This post is part of my 2016 Poirot Project. You can read the full story of why I’m doing this in my Introduction post. The previous post was a review of ‘Double Sin’.


The seventh episode of the second series of Agatha Christie’s Poirot was first broadcast on 18th February 1990. It was based on the short story of the same name, which was published in The Sketch in May 1923.

In this story, we find our detective confronted by a peculiar puzzle. A redhead has received an offer that, while not completely impossible, seems too good to be true. Our sleuth is intrigued and begins to investigate these curious circumstances, quickly discovering that all is not what it seems.

Hang on… this sounds awfully familiar…

I must confess, I’d never noticed any similarity between ‘The Adventure of the Cheap Flat’ and Arthur Conan Doyle’s ‘The Red-Headed League’ until I reread it for this project. But after spotting the cheeky references in other Sketch stories to ‘The Man with the Twisted Lip’ (‘The Lost Mine’ and ‘The Disappearance of Mr Davenheim’) and ‘The Speckled Band’ (‘The Veiled Lady’) – and no doubt there are more that I’ve not spotted (it’s been ages since I read a Sherlock Holmes story) – I suddenly realized that the set-up of Christie’s ‘The Adventure of the Cheap Flat’ is the same as in Doyle’s 1891 short story. I decided to take another look at Doyle’s story to see if the similarity went any further, and sure enough I was immediately convinced that it’s not a coincidence.

‘The Red-Headed League’ begins with Watson paying a call on his detective friend. He finds Holmes deep in conversation with a new client, but the detective invites Watson to join the conversation, saying:

‘I know, my dear Watson, that you share my love of all that is bizarre and outside the conventions and humdrum routine of everyday life. You have shown your relish for it by the enthusiasm which has prompted you to chronicle, and, if you will excuse my saying so, somewhat to embellish so many of my own little adventures.’

‘The Adventure of the Cheap Flat’, which is narrated by Hastings, begins with the following statement:

‘So far, in the cases which I have recorded, Poirot’s investigations have started from the central fact, whether murder or robbery, and have proceeded from thence by a process of logical deduction to the final triumphant unravelling. In the events I am now about to chronicle a remarkable chain of circumstances led from the apparently trivial incidents which first attracted Poirot’s attention to the sinister happenings which completed a most unusual case.’

This is one of only a few occasions where Hastings refers to himself as Poirot’s ‘chronicler’ (for whom are these chronicles intended? is Hastings planning to publish them? I’ll come back to these questions in a later post) – and it’s this role that links him most explicitly to Dr Watson.

There are more similarities here… Holmes comments on the ‘humdrum routine of everyday life’ and ‘the bizarre’; Hastings speaks of ‘apparently trivial incidents’ and ‘a most unusual case’. It’s enough to convince me that this is another of Christie’s playful references to her illustrious predecessor.

But it is definitely a playful reference. In Christie’s short story, the ‘florid-faced elderly gentleman, with fiery red hair’ is replaced with Mrs Robinson, a ‘charming little bride’ whose ‘hair’s really a beautiful shade of auburn’ (‘Always you have had a penchant for auburn hair!’ murmured Poirot.) And Mrs Robinson hasn’t been offered a suspiciously well-paid clerical job, but rather has secured (with her husband) a ‘beautifully furnished’ serviced apartment in Montagu Mansions, off Knightsbridge, for the curiously low sum of £80 per year. As soon as Poirot hears of this low rent, he’s hooked (just as Holmes was hooked as soon as he ‘heard of the assistant having come for half wages’).

Outside of this jokey homage to Doyle, ‘The Adventure of the Cheap Flat’ is a delightful story and is on my list of favourite Poirot short stories (which, admittedly, is quite long). It begins with a brief glimpse of Hastings out on his own without Poirot. It is Hastings who first meets the Robinsons – he’s at a party thrown by his friend Parker – and it is Hastings who is first urged to explain the puzzle. Parker describes Hastings as their ‘criminal expert’ and ‘a great unraveller of mysteries’, which reminds us of Hastings’s aspirations to be a detective in The Mysterious Affair at Styles and his attempts to take on a case in ‘The Adventure of the Western Star’ (which was published before but adapted after ‘The Adventure of the Cheap Flat’, so I’ll be coming to that one later).

Encouraged by Parker, the Robinsons explain that they discovered a flat listed at way below market price. They arranged to view the property, but were met on the stairs by a friend who had just been told the flat was already let. The couple decided to try their luck – even suggesting they might offer the landlord ‘a premium’ to gazump the other prospective tenants. To their surprise, however, they aren’t turned away from the flat. As soon as they give their names, they are invited in and shown around. Hastings is asked to explain the curious circumstances, which he does with a casual confidence:

‘“‘Obvious, my dear Watson,’” I quoted lightly. “She went to the wrong flat.”
“Oh, Captain Hastings, how clever of you!” cried Mrs Robinson admiringly.
I rather wished Poirot had been there. Sometimes I have the feeling that he rather underestimates my capabilities.’

Sadly, though, Poirot isn’t particularly impressed. He is certain that there’s more to the case, and takes a flat in Montagu Mansions in order to investigate further. What he discovers is a transatlantic intrigue, involving stolen naval plans (to be sold to the Japanese), a Mafia hitman named Luigi Valdarno, an international spy named Elsa Hardt and the United States Secret Service. While Poirot conducts his undercover investigations in the Knightsbridge flats, Inspector Japp (who is working with Agent Burt of the US Secret Service) fills him in on the background details. Poor Hastings is left thoroughly confounded.

Interesingly – and, again, this isn’t something I picked up on until I reread the story for this project – the apprehension of the culprits in ‘The Adventure of the Cheap Flat’ has a very Holmes/Watson flavour. Unusually, Poirot plays an active role in doing this. He instructs Hastings that they will be conducting an ‘all-night vigil’ in Montagu Mansions and – also very unusually – asks Hastings to come ‘armed with that excellent revolver’ (and this change of pace clearly appeals to Hastings, as he is ‘slightly thrilled’ when Poirot asks if he has a gun). This surely reminds us of ‘The Red-Headed League’, which also culminates in an ‘all-night vigil’ in order to apprehend the culprits, and in which Holmes asks Watson to ‘kindly put [his] army revolver in [his] pocket’.

