Our narrator, Hastings, is from south america and is visiting our main character Peroit in England. Something is troubling Peroit, he got a letter. A letter telling him that there would be a crime for him to solve in Andover on the 21st of the month signed by A.B.C. Hastings suggests there might be a whacky great robbery on the 21st. Peroit would be relieved if it were but a robbery. He thinks there will be a murder.
Ch 2 Not from Captain Hastings' Personal Narrative
This chapter is only one page long. Shortest chapter with the longest name. Mr. Alexandar Bonaparte Cust is a tall man. He has a list of names. He checks one off. Probably cause he's gonna murder them. It's Thursday the 20th.
Ch 3 Andover
Japp of Scotland yard is a mean person and likes to point out flaws in people's hair. He mentions Hastings' thinning hair and Peroit's died hair. He knows about Peroit's letter from A.B.C. and called Andover and they had no major crimes to report. There's small talk about what kind of murder makes for a good murder mystery book. They get a call from Andover. There's been a murder.
ch 4 Mrs. Ascher
They meet Inspector Glen. He tells them the victim is a 60 year old woman who was killed in her own shop. The prime suspect is her husband. They talk to the husband, he professes innocense. He was just joking all the times he said he was going to kill her. The only interesting thing at the scene is a railway guide. There's some sort of Britishy turn of phrase that results in A.B.C. I don't get it.
ch 5 Mary Drower
Hastings and Peroit talk to the coroner and they say that Mrs. Ascher was struck in the head in a very fragile place. Not a lot of force would have been necessary to do so. Either the old husband or a woman could have done it. Peroit goes to visit the murdered woman's neice. She lived near by for her aunt's good. Now that she's dead, she's going to move to London. They talk about her aunt's life with her husband. It was rough. The Neice is surprised to hear Peroit say that he doesn't think the husband did it.
ch 6 the scene of the crime
Peroit goes to the scene of the crime at roughly the same time of day the crime took place. But the atmosphere of the neighboorhood isn't reproduceable because Mrs Ascher's shop has become a bit of tourist attraction. They dusted for prints and there's tons of them cuase it's a shop. They probably won't find anything useful. There's an old picture of Mrs. Ascher and she's quite good looking. They go across the street to the green grocer and buy some produce and have a bit of a rehersed deal in front of the shop lady where Peroit claims the prime suspect was a tall fair haired russian man and hastings declares that it was a short dark haired man. Some folks in the shop say they had seen some men fitting both descriptions. Nothing really comes of it.
Peroit goes to Mrs. Ascher's neighbor, claims to be with the paper and offers the lady five pounds to interview her for an article on Mrs. Ascher. Peroit and Hastings talk about the experience. Peroit says they don't know enough about the situation to ask the right questions yet.
ch 7 Mr. Partridge and Mr. Riddel
Poirot goes to visit Mr. Partridge, possibly the last person other than the killer to see Mrs. Ascher alive. He bought something from her at 5:30. He knew it was 5:30 because at that moment he compared his wrist watch to a clock and saw his watch was a minute slow. He says the ABC guide wasn't on the table when he left. Poirot visits a Mr. Riddel who says he went to the shop at 6, didn't see anyone and left. He's hostile about it cause he thinks people think that he's the murderer. He says the ABC guide was on the table when he got there. He thought maybe the old lady was in a rush to catch a train and forgot to lock up.
ch 8 the second letter
The train ride home from Andover iS a bummer. Poirot is defeated. Abc left him nothing to go on. Hastings tries to talk about it. Poirot isn't interested. On Monday Poirot gets another letter from ABC. This time the crime will happen in a city that starts with a B on the 25th. Poirot says the victim will have a name starting with B. All the authorities are all invol ved now. They're gonna do their best to prevent the crime.
