ‘much attached to Mrs Battle’, and they have five children together. He was probably given a Christian name but we never find out what it is … His surname is also the name of a town in Sussex, a feature that he shares with another of Poirot’s associates, Arthur Hastings.