In a more action-packed denouement than we’re used to, Poirot and Hastings are confronted by Valdarno:

‘We sprang together, Poirot with a quick movement enveloped the intruder’s head with a light woollen scarf whilst I pinioned his arms.’

In a shock twist, Valdarno is able to gain control of Hastings’s revolver, and attempts to shoot Elsa Hardt. However, as he pulls the trigger, the gun simply clicks harmlessly. It turns out that Poirot really isn’t as comfortable with firearms as Holmes is:

‘Never will you trust your old friend, Hastings. I do not care for my friends to carry loaded pistols about with them and never would I permit a mere acquaintance to do so.’

With the reveal of the unloaded gun, we move back into ‘classic’ Poirot territory, with the detective explaining everything to his colleague, before, in a final flourish, he jovially presents the stolen naval plans (concealed in a stuffed cat telephone cover) to Japp by sticking the toy’s head around the door and shouting ‘Miaow’: ‘Oh, it’s only Monsieur Poirot at one of his little jokes!’ says Japp. (I can’t imagine Sherlock Holmes messing about with Lestrade like this.)


The TV episode was written by Russell Murray and directed by Richard Spence. It’s a fairly close adaptation, with just a few changes that aren’t really surprising in the context of the series generally.

The episode begins with Poirot, Hastings and Japp at the pictures, watching a gangster film. Hastings and Japp are clearly loving the film, but Poirot winces and screws up his eyes every time a gunshot is heard. This is a nice touch – it’s not inconceivable, after ‘The Market Basing Mystery’, to imagine Christie’s characters hanging out like this, but it seems even more fitting for the TV characters, particularly after their night out at the magic show in ‘The Disappearance of Mr Davenheim’. Moreover, it gives us a hint of the significance of a line from later in the short story, which is retained in the adaptation, when Poirot claims that the story of Elsa Hardt and Luigi Valdarno will remind Hastings of his ‘favourite cinema’. And, of course, it sets up Poirot’s dislike of guns.

After the film, Japp explains that he is working with the FBI on a ‘spy case’, and that he will be liaising with Agent Burt on the case. This reverses the order in which information is presented: in the short story, we meet the Robinsons before we hear a single thing about spies, but here we know that the FBI are in town before we meet the house-hunting couple.


In the episode, we see Mr and Mrs Robinson (played by John Michie and Samantha Bond) arriving at Montagu Mansions to view the flat, rather than hearing about it in retrospect. All the references to Mrs Robinson’s auburn hair are removed – the TV series is actually less concerned with Hastings’s penchant than Christie’s short stories – and she’s more confident than the ‘charming little bride’ of the source text. I don’t care, though, because Mrs Robinson is played by Samantha Bond, which means I’m inclined to be very fond of her. This isn’t because Samantha Bond was Miss Moneypenny, but because she played one of my favourite Agatha Christie characters of all time.


Julia Simmons is a character from A Murder is Announced (a Miss Marple novel), and Bond played her in the 1985 BBC adaptation (surely the only adaptation that counts). As a kid (and I was only seven when A Murder is Announced was first broadcast, though I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen it since), I was utterly entranced by the ‘Pip and Emma’ puzzle in this Miss Marple story. I thought it was the cleverest puzzle I’d ever seen – and it is pretty slick, and absolutely classic Christie – and it still has a very special place in my heart. So, since she played the ‘Emma’ half of the conundrum, I’ll always be fond of Samantha Bond. Oh, and Julia Simmons has some awesome lines as well: ‘If I had shot at you, Letitia Blacklock, I wouldn’t have missed.’

But back to Poirot… in the TV episode, both Poirot and Hastings attend Parker’s party and hear the story of the cheap flat. Again, Hastings is called on to explain it, and again he says that the previous visitor must have inadvertently called at the wrong flat. The episode somewhat redeems Hastings, though, as he later tells Poirot that he doesn’t really believe this: he was being tactful, as he’s actually convinced that the Robinsons have overlooked a clause in their contract. (This is a slightly more astute Hastings than the one in Christie’s fiction!)

Japp’s dealings with Agent Burt of the FBI are handled in more detail than in the short story. Burt (played by William Hootkins) is an overbearing and very ‘American’ character, who commandeers Japp’s office and calls the policeman ‘Jim’ (and also calls Poirot a ‘gumshoe’). The ‘spy case’ once again revolves around stolen naval plans, though they have been stolen specifically for ‘Il Duce’ here. Burt refuses to believe that the Mafia are involved; in fact, he refuses to believe that the Mafia exists at all. He’s also reluctant to investigate Japp-and-Poirot style, and is keen to have as many firearms involved as possible. In the final showdown, Japp actually takes Burt’s gun away from him, revealing that Poirot isn’t the only investigator who’s uncomfortable about a shootout.

As well as the expansion of Burt’s character, the TV adaptation also makes some changes to the ‘Mafia’ backstory – though these aren’t a huge deviation from the source text. The woman at the heart of the case is now named Carla Romero (played by Jenifer Landor), and she is known as ‘la femme fatale who dared to double-cross the Mafia’. She is hiding out in England as Elsa Hart (not ‘Hardt’ anymore) and performing as a nightclub chanteuse (or shan-toozy, as Burt pronounces it). We are given a flashback to a charmingly artificial New York nightclub to narrate the events that have led to Carla’s betrayal of the Mafia, which cements the idea that this is something that would happen in ‘your favourite cinema’.

The tracking down of Carla Romero to a London nightclub allows another character to play a part in the investigation. While Poirot is unable to find out much about ‘Elsa Hart’, he has an associate who might have more success. It’s time for Miss Lemon to go undercover!


Posing as Penelope Maitland of The Lady’s Companion, Miss Lemon is able to infiltrate the shifty nightclub in which ‘Elsa’ is singing – though not before fending off the advances of Bernie Cole (Nick Maloney), the sleazy impresario who runs the place. (Interestingly, this impresario describes himself as ‘the King of the Clubs’, which may well be a reference to the pun that was dropped from ‘The King of Clubs’, when Henry Reedburn was transformed from an impresario to a film producer).

I love Undercover Miss Lemon, as she reveals way more of a talent for detective work than Hastings ever does. Not only is she able to coax ‘Elsa Hart’ into revealing certain facts about her stay in London, she also notes the significance of a number of clues that reveal the holes the woman’s story. Still, I can understand why Poirot only sends Miss Lemon out into the field sparingly – she might be the better sleuth, but can you imagine if the filing system was left to Hastings?

