Bar/fly: Agatha Christie Festival, Torquay

Playing Poirot is all part of the fun at the annual Agatha Christie festival in Devon. Illustration / Rod Emmerson

Hercule Poirot, aka Kevin Pilley, tips his homburg to Agatha Christie's mysterious bust using Franglais clues.

"Enchante mademoiselle," I say, placing a kiss below her knuckle. "C'est un plaisir most substantial to meet the Miss Marple extraordinaire."

For the evening, I think I am Hercule Poirot and I am finding myself surrounded by other dapper little Belgian billiard balls who walk like they have a fissure. I mingle among many Miss Marples and not a few Miss Lemons.

The room is full of starched shirts, butterfly bow ties, peaked lapels and detachable flap collars. As well as backless silk gowns, boutonnieres, black brocade and dowdy tweeds.

Around the Palm Court Bar used by Noel Coward and beaucoup d' autres most well-known, my ami Captain Hastings is well represented. Many guests have come in character. I lose count of the number of dapper, bald-headed Belgian detectives who walk like they have a fissure, tres terrible.

The Poirots far outnumber all else. Cependant, alas, Inspector Jack Japps is in very short supply.

I am on Burgh Island on the English Riviera. Near Torquay. Attending the late Agatha's Christie's birthday party.

The then-Miss Miller was born in the chic South Devon seaside town which every September stages a festival formidable. There are walking and vintage bus tours, talks films, plays, murder mystery evenings, boat trips to her Greenway home on the River Dart and themed occasions. And unofficial look-a-like competitions for "le detective unique et unsurpassed".

I stay in character. I am fiction.

"Sacre Blue? I say, looking at the canapes.

"How is it that you say? It browns me off. The barbarity of the British cuisine. All life is extinct in this sausage roll. I shall give it the burial it deserves. Already I feel my stomach acutely incommoded."

I address a Captain Hastings clone who is drinking only the water without gas. The marriage, it is not for me. Art deco envelopes us. I nervously twiddle my imaginary waxed moustache. I am missing my sirop de cassis. But I am busy on the case up at the bar.

"The waiter said this is beer. But I am not disposed to believe him. It is wildly improbable that I will be able to finish it. And then only without severe gastric inconvenience."

I dab my mouth like the fastidious dandy I am. The little grey cells of my liver are working overtime. Maintenant, apres un chaser most rapide, I order champagne. I am feeling the giddiness. All I can say is "Encore".

I shun les cocktails. If I invented one, I would call it "Appointment with Death" or "Dead Man's Folly".

I consult my fobwatch. Le fin de la soiree approaches. Alors, I am approached by a Retro Chick. All finger waves and pin curls. I blush. My pince-nez mist. No woman has seen me out of my cufflinks.

"Have you seen Agatha's bust yet, Poirot?"

The Poirot with her says, "I beg you most earnestly. All will be revealed. As the authors of the penny dreadful genre are so fond of declaring, in due course and in the fullest of time."

He is more Ustinov than Suchet. Too many of the clotted cream teas, je pense.

I tap my nostril side. "I am the dog who stays on the scent!"

"I am running a risk, most grave. Of being the Party Pooper," I say, exiting behind them, then collecting my Homburg, gloves and cane. We hail the hotel sea tractor ferry and, on the mainland, taxi it into Torquay.

"Et voila!" I soon exclaim, examining the evidence presented on Torquay's seafront green.

En fin, all answers are satisfied. The key to a mystery most bizarre.

The bust. It is the statue of Agatha. It is not very big. But significant. Tres significant. The world's biggest selling author.

I introduce myself. "Hercule Poirot, 56B, 28 Whitehaven Mansions. Telephone Trafalgar 8137. At your service, madame."

I'm un morceau tiddly. Always I am right. It is so invariable. I am singing "Happy Birthday" to someone's bust.

CHECKLIST

Getting there: Air New Zealand flies daily from Auckland to London via Los Angeles.

Further information: For more on Torquay's annual Agatha Christie festival, see englishriviera.co.uk.