Oh yes! Welcome to the forums, rjm49; you've hit on a common question, and indeed there is an answer.Well, actually, there's an answer if you mean
Cigars of the Pharaoh rather than
Crab with the Golden Claws... ;-)
The potted history is thus: the books, when brought to foreign markets, tended not to be translated in publication order.
The first attempt at English was in 1952 (amongst other languages), when Casterman chose
Ottokar,
Unicorn and
Red Rackham to break into the international market. In English
Ottokar was serialized in the
Eagle comic, and the other two were released as books: the experiment was not a success, and the series foundered.
Moving along to 1958, and Methuen stepped in, and took on the series. It was a gamble: the lack of success of the earlier attempt made the endeavour risky, and there was no established habit of comics appearing as what amounted to what we'd call graphic novels - there were comic annuals, of course - such as the
Eagle,
Beano,
Dandy, etc. had, but these had a distinct shelf-life, and were really glorified periodicals.
It is not clear who decided what books came out when - it might have been controlled by Casterman, it might have been the decision of the regional publishers, it might even have been at the behest of Hergé - but it was decided to give the series a second chance, again focusing on what were seen as the stronger titles.
Soviets was by then out of circulation (this
was at Hergé's request*);
Congo was seen as problematic, as was
Blue Lotus, so it appears that
Cigars wasn't looked on as a contender for publication at this time either, being thought of as a companion piece to
Lotus.
So, anyway, the books started being translated: with the full series not available, and the possibility that each new title might be the last if the 1952 experience were to be repeated, emphasis was placed upon introducing what were seen as the strongest books first - to establish the series - and on making the internal continuity fit the order in which the books were being brought out.
After a while (as I mentioned
here) a means of getting
Cigars into the series without the need for
Lotus was worked out, and that too became available (in its revised 1955 re-drawn version).
Therefore, when Snowy makes his remark, Marlinspike
was already in the series, because
Red Rackham was one of the first books to be translated, and thus "pre-dated"
Cigars.
In some ways this actually was a benefit, because - following the re-vamp of its content - it was clearly drawn in a more modern style than the chronologically early books with which it had once rubbed shoulders, and also now included the otherwise anachronistic depiction of the cover of
Destination Moon, placed there by Hergé to promote that book.
By making it textually a later book than
Rackham and
Destination Moon those problems that the new-style art and
Moon book causes to the time-line are smoothed over to an extent.
*No it wasn't! While that might have been the best interpretation available when this was originally written, more recent research (in the run up to the colour edition of
Soviets) proves conclusively that, not only did Hergé repeatedly request Casterman to re-release
Soviets over the years, he even threatened to take it to another publisher if they didn't. It was only the fact that the original plates were damaged, and the artwork mislaid which thwarted him, and prevented him reworking the book for colour himself. He was delighted when Casterman produced a limited run for him in 1969, and the rediscovery of the artwork paved the way for the book being released in facsimile.