All in all, ‘The Adventure of the Cheap Flat’ is a solid adaptation of a very enjoyable short story. From the ‘trivial’ beginning, it grows into a transatlantic gangster story with military implications (and the specific mention of ‘Il Duce’ makes it clear how serious the espionage really is).

A couple of highlights to finish…

I’ve mentioned several times that this series is definitively set in 1935, and the programme-makers use various details to subtly fix this setting. There are three such details (and one possible goof) in this episode, and I think they are among the best used.

The film that Poirot, Hastings and Japp are watching at the pictures is the James Cagney film ‘G’ Men, set during the early days of the FBI and released in 1935. The sheet music that Miss Lemon spots in Carla Romero’s dressing-room, which reveals that Carla has been in the States that year, is ‘Lullaby of Broadway’ by Harry Warren and Al Dubin (published in 1935). And when Bernie Cole claims that Elsa Hart is Canadian, he says ‘like those Dionne quintuplets’ (who were born in 1934, but were moved into the Dafoe hospital in 1935).

The possible goof comes when Poirot makes enquiries at the police records office. He asks the records agent (played by Gordon Wharmby) if there have been any unsolved crimes in which the suspects were a husband and wife couple. The agent says that there haven’t been, but then adds: ‘There’s that Bonnie and Clyde, of course. But they’re at large somewhere in the American Midwest.’ Given that Bonnie and Clyde were killed in May 1934, I can’t quite work out what this line is all about. Either it’s an accidental error on the part of the scriptwriter, or it’s a joke suggesting that the records officer isn’t particularly up-to-date with the news from America (or that he’s bought into some conspiracy theory that Bonnie and Clyde actually escaped). However you read it, it’s a bit jarring, especially after the classiness of the ‘Lullaby of Broadway’ reference.


Amidst all the G-men and femme fatales, it’s nice to see Poirot being Poirot at various points in the episode. As in the short story, the detective takes a flat in the Robinsons’ building in order to investigate them further. I love the beautifully presented toolkit that he uses to rig their lock – but I love Hastings’s attempts to distract the Robinsons more (‘Should I use badger hair, or will an ordinary brush do the trick?’). And there’s some pretty quick thinking from Hastings when his associate is nearly rumbled. (As an aside, in the short story, Poirot has to explain how it is possible to ‘descend after the method of the dustbins’ to Hastings, as this is the first short story in which such a method is used. In the TV episode, there’s no need for him to explain this, as the events of ‘The Third Floor Flat’ have already taken place, and Hastings, though not present in the 1929 short story, was added to the TV version of this mystery. It seems the dustbin lifts in serviced apartments were open to all sorts of abuse!)

So to finish, I stand by my initial assessment that ‘The Adventure of the Cheap Flat’ is a playful riff on Arthur Conan Doyle’s ‘The Red-Headed League’, but what Christie creates is a thoroughly modern take on the ‘trivial incidents’ that kick off the Holmes adventure. With its mansion flats and Mafioso hitmen, Christie’s story shakes off the late Victorian concerns of Doyle’s tale and turns it into something that’s pure 1920s. The TV adaptation seamlessly shifts us into 1935, while still retaining the plot and much of the characterization of the source, leaving us with an episode that’s a lot of fun to watch.

Time to move on, then, to ‘The Kidnapped Prime Minister’

This post is part of my 2016 Poirot Project. You can read the full story of why I’m doing this in my Introduction post. The previous post was a review of ‘The Adventure of the Cheap Flat’.


The eighth episode of the second series of Agatha Christie’s Poirot was first broadcast on 25th February 1990, and it was based on the short story of the same name.

‘The Kidnapped Prime Minister’ was first published in The Sketch in April 1923. Although it was the eighth Poirot short story to appear (it was published the week after ‘The Tragedy at Marsdon Manor’), it’s actually set before the others – the story takes place shortly after the events of The Mysterious Affair at Styles. There is a reference to the events of ‘The Kidnapped Prime Minister’ in one of the other Sketch stories; in ‘The Submarine Plans’, Lord Alloway is tipped to replace David MacAdam as prime minister, and he refers to the reputation Poirot acquired as a result of his rescue of MacAdam towards the end of WWI. (In the revised version of the story, ‘The Incredible Theft’, in which MacAdam is replaced by Mr Hunberly and the events take place later in Poirot’s career, this reference is dropped.)

Reading the stories in the order in which they were published, ‘The Kidnapped Prime Minister’ appears as a sort of sequel to Styles– the great detective has solved his first country house murder, but this is the case that will cement his new position in London. However, if you read the stories in the order in which they were adapted (as I’ve done here), it appears as a flashback that fleshes out a casual comment in ‘The Submarine Plans’. Either way works, as the important thing about this story is that it’s an early step in Poirot’s London career, and one that will bring him to the attention of ‘the great and the good’.


And this is a really significant detail. While it’s fairly well-known that Christie was inspired to create her Belgian detective after coming into contact with Belgian refugees in Torquay, what is less well-known is that the majority of these refugees didn’t enjoy the fame and fortune of their fictional counterpart.* Recent research has shown that, while the 250,000 ‘plucky’ Belgian refugees who sought shelter in the UK during 1914-18 were initially welcomed, this welcome began to wane as money ran out and the war didn’t end by Christmas. As people struggled for housing, employment, running water and fresh food, the purpose-built villages (like Elisabethville in Tyne and Wear, which was built to house 6000 Belgian refugees) began to be a cause for resentment. At the end of the war, when additional housing, hospitals and employment were needed for returning soldiers, many Belgians found their contracts and leases terminated, and the government even offered them a time-limited one-way ticket back to Belgium to make the point clearer. By mid-1919, nearly 90% of the refugees had returned to Belgium.

So why did Poirot stay? And why was it so easy for him to stay?

The answer to the first question is tricky. Poirot had a good career in Belgium and appears to have no ties to the UK when he arrives as a refugee in Styles. However, although the detective is full of complaints about his adopted home (the food, the beds, the countryside, the golf, etc.), he also seems to be a bit of an Anglophile on the sly. He genuinely enjoys a number of ‘English’ activities – like his very English weekend break with Hastings and Japp in ‘The Market Basing Mystery’ and (until the murder) his marrow-growing retirement in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd– and the fondness he has for his English friends (and not just Japp and Hastings) is a driving force in the narratives. And, let’s not forget, in ‘The Third Floor Flat’, Poirot wistfully confesses that he was once in love with an English girl. All this suggests that, continental horreur aside, Poirot very much enjoys his new home.

