Patience Grace

In the short story The Horses of Diomedes, Mrs Patience Grace is the owner of a house at 17 Conningby Mews in London. During a wild party there involving alcohol and drugs, Patience, high on cocaine, had had a violent quarrel with her boyfriend Anthony Hawker whom she suspcted of wanting to run out on her. She shot at him through the window but missed and accidentally hit a passing vagrant. This resulted in Dr Michael Stoddart being called in to attend to the injured man. In turn, Stoddart summoned Poirot.

According to Stoddart, Patience Grace, despite the name, had nothing old-world or charming about her. She was good-looking in a tough sort of way but was "as hard-boiled as they make them." She had already had two husbands. Poirot only saw her once, when she was semi-conscious from a drug induced hysteria. He observed that she had "unnaturally blonde hair and a vacant, vicious face."