character in the Masque from Italy sequence of poems in her 1925 collection The Road of Dreams (reprinted in 1973 in Poems), and in her first-ever published magazine short story The Affair at the Victory Ball (1923) (here, in the Commedia dell'arte version of the characters), published in book form in the US collection The Under Dog and Other Stories (1951) and in the UK in Poirot's Early Cases (1974). In The Mysterious Mr Quin, several impressions are given to the reader, through Satterthwaite's almost subconscious thoughts, of the connection between the appearance of Quin and the traditional costume of Harlequin, the latter being a dark mask and clothing composed of multi-coloured diamond-shapes, as featured on the cover of the UK first edition of the book (see image above). In The Coming of Mr Quin, Quin is first described in the following passage: "Framed in the doorway stood a man's figure, tall and slender. To Mr Satterthwaite, watching, he appeared by some curious effect of the stained glass above the door, to be dressed in every colour of the rainbow. Then, as he stepped forward, he showed himself to be a thin dark man dressed in motoring clothes." Later in the same story, the mask effect is described thus: "Mr Quin acknowledged the introductions, and dropped into the chair that Evesham had hospitably pulled forward. As he sat, some effect of the firelight threw a bar of shadow across his face which gave almost the impression of a mask." In The Shadow on the Glass, the literary effect is repeated as follows: "Mr Quin sat down. The red‐shaded lamp threw a broad band of coloured light over the checked pattern of his overcoat, and left his face in shadow almost as though he wore a mask." In The Sign in the Sky, the description is: "[The table] was already occupied by a tall dark man who sat with his face in shadow, and with a play of colour from a stained window turning his sober garb into a kind of riotous motley." The Soul of the Croupier ends with the sentence, "Mr Quin smiled, and a stained glass panel behind him invested him for just a moment in a motley garment of coloured light..." In The Bird with the Broken Wing, the doomed Mabelle Annesley says, "I was out in the woods late this afternoon, and I met a man