The answer to the second question is much easier: there’s no pressure on Poirot to leave Britain at the end of the war, as by then he has rescued the prime minister from a kidnapping plot.

The opening of ‘The Kidnapped Prime Minister’ serves both to fill in the gap between the events of Styles (c.1916) and the events of the Sketch short stories (presumably c.1923), and to point forward to the illustrious (second) career upon which Poirot is about to embark. As with all the early stories, our narrator is Hastings, who explains that he was given a recruiting job after being invalided out of the army. Poirot is now living in rooms in London, and Hastings has started to call on him regularly in the evenings to ‘talk with him of any cases of interest that he might have had on hand’.

Unusually, Hastings begins his narration with a rather impassioned explanation of why he has decided to tell this particular tale – though, as usual, there is no indication of who he is telling it to:

‘Now that war and the problems of war are things of the past, I think I may safely venture to reveal to the world the part which my friend Poirot played in a moment of national crisis. The secret has been well guarded. Not a whisper of it reached the Press. But, now that the need for secrecy has gone by, I feel it is only just that England should know the debt it owes to my quaint little friend, whose marvellous brain so ably averted a great catastrophe.’

This is quite a charming opening, as it sets Hastings up as the guardian of his friend’s reputation: he thinks it’s ‘only just’ that the world learns that Poirot is more than a ‘quaint little friend’.

Hastings then sets up the story as happening towards the end of WWI, when Poirot was operating as a private detective (no doubt cashing in on his success in the Styles case). The little Belgian detective’s cases are relatively mundane at this point, as he explains to his friend:

‘I assist a – how do you call it? – “charlady” to find her husband. A difficult affair, needing the tact. For I have a little idea that when he is found he will not be pleased. What would you? For my part, I sympathize with him. He was a man of discretion to lose himself.’

This little glimpse into Poirot’s early London career is particularly amusing when you consider ‘The Adventure of the Clapham Cook’ (published in November 1923). In this later story, the detective disdains being employed to find a domestic servant, but before he establishes himself he is actually employed by domestic servants.

All this domestic mundanity is swept to one side as Poirot’s landlady announces the arrival of two men who have called to see the detective. (Once again, I don’t know why she does this… she’s his landlady, not his housekeeper.) The gentlemen in question are Lord Estair, Leader of the House of Commons, and Mr Bernard Dodge, a member of the War Cabinet, and they need Poirot’s help with a matter of national emergency: the prime minister has been kidnapped!

Now, if the incongruity of two such illustrious personages requesting help from a foreign private eye with a good line in tracking down absconding husbands escapes the reader, it certainly doesn’t escape Poirot:

‘What made you come to me? I am unknown, obscure in this great London of yours.’

Turns out, Poirot has been recommended by someone ‘whose word was once law in Belgium’. Given the automatic salute Poirot gives on hearing this, we can guess who that person might be. On the word of his esteemed ‘master’, the British government have decided to entrust this most sensitive of cases to Poirot.

While the set-up and introduction to the story is interesting in terms of the broader presentation of Poirot’s (and Hastings’s) character, the case itself isn’t one of my favourites. The ‘twist’ is too easy to spot, and there aren’t enough suspects to create an intriguing puzzle. The prime minister set off for a conference in Paris, but after leaving Boulogne, his car was switched with a ‘bogus’ car and driver. The prime minister’s real car was discovered at the side of the road with the chauffeur tied up and the PM nowhere to be seen. The only suspects are Captain Daniels, one of the prime minister’s secretaries, and the chauffeur himself, an Irishman named O’Murphy. Poirot has just twenty-four (and a quarter) hours to rescue the prime minister before the conference goes ahead – and the men fear that, without David MacAdam, the conference will agree to ‘Peace by Negotiation’ and a premature end to the conflict in Europe (more on that below).

Of course, Poirot solves the case. He recognizes the ruse that has been pulled, exonerating O’Murphy and getting MacAdam to the aerodrome just in time to fly to France for the conference. The British government owe him a deep debt of gratitude.


Ah… now to the adaptation…

While Christie’s story is set during the early days of Poirot’s residence in London, the ITV adaptation (directed by Andrew Grieve and written by Clive Exton) is moved into the continuous timeframe of the early TV series. Thus, the events are moved to 1935 and appear to follow such cases as ‘The Adventure of the Cheap Flat’ and ‘Double Sin’, rather than The Mysterious Affair at Styles. There’s no question in the episode as to why Poirot would be consulted on the case: after all, this is the man who has (twice) helped the royal family of Maurania, worked with Scotland Yard to foil murderers, kidnappers and Mafia hitmen, and has been lauded by Inspector Japp as ‘the most extraordinary of private detectives’ and a ‘doyen of the Belgian police force’. In the TV version, saving the prime minister isn’t Poirot’s big break, it’s just another day at the office.

This isn’t the only change that the move to 1935 (and 1990) necessitates. In Christie’s original story, the ‘national crisis’ concerned the negotiations to end WWI. David MacAdam is on his way to Paris to prevent premature peace in Europe – something that Hastings describes as the ‘parrot-cry of England’s enemies’. While Christie’s short story is based on historical circumstance – there were a number of failed peace initiatives throughout WWI, with British politicians (including then prime minister David Lloyd George) opposing them in expectation of military victory and resistance to offering colonial concessions to Germany – this facet of WWI history is not particularly well-known to modern audiences, and may seem somewhat unpalatable. Having a man like Hastings, who was disabled fighting at the Front, cheering on the prospect of further military conflict might not have sat very well with viewers in 1990 (or today, for that matter).

Moreover, the ITV series is set, not towards the end of the ‘war to end all wars’, but at the brink of the deadliest conflict in human history – the motivation behind the abduction of the PM needed to be changed to reflect this altered setting.


