The Apples of Hesperides

Hercule Poirot receives a visit from Emery Power, a rich art collector of Irish birth. Ten years ago he purchased at auction a gold goblet which was supposedly made for Pope Alexander VI by Benvenuto Cellini, which the Borgia Pope used to poison his victims. The design of the goblet is a coiled serpent, surrounding a tree bearing apples represented by emeralds. Poirot is immediately interested at the mention of apples. Power paid a sum equal to thirty thousand pounds to buy it at auction in 1929, but on the night of the sale the goblet and other items were stolen from the home of the seller, the Marchese di San Veratrino.

The police at the time were certain that a gang of three international thieves was responsible. Two of the men were captured and some of the stolen items recovered but the goblet was not among them. A third man, an Irish cat burglar called Patrick Casey, died soon afterwards when he fell from a building attempting another crime. The Marchese had offered to refund his money but Power did not want to take advantage of this offer as he would no longer be the legal owner of the goblet should it be found. Power had spent ten years and a lot of money trying to locate the goblet but without success. He had suspected that the real criminal was Sir Reuben Rosenthal, who was his rival bidder at the auction in 1929, but they recently became business allies and Power is now convinced Rosenthal is innocent.

Poirot takes up the commission and interviews the detective on the case, Inspector Wagstaffe, about the suspects. Patrick Casey's wife, a strict Catholic, is dead. His daughter is a nun in a convent and his son, who took after his father, is in jail in the United States. There are many leads connected with the gang which stretch all over the world and Poirot sets his inquiries in motion.

Three months later, Poirot goes to visit the convent which Casey's daughter entered, in a remote part of the western coast of Ireland. He discovers that she had died two months earlier. Poirot makes the acquaintance of one of the locals who helps him break into the convent, where he recovers the goblet. He returns it to Power and tells him that the nuns were using it as a chalice. Casey's daughter probably took it there to atone for her father's sins and the nuns were ignorant of its ownership and ancient history. Poirot deduced it would be at the convent as there had been no trace of anyone having the goblet after it was stolen. Therefore, it was somewhere where 'ordinary material values did not apply'. The mention of Casey's daughter being a nun supplied the obvious place.

Poirot shows Power how, during the Renaissance, the Pope used a hidden mechanism in the goblet to put the poison in the victim's drink. Poirot suggests no good will come of owning an object with such an evil history. If it is given back to the convent, the nuns will say masses for Power's soul. He reminds Power of his boyhood in western Ireland. Power agrees; he has got what he wants, which was to own the goblet. Poirot returns the goblet to the convent as the gift of a man so unhappy he does not know he is unhappy.