Dr Michael Stoddart

In the short story The Horses of Diomedes, Dr Michael Stoddart is a young physician and friend of Hercule Poirot. Late at night, he called Poirot and asked him to come to a house at Conningby Mews where a wild party involving alcohol and drugs had been taking place. The owner of the house, Patience Grace, while high on drugs, had had a violent quarrel with her boyfriend Anthony Hawker and had shot at him through the window and had accidentally injured a passing vagrant. Stoddart had been called to attend to him. However, Stoddart§s true reason for calling on Poirot to help was his concern for a guest at the party, a young girl named Sheila Grant. He was interested in her after having met her at a hunt ball in Mertonshire. Now he was worried that she had been mixing in bad company and was starting to take cocaine.