Interestingly, while other episodes in these early series make reference to growing military threat from Germany and Italy, ‘The Kidnapped Prime Minister’ draws on conflict of a different kind. Taking its cue from a throwaway line in Christie’s short story – when suspicion is thrown on O’Murphy, Poirot is told that the chauffeur is an Irishman and, more significantly, he comes from County Clare (‘Tiens!’). This allusion hints at the approach of the Irish War of Independence, with the mention of Clare in particular perhaps evoking the election of Éamon de Valera as MP for East Clare and president of Sinn Féin in 1917 and the fact that County Clare was placed under martial law by the British in 1919.

The spectre of ‘County Clare’ is a red herring in Christie’s story. As elsewhere in her work, the suspicious ‘other’ turns out to be innocent, and the ‘good Englishman’ turns out to be guilty. Like the prime minister, O’Murphy is a victim of Captain Daniels, the suspiciously linguistic Englishman who is league with the Germans. However, Christie’s red herring becomes the basis for Exton’s 1935-set tale, with some interesting implications.

The first clear alteration to the source story is the introduction of Daniels’s (ex-)wife (played by Lisa Harrow). Despite seemingly estranged from her husband, whose political views she describes as ‘torpid’, this woman is of immediate interest to Poirot. He learns that her maiden name is Donohue, and that she is the daughter of the Earl of Connemara. Immediately, this suggests a link between Mrs Daniels and the prime minister’s chauffeur (played here by Jack Elliott), who is renamed Egan but is still from County Clare.

An early comment about Commander Daniels’s (David Horovitch) background gives a further hint as to the underlying motivations of the kidnappers. The commander’s father, we are told, suffered political humiliation as he was vehemently ‘opposed to Asquith on the Home Rule Bill’. While Exton’s adaptation is careful not to join the dots too obviously for the audience, the significance of this family history isn’t lost on Poirot. After interviewing Daniels for the first time, Poirot takes his leave with an ominous ‘Éirinn go Brách’. The man pretends not to understand, but the point is made.

The actual kidnapping of the prime minister (still Christie’s fictional MacAdam) follows pretty similar lines to that in the source text. The prime minister is due to attend a UN summit to prevent German rearmament, but is abducted prior to leaving England and substituted with a double, and a fake kidnapping is staged in France. However, while Christie’s story gives the kidnapper a fairly straightforward motivation (he’s working with the Germans), Exton’s adaptation muddies the water a little. Commander and Mrs Daniels, along with their accomplice Egan (who, unlike O’Murphy, is not exonerated) aren’t simply German collaborators. Rather, the kidnappers are working on the basis that ‘my enemy’s enemy is my friend’, and that preventing the prime minister’s appearance at the UN summit is a direct act against Britain (rather than for Germany). When Poirot foils their plan, Mrs Daniels chooses to take her life – very defiantly – with a final call of ‘Éirinn go Brách’, rather than face capture by the British police.


At first glance then, it seems that Exton’s adaptation takes the ‘Irishmen are dangerous’ red herring from Christie’s text and works it into an actual case of dangerous Irishmen (and women) – after all, Mrs Daniels, her husband and Egan are actively working to allow the rearmament of Germany (and the 90s viewer had enough hindsight to know exactly what that meant) – but it isn’t quite as simple as that.

What I find really interesting in this episode is Poirot’s reaction to Commander and Mrs Daniels. Although Poirot’s initial ‘Éirinn go Brách’ is said (quite darkly) to provoke a reaction from Daniels, there is an undercurrent of understanding in David Suchet’s delivery of the words. But it’s at the death of Mrs Daniels that this understanding moves into something approaching sympathy. Watching the woman’s suicide with a knowing solemnity, Poirot echoes her final words softly as she falls, like a sort of eulogy: ‘Yes. Éirinn go Brách. Ireland forever.’

Poirot’s sympathy here can be explained in three different ways: (1) character development; (2) context; (3) Hannah over-romanticizing and reading way too much into things.

(1) Throughout the series, Suchet’s Poirot reveals an increasingly developed sense of ‘justice’ that transcends both legal and governmental systems. It is completely in-keeping with the character that Poirot would be more attuned to the nuances of Anglo-Irish relations, and would reject knee-jerk patriotism in the face of a nation struggling against the remnants of colonial rule and civil war. As the series progresses, we will see much more of Poirot’s awareness of the shades of grey.

(2) The episode was aired in 1990, some years prior to the Good Friday Agreement. While the story is set in 1935, and deals with the aftermath of the Home Rule Bill, the War of Independence and the Anglo-Irish Economic War, it was inevitable that audiences would link the episode with contemporaneous conflicts in Ireland, Northern Ireland and the UK. By 1990, people in the UK (where the episode was first aired) were slowly beginning to reject jingoistic representations of the Irish as terrorists and were becoming familiar with more nuanced accounts of the historical and political basis for the Troubles (the controversial Death on the Rock documentary was broadcast two years before this episode and the BBC’s complex and morally ambiguous Children of the North was broadcast in 1991). Poirot’s signs of understanding towards Mrs Daniels are a very subtle nod to this increasing sense of complexity and ambiguity.

(3) Or maybe… Poirot’s sympathy has a more personal note to it. Maybe the reference to County Clare means something else to the little Belgian detective. Perhaps he remembers that Lord Inchiquin of County Clare was one of the Southern Irish unionists who opposed the Home Rule Bill and petitioned George V against its ruinous consequences. Perhaps he also remembered that Lord Inchiquin’s wife, Ethel O’Brien, played a major role in housing Belgian refugees in Co. Clare during WWI – being given a medal by the Queen of Belgium in thanks. Romantic an idea as it is, I like to think Poirot is aware of this history and, maybe, feels a lingering sense of solidarity and kinship.

Anyway, this is a very long blog post about an episode that is incongruously serious, and which paves the way for the more morally complex feature-length episodes of later series. Let’s end on a lighter note…


Early in the episode, we find out that Poirot has a personal tailor named Fingler who lives in a rather unprepossessing street in the East End (filmed on Quilter Street, E1). The purpose of this little scene is simply humour, as Poirot complains that his tailor is cutting his suits too small, and Fingler warns his client not to ‘kvetch’. Not only is this a nice foreshadowing of later episodes where Poirot will deny gaining weight, it also offers a little nod to the short story, which has a moment where Hastings watches Poirot remove a grease spot from his suit and notes:

‘Never was there a dandy such as Hercule Poirot.’

