The Kidnapped Prime Minister

During World War I, Hastings calls on Poirot to discuss a recent assassination attempt targeting David MacAdam, the British Prime Minister. Two high-ranking government officials arrive with an urgent request for Poirot's assistance in locating MacAdam, who has been kidnapped while travelling to Versailles for a secret peace conference. Upon reaching Boulogne-sur-Mer in France, he had entered what he believed to be an official car waiting for him. Both this car and the real one that was supposed to pick him up were later found, with no injuries to either the driver of the former or MacAdam's secretary, Captain Daniels. However, MacAdam has not been seen since.

The earlier attempt on his life had occurred while he was being driven back to London from Windsor Castle, accompanied by Daniels and a police escort. His car suddenly turned off the main road and was accosted by a gang of masked men, who shot at MacAdam and grazed his cheek when he put his head out of the window. MacAdam stopped at a local cottage hospital to have the wound bandaged, then continued on his journey to France. The car was later found in an area known to be frequented by German agents, and its driver − a police officer named O'Murphy − had also gone missing. Poirot and Hastings accompany a squad of detectives to Boulogne, Poirot harbouring suspicions about both Daniels and O'Murphy. Once the group arrives in France, Poirot insists that they should check into a hotel instead of searching for MacAdam. After thinking for five hours, he announces that they must return to England in order to investigate the case properly.

Accompanied by Hastings and the detectives, Poirot enquires at several cottage hospitals to the west of London, then directs them to a house where the police bring out a woman and two men, one of whom he identifies as O'Murphy. He has the other man taken to an airport and put on a plane to France. Only now does Hastings recognise him as an uninjured MacAdam. Daniels had orchestrated the kidnapping, incapacitating both MacAdam and O'Murphy, having two accomplices substitute themselves for the pair, and staging both the shooting and the Boulogne abduction. Poirot's check of the cottage hospitals had revealed that no patient had come in that day to have a facial wound treated. The house where MacAdam and O'Murphy were found belonged to the woman brought out with them, a wanted German spy in league with Daniels. MacAdam reaches Versailles in time for the conference and his remarks are well received by the audience.