Ch 9 The Bexhill on sea Murder
The murder has occurred on the 25th. The victim was one Elizabeth Barnard. A young waitress in a cafe. She was found in the beach, that's three B words. Poirot and Hastings get a ride from London to Bexhill in a cop car. They interview the owner of the cafe that Elizabeth Barnard worked at. She didn't know Elizabeth that well. They also interview the other three waitresses and the only useful information they get is that Elizabeth was going to meet with a handsome "friend" that night.
Ch 10 The barnar d's
Everything is super sad. Their daughter is dead. They know the man that was a mystery to all Elizabeth's coworkers. They call her Betty at one point and that makes me miss my grandma. Hastings is hanging out outside when her sister shows up. Poirot gets in on the conversation and says he wishes he could talk to someone that knew Elizabeth well but didn't know she was dead. He might be able to get the real picture 📷of what she was like. At which point her sister says she was a pain in the ass.
Ch 11 Megan barnard
Poirot talks.to Megan candidly about the wh ole ABC situation. Megan talks about how Megan carried on with many men and her current boyfriend is the jealous type. Poirot thinks maybe one of the other men Elizabeth has been with is ABC. The doorbell rings, it's the boyfriend.
Ch 12 Donald Frasier
The boyfriend is all upset cause his girlfriend is dead. That seems like the appropriate reaction. Poirot asks him what Betty told her she was doing that night. She was going out with a friend. But then Don got suspicious and went to where she said sh e was meeting her friend. But he never saw her. So.He started going all around suspecting she was with another man. He never found her. Now she's dead.
Ch 13 a conference
All the cops and analysts and Poirot are having a conference to figure out a public policy for this ABC case. They talk a lot in circles back and forth about different ideas. What they decide to do is release the name of the next city ABC sends to Poirot to the public.
Ch 14 The third.lett er
They get the letter and the city is Churston. The date i is the 30th. Uh, we got a problem, today is the 30th. They look at the envelope again and see it was postmarked on the 27th. It was redirected a couple times. They are prepared to take the midnight train to Churston. They call Scotland yard to tell.them.about the letter. Before they're ready to go to the train they get word that he murder has already occur red.
Ch 15 Sir Carmichael Clark
They meet mr Clark's brother. Seems like a stand up guy with a stuff upper lip. They learn Carmichael was murdered in his usual evening walk. Poirot surmises ABC must have been staking out the place for a while to know that Carmichael took the same walk every evening. I'm writing this on a particularly cold October night and I quite enjoy the talk of warm summer walks. They.don't. Find any useful ev idence but everyone is all upset about the murders. The brother says he's got a plan and Poirot is the man to help him carry it out. Much like Hastings, he doesn't think much of Crome.
Ch 16 not fro. Captain Hastings personal narrative
Our murderer is taking in a movie in the nearby town of Torquay. The paper has come out and the headline is of the murder. A young man makes the mistake of talking to our murderer. The fun conflict co!we when the young man says he doesn't hold with war and our.murderer is like, you must not hold with plague and famine and cancer. The young man says war is avoidable and our murderer laughs hysterically. He says he was in the war and he hasn't been right since.
There's lots of girls walking around looking at the handsome men and giggling. They are not looking at him and giggling because he's soooo unassuming.
Ch 17 marking time.
This whole chapter is just Poirot and Hastings talking. They talk about how Poirot is trying to put together a picture of the.killer's mind. They talk about how every time the killer does a killing they are going to get more worried and make more mistakes. Hastings once again gets upset at the idea that there may be several more murders before the killer makes said mistake and who know how many more murders will happen before they find that mistake and bring the killer to justice. Poirot has a plan. There has to be some witness a close friend or family member who my now remembers a detail that is important. So Hastings is gonna go reinterview everyone. Speaking of family, they get a letter from Mary Drower (the mean old lady's niece) saying she's gonna come to London to help Poirot in the investigation. It's long and good and I like it. They get a similar letter from Franklin Clarke but it's not printed in n the book like Mary's letter. It's just one line saying he's coming.
