Andover police

Andover police are the local force investigating the killing of Alice Ascher, the first murder connected to the ABC warnings. Their work moves from an apparently plausible domestic-crime explanation toward a wider investigation: the warning letter does not fit the first suspect, witnesses offer unreliable descriptions, and the case becomes part of a series that draws in police forces, the press, and the public.

The first warning and the discovery

Chief Inspector Japp initially reports that the warning naming the 21st appears to have been a hoax. After the date has passed, he telephones Andover and hears that the local incidents amount to a broken shop window and a couple of public-order offences. Poirot is relieved, while Japp treats the letter as one of the many warnings he believes come from people seeking excitement. That dismissal does not last: the crime discovered the following morning turns the date in the letter into a crucial circumstance.

At one in the morning on the 22nd, Police Constable Dover, on his round, finds the tobacco shop’s door unfastened. He enters, initially thinking the premises empty, then discovers Alice Ascher behind the counter. The police surgeon concludes that she had been killed several hours earlier, probably while reaching for cigarettes behind the counter. Investigators narrow the possible time of death with two accounts: one customer bought tobacco at 5:30, and another entered at 6:05 and thought the shop empty. The shop’s money is undisturbed, giving the police no apparent robbery motive.

An early suspect and a difficult letter

The initial theory centres on Franz Ascher, Alice’s estranged husband. Andover police understand that the couple’s relationship had been troubled: Alice left him permanently in 1922, returned to Hampshire to get away from him, and he later followed and pestered her for money. He had reportedly been drinking heavily at a pub on the night of the murder. On the information then available, the inspector considers it likely that Ascher entered the shop drunk, argued with his wife, and killed her.

That explanation is not secure. The inspector asks to examine the warning letter sent to Poirot, wondering whether Ascher could have written it, but judges that its language does not sound like his. The letter’s reference to “our” British police, its clear printing, and its good-quality paper and ink appear inconsistent with a man described as physically and mentally deteriorated, whose hand is too unsteady to print clearly. Most troublingly, the letter names the 21st, just before the killing. The inspector calls the coincidence suspicious and asks whether Alice’s niece, Mary Drower, can help identify the sender. He had been prepared to blame Ascher, but the letter forces the investigation to consider “A B C” as a separate and unexplained presence.

Witnesses, coordination, and public attention

Inspector Glen’s effort to establish who entered the tobacco shop exposes the limits of witness accounts. People report numerous supposed strangers, ranging from tall men with furtive expressions to short men with moustaches, bearded men, and fat men. The abundance of contradictory descriptions gives the investigators no dependable identification and makes the inquiry as much a problem of sorting testimony as collecting it.

As the murders are grouped together, the investigation expands beyond Andover. At a conference attended by senior officers from Sussex and the Criminal Investigation Department, Japp, Glen, and Dr Thompson, the authorities compare evidence from the warnings; they establish that two letters are in the same hand. The postmark on one is Hampstead, though Poirot considers that detail of little importance. The case also becomes a national spectacle. Scotland Yard believes extensive publicity offers the best chance of catching the murderer, and the public takes up amateur investigation. Newspapers publish purported clues, photographs, and interviews; the Daily Flicker urges readers to expect that the suspect may be in their town. Poirot’s letters are reproduced, and the press both attacks and defends him.

From local inquiry to a coordinated operation

The later warning for Doncaster shows how far the response has changed since the first warning was dismissed. Inspector Crome says the date, the 11th, gives the authorities time to mount a publicity campaign. Doncaster is to be warned, people whose names begin with D are urged to take care, and police from across England are to be sent into the town. The plan depends on making the threatened pattern widely known and placing both officers and civilians on alert.

Even extensive communication does not guarantee that anyone will identify the suspect. During the inquiry into a man seen crossing a yard, Crome learns that the figure had no bag or suitcase. The small detail offers a possible lead, but neither he nor the chief constable is optimistic. The sequence of investigations reveals the tension at the heart of the police response: warnings can organize a large protective effort, yet the murderer’s design manipulates what the authorities and public watch for. Poirot later explains that the series draws attention to the linked crimes as a whole, making an individual murder less conspicuous within the pattern. Andover police’s work thus begins with a local killing and a suspect close to the victim, but becomes part of a wider contest over how the crimes are classified, publicized, and connected.