In the foreword to the short story collection The Labours of Hercules, Dr. Burton is a classical scholar and an acquaintance of Hercule Poirot. Dr. Burton is a fellow of All Souls, and has an interest in names. He asks Poirot how he got his name, Hercule/Hercules. He has also heard that Poirot has a brother named Achille, and imagines their mother sitting with the mother of Mycroft and Sherlock Holmes.
Dr. Burton has several goddaughters who he thinks are wrongly named:
- Blanche is “dark as a gypsy!”
- Deirdre is “merry as a grig”
- Patience “might as well have been named Impatience”
- Diana is fifteen and already weighs twelve stone. Her parents wanted to name her Helen.
Dr. Burton is described as being plump and untidy, with a "thatch of white hair" and a "rubicund and benign countenance". He has a "deep wheezy chuckle", and a habit of "covering himself and everything round him with tobacco ash". This happens even though Poirot surrounds him with ashtrays.
Dr. Burton expresses the opinion that it is not one's working hours that are important, but one's leisure hours. He asks Poirot what he will do with his leisure hours when he retires, and suggests that reading will be more enjoyable than cultivating vegetable marrows. He also expresses the opinion that Poirot will not retire, because he is too interested in his work.