Agatha Christie's two most popular characters - Poirot and Marple - can only exist and make sense in a universe in which the police simply cannot solve crimes. If they could, why would they need a weird Belgian private detective or a random old lady to do it for them?

To understand why this was so plausible to Christie and to her contemporary readers, the story of Christie's own "disappearance" in 1926 emphasizes just how inept the police really were in her day. Even being given the answer didn't help them solve this big mystery.

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