Next up: ‘The Adventure of the Western Star’


* UPDATE: I’ve just found out that there is a conference on WWI in Belgium and the Netherlands at QMUL this month, which has a number of papers that look at this very topic. And I found out about the conference on the blog of the Centre for Research on Belgian Refugees, which is dedicated to research into the lives and experiences of Belgian refugees (mainly in the UK during WWI).

This post is part of my 2016 Poirot Project. You can read the full story of why I’m doing this in my Introduction post. The previous post was a review of ‘The Kidnapped Prime Minister’.


The ninth episode of the second series of ITV’s Agatha Christie’s Poirot was first broadcast on 4th March 1990, and it was based on the short story of the same name.

‘The Adventure of the Western Star’ was first published in The Sketch in April 1923, and so is one of the original run of Poirot short stories. As with many of the other Sketch stories, it begins with Poirot and Hastings in full Holmes and Watson mode: Hastings is ‘standing at the window of Poirot’s rooms’, encouraging his friend to make deductions about the scene he witnesses on the street. (Just as an aside: this story is curious in appearing to suggest that Hastings doesn’t live with Poirot. The rooms and landlady are described as ‘Poirot’s’, which contradicts Hastings’s use of ‘our’ in ‘The Disappearance of Mr Davenheim’, published only two weeks earlier. At one point in ‘The Adventure of the Western Star’, Poirot goes out and asks Hastings to stay in the flat until his return, and the wording really implies that Hastings is a guest rather than a flatmate. I’m really starting to suspect that Hastings is a bit of a mooch, and just drifts in and out of Poirot’s lodgings when he’s short of cash.)

Anyway, what Hastings sees on the street is the famous film star Mary Marvell, who is being followed by a ‘bevy of admirers’. It isn’t long before the actress is shown in to Poirot’s rooms (landlady, dear, not housekeeper), and she presents her case to the great detective. Mary Marvell is in possession of a valuable diamond nicknamed ‘The Western Star’, and she has recently received an anonymous letter announcing that it is ‘the left of the god’ and that it ‘must return whence it came’ (she also believes this letter came from a Chinese man – but this turns out to be more red herring than yellow peril).

As Mary Marvell reveals, the diamond has a sibling, which is known as ‘The Star of the East’ and belongs to Lady Yardly of Yardly Chase. Sure enough, it isn’t long before Lady Yardly herself arrives at Poirot’s lodgings to share stories of anonymous letters and threats.

I really like ‘The Adventure of the Western Star’. The mystery is a nice little puzzle with a satisfying twist. Unlike some of the short stories, it doesn’t particularly suffer for having a small cast of characters, as the mystery is more ‘what’s happened’ than ‘whodunit’. But what really makes the story are the nuggets of information we get about Poirot’s career and about the development of his relationship with Hastings.

It’s interesting reading this story immediately after ‘The Kidnapped Prime Minister’ (even though it was actually published earlier), as we can see a distinct shift in Poirot’s position in London. In ‘The Kidnapped Prime Minister’, Poirot modestly proclaims that he is ‘unknown’ and ‘obscure’ in London, having only one reasonably famous case under his belt. But by ‘The Adventure of the Western Star’, all this has changed: Poirot isn’t just famous, he’s fashionable:

‘Oui, my friend, it is true – I am become the mode, the dernier cri! One says to another: “Comment? You have lost your gold pencil-case? You must go to the little Belgian. He is too marvellous! Everyone goes! Courez!” And they arrive! In flocks, mon ami! With problems of the most foolish!’

What’s nice about this story is that it gives some indication of how Poirot’s fame has spread, and the reasons why Mary Marvell and Lady Yardly would consult him. And, interestingly, there are some slight differences in the reasons why the two women have approached the Belgian detective (both on the surface and looking deeper).

Two specific cases are mentioned in relation to Mary Marvell’s visit to see Poirot. The detective reminds Hastings of ‘the case of the dancer, Valerie Saintclair’, and Mary Marvell herself says she was encouraged by the words of Lord Cronshaw, who ‘was telling [her] last night how wonderfully [Poirot] cleared up the mystery of his nephew’s death’. The cases being referenced here are ‘The King of Clubs’ and ‘The Affair at the Victory Ball’, both of which involve the scandalous activities of London’s ‘fashionable society’ (which are, apparently, still being talked about at parties). By contrast, Lady Yardly approaches Poirot on a more personal recommendation: she has been ‘sent’ to Poirot by Mary Cavendish – a reference to The Mysterious Affair at Styles, the first ‘country house’ murder solved by Poirot.* This is a nice touch for fans familiar with the earlier stories, as it subtly indicates the very different spheres in which Mary Marvell and Lady Yardly move.

Another bit of the story that I really like is that we get to see the return of Hastings-the-Detective. In the TV series, we’ve already seen this played for comic effect in ‘The Disappearance of Mr Davenheim’, but it’s also a recurring aspect of Christie’s stories. As I’ll come to very shortly, Hastings is introduced in The Mysterious Affair at Styles as a man harbouring ambitions of detective work, and he seems to have built up a reputation amongst his friends as being a bit of a sleuth in ‘The Adventure of the Cheap Flat’.

In ‘The Adventure of the Western Star’, Poirot accidentally leaves Hastings to deal with Lady Yardly’s first visit… with disastrous consequences. The landlady (who Hastings calls Mrs Murchison, though he still treats her like a housekeeper) shows the woman in, and we get a little insight into Hastings’s reaction:

‘I felt a desire to rise to the occasion. Why not? In Poirot’s presence I have frequently felt a difficulty – I do not appear at my best. And yet there is no doubt that I, too, possess the deductive sense in a marked degree. I leant forward on a sudden impulse.’

Of course, Hastings’s ‘sudden impulse’ leads him to immediately make an almighty blunder:

‘“Lady Yardly,” I said, “I know why have come here. You have received blackmailing letters about the diamond.”’

Hastings’s error here (in giving Lady Yardly the idea of fabricating her own story of blackmail to cover up the truth about her diamond) doesn’t go unnoticed by Poirot. But, with a dastardly blend of arrogance and jest, he decides not to point out the mistake to his friend. He lets Hastings continue believing in the twin diamonds, the ancient curse and the threatening Chinese man until the very end, when he patronizingly explains that the entire thing was a fiction concocted by Lady Yardly (jumping on the idea suggested to her by Hastings) to cover up the fact that she was being blackmailed by her ex-lover (Mary Marvell’s husband).

