The Adventure of the Clapham Cook

Hercule Poirot receives a visit from a Mrs Todd of Clapham, who insists that he investigate the disappearance of Eliza Dunn, her cook. Two days earlier, Eliza had abruptly left her job without giving notice; she has not communicated with Mrs Todd since then except to send for her trunk that same day. Mr and Mrs Todd have taken in a lodger named Simpson, who works at a bank from which a missing clerk named Davis is suspected of stealing £50,000 in securities.

Poirot asks Hastings to place advertisements in the local newspapers, encouraging Eliza to reply. Several days later, Eliza visits Poirot and Hastings to explain her disappearance. She had been visited by a solicitor who told her that she had inherited a cottage in Carlisle and an annual income of £300, contingent on her immediately leaving domestic service. Eliza accepted the offer and left her job that day to take a train north, giving the solicitor a letter of resignation to deliver to Mrs Todd. Her belongings were shipped to her soon afterwards, though wrapped in paper parcels instead of packed in her old trunk.

After an interview with Simpson, Poirot determines that he had stolen the securities and murdered Davis, intending to hide his crime. Disguised as the solicitor, Simpson concocted the inheritance as a ruse to get Eliza out of the way and then deliberately failed to deliver her letter to Mrs Todd. He used Eliza's trunk to ship Davis's body out of the area, relying on its inconspicuous appearance to avoid scrutiny. He attempts to flee from England but is soon apprehended trying to board an ocean liner bound for Venezuela, and Davis's body is found in the trunk, in storage at a Glasgow railway station.