Captain Black

In the short story The Tragedy at Marsdon Manor, Captain Black was a friend of the Maltravers family. He visited the Maltravers at Marsdon Manor the day before Mr Maltravers died. Captain Black was a soldier and he had just returned from several years in East Africa. Over dinner the night before Maltravers' death, he chatted about his experiences in East Africa. He recalled that Maltravers asked a lot of questions about East Africa and he told them several yarns.

Poirot persuaded Black to play a word association game and from his responses, Poirot surmised that one of the East Africa stories Black had told was about the suicide of a farmer in Uganda. Poirot was able to form a hypothesis about how Mr Maltravers had been killed.

Portrayals
Captain Black was played by Alastair Duncan in the film adaptation of The Tragedy at Marsdon Manor in Series 3 of ITV's Agatha Christie's Poirot. His role was greatly expanded. In the adaptation, he was also depicted as being in love with Mrs Maltravers. The suicide of the East African farmer was not conveyed as a yarn over dinner but was a report in a newspaper. Black had used the newspaper as a wrapper for a present which he had bought for Mrs Maltravers and she had read the story from there. There is one instance in the dialogue where Captain Black is addressed by the first name "Andrew".