I’ve talked a lot about Poirot and Hastings’s snarky attitude to one another, but this denouement leads to an actual falling out between the men, with Hastings seriously losing his rag:

‘“It’s all very well,” I said, my anger rising, “but you’ve made a perfect fool of me! From beginning to end! No, it’s all very well to try and explain it away afterwards. There really is a limit!”
“But you were so enjoying yourself, my friend, I had not the heart to shatter your illusions.”
“It’s no good. You’ve gone a bit too far this time.”
“Mon Dieu! but how you enrage yourself for nothing, mon ami!”
“I’m fed up!” I went out, banging the door. Poirot had made an absolute laughing-stock of me. I decided that he needed a sharp lesson. I would let some time elapse before I forgave him. He had encouraged me to make a perfect fool of myself.’

I don’t know which bit of this I like the most: the image of Hastings storming out and banging the door like a petulant teenager; the fact that he doesn’t deny that he will forgive Poirot, but he doesn’t want to do it too quickly; or the fact that, just seven days later, The Sketch published ‘The Tragedy at Marsdon Manor’, which begins with Hastings wandering into their rooms and finding Poirot about to embark on a case – his simple response of ‘What is our plan of campaign?’ suggests that he couldn’t stay mad at his friend for very long.


The TV adaptation of ‘The Adventure of the Western Star’ was written by Clive Exton and directed by Richard Spence. As with most of the early series, Miss Lemon and Japp have been added to the story, though neither of them really have very much to do as the source material was so focused on Poirot and Hastings’s relationship. There are some good Japp moments, particularly when he’s discovered hiding in a bush outside Yardly Chase. And a couple of ‘classic’ Japp lines, including (and you really have to imagine these with Philip Jackson’s deadpan delivery):

‘Don’t come the old acid with me, Poirot!’

And (particularly funny after ‘The Lost Mine’):

‘Here we are again... sinister Chinamen...’

Aside from this, though, we’re very much focused on Poirot and Hastings throughout the episode, with Miss Lemon and Japp relegated to rather minor bit-players.

While Exton’s script stays fairly close to the plot of Christie’s original story, there are some interesting changes in characterization. The most notable of these is the alternation of Mary Marvell, a somewhat tawdry film star for whom Poirot has very little sympathy, to Marie Marvelle (played by Rosalind Bennett), the Belgian star of La tendresse religieuse and Drôle de coeur with whom Poirot is utterly infatuated. (Japp’s reaction? ‘Belgian film star? You’re pulling my leg!’) After the introductory ‘tense’ scene of Japp investigating Henrik Van Braks (played by Struan Rodger) for selling stolen gems, the episode proper begins with a very flustered Poirot preparing an afternoon tea for his screen crush, laying out cakes and flowers with geometric precision. When Miss Lemon has to break it to him that Marie Marvelle has cancelled, he looks utterly heartbroken (shades of Countess Rossakoff in the ITV version of Murder in Mesopotamia) – but, of course, Marie Marvelle still wants to consult with the famous detective.

In Christie’s original short story, Poirot’s sympathies lie entirely (and rather curiously) with Lady Yardly. Despite the fact that Lady Yardly has committed adultery, lied (to Poirot and to her husband) and been party to fraud, Poirot sees her as the victim of the piece. Mary Marvell – the woman who has been completely honest throughout – is nothing but an attention-seeker. Poirot’s deification of Lady Yardly seems entirely to stem from his having seen her at home with her angelic children (and I’m just glossing over the bit in Christie’s story where Poirot ‘makes friends’ and ‘romps’ with the children, because it’s just too weird). Poirot’s final insistence that it is Lady Yardly, not Mary Marvell, who has suffered the most is ridiculously over-the-top – and it’s not a view that is shared by his friend:

‘“It seems a little unfair on Mary Marvell. She has lost her diamond through no fault of her own.”
“Bah!” said Poirot brutally. “She has a magnificent advertisement. That is all she cares for, that one! Now the other, she is different. Bonne mère, très femme!”
“Yes,” I said doubtfully, hardly sharing Poirot’s views on femininity.’

It’s quite weird to say, but I’m with Hastings on this one. And it does seem rather odd that the man who was happy to lie for Valerie Saintclair would be so quick to disdain Mary Marvell. Exton’s adaptation corrects this incongruity by switching Poirot’s sympathies from the lady of the manor to the fragile starlet. And this is done beautifully, as Poirot shifts from besotted fan to chivalrous protector as the story unfolds. The final exchange between Poirot and Marie, as the detective comforts the deceived woman, is heart-breaking, not least because the entire exchange is in French. This is a nice touch, but it is quite unusual (in both the TV series and Christie’s fiction). For instance, in ‘The Submarine Plans’ (and the later version ‘The Incredible Theft’), Poirot strikes up a momentary rapport with the French maid of one of the house guests, but this is conducted entirely in English; similarly, as far as I can recall, though Poirot is very sympathetic to Zélie in Elephants Can Remember, the two of them also converse in English. The use of French at the end of ‘The Adventure of the Western Star’ creates a sense of tenderness and poignancy, and when Marie signals her acceptance of what Poirot has told her – ‘C’est fini!’ – Poirot looks genuinely distraught his pauvre petite.

So… what about Hastings and his ill-fated attempts to play detective?


The TV adaptation retains this in all its glory. Not only does Hastings carry out his wonky consultation with Lady Yardly (Caroline Goodall), Hugh Fraser’s performance is wonderfully comic. Sitting behind Poirot’s desk, giving his best ‘Tell Me Everything’ expression, Hastings looks exactly like a man playing detective – and a man who’ll get in big trouble when his associate finds out. This is one of the moments where the adaptation captures the feel of the source material perfectly, as though Christie’s character has wandered off the page and onto the screen.

However, while Hastings does indeed get caught out in his performance (and Poirot’s face when he finds out what his friend actually said to Lady Yardly is an absolute picture), this doesn’t result in the almighty bust-up of Christie’s text. Instead, the TV Hastings is much quicker to admit his error and forgive Poirot for letting it persist. The episode ends with Hastings confessing that he was baffled by the case, and he reveals a determination to learn from his illustrious friend. He’s even bought a special notebook to keep track of all the questions that he is unable to answer. The two men sit down to dinner together – cooked by Poirot, presumably as an attempt to pre-empt his friend slamming out of the flat in a strop like his literary counterpart – and the detective (with even more condescension than in Christie’s story) encourages his friend to put the confusion behind him:

‘Now close your little book, and eat your dinner.’

It’s probably best that Exton chose to alter the ending of Christie’s story, of course, because this brings us to the end of the second series, and it would’ve been pretty downbeat to end with the dynamic duo falling out. The next episode won’t appear for another six months, and that will be a flashback to when the two men first met, so it’s for the best that ‘The Adventure of the Western Star’ ends with the two friends raising their glasses in a toast to their adventures (no matter how much I would’ve loved to see Fraser acting out the scene from Christie’s story).

All in all then, ‘The Adventure of the Western Star’ is a great episode, based on a very enjoyable short story. It’s definitely right up there in my top seventy episodes.

One final gem to end with… I’ve been cataloguing some of my favourite Poirot accessories as we’ve been working through the series. To add to the collection, this episode has an excellent close-up shot of Poirot’s business card.

Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.

Look at that subtle off-white colouring. The tasteful thickness of it. Oh my God. It even has a watermark.

Time to move on to the next episode… and to go back to where it all began…


* I’ve just realized that there are some semi-spoilers in this story that I hadn’t noticed before. If Lord Cronshaw and Mary Cavendish are still around to send clients to Poirot, it does kind of imply that they weren’t the murderers in their respective cases!

This post is part of my 2016 Poirot Project. You can read the full story of why I’m doing this in my Introduction post. The previous post was a review of ‘The Adventure of the Western Star’.

Even though he was a bit reluctant at first, I’ve managed to persuade my husband Rob to join in with my Poirot Project this year. He’s watched all of the first two series with me, and he’s listened to hours and hours of me talking about Christie’s fiction and the ITV adaptation. Up until this year though, he’d never read an Agatha Christie novel. Before we got to the adaptation of The Mysterious Affair at Styles, I thought it would be cool if he read the novel. And I asked him to give me his thoughts after he read it.

Over to Rob…

My wife Hannah is a huge fan of Agatha Christie and the David Suchet TV series of Poirot. I’ll admit, Poirot has some negative associations for me – when I was younger, anything aired during primetime on a Sunday was stained as heralding the inevitable arrival of Monday morning, which I hated with a passion. Plus I’m not a huge fan of art deco. That alone was enough reason to avoid the show when it was first shown on television (that’s just how petty I can be).


Christmas 2015, and the BBC produced a three-part dramatization of And Then There Were None, starring Miranda Richardson, Sam Neill and Aidan Turner, to name a few. In stark contrast to the Poirot stories, I’ve always had a soft spot for this tale (I’m very much the horror fan, and this particularly dark story by Christie is right up my street), and though I can’t recall specifics I’m sure I’ve seen at least two previous film or television versions. After the third and final part of the BBC adaptation (no spoilers here, but I will say I was humming the Saw theme by Charlie Clouser with the final reveal), Hannah suggested I read the novel. I’d never read Agatha Christie before, and I’m pleased to say I absolutely loved the book just as much as I’d enjoyed the three-part serial.

Incidentally, if you haven’t seen the BBC mini-series, I strongly suggest you do!

I’m drifting off course here. All of this preamble is leading to the inevitable: reading my first Poirot novel.


Around the same time, Christmas 2015, Hannah came up with a plan to finally watch Curtain, the final Poirot story. As she’s been unable to bring herself to watch this episode (the thought of it alone makes her eyes well up), she decided to watch every single episode of the TV series and read the corresponding short stories and novels, and blog about her progress. Effectively forcing the completist in her to watch Curtain. And I’ve been watching the episodes with her, despite my previous ill-feeling toward them (which has now been eradicated you’ll be pleased to hear!).

So when it came to The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Hannah suggested I read the novel first. With it being the first Poirot novel Christie wrote, it would be a good place for me to continue with Agatha Christie’s books. It’s worth noting despite Styles being Agatha Christie’s first novel, and also the introduction of Hercule Poirot, Arthur Hastings, and Inspector James Japp, the episode itself doesn’t appear until the start of the third series. At time of writing I haven’t seen the episode yet.

The story is set during the First World War at Styles Court, a country manor house belonging to Emily Inglethorp (was Cavendish). It is told in the first person by Hastings, a guest at the house and present when the body of Emily is found, a victim of strychnine poisoning. On the day of her murder, Emily Inglethorp was heard arguing with someone, possibly Alfred (her husband) or John (her stepson). Following the argument, she was quite upset and supposedly rewrote her last will and testament, but the case assumed to hold the freshly written will has been forced open by someone and the document is missing. The mechanics of Mrs Inglethorp’s poisoning are a mystery.

Poirot, a Belgian refugee and remarkable (retired) detective, and also a friend of Hastings, is staying at a village close by and so Hastings enlists his help in solving the mystery (despite noting that he has himself improved on Poirot’s methods of detection).

Naturally, it would be absolutely rotten of me to say much more about the plot because I’d hate to give away any spoilers. The interaction between Poirot and Hastings is fantastic, with Poirot constantly dropping hints to his friend as to what nuggets of information will be important in apprehending the killer, regularly leaving Hastings bewildered (much to the amusement of the great detective).

Before I started to watch the series, I assumed the relationship between Poirot and Hastings was like the relationship between Holmes and Watson, quite stuffy and grave. One of the things I really like about the ITV adaptation of Poirot is that the relationship between the detective and his friend is actually jovial and affectionate. Reading The Mysterious Affair at Styles, I was pleased to find out that this isn’t something created for the TV show, but is in Agatha Christie’s original stories. In the novel, Poirot ribs Hastings but not out of a need to be superior. It seems to be purely out of affection for his friend. And even though Hastings is very British and very much of his time, he is also clearly fond of his dandy little Belgian friend.

If I had to give any criticism at all, it would be that the characters other than Poirot and Hastings are not always as easy to follow. Although we get plenty of facts about each of the characters, they didn’t always feel as ‘human’ as Hastings and Poirot, so remembering where everyone fits in is a little tiring, though it doesn’t detract from the story at all.

I think I’m rapidly becoming a fan of Agatha’s.

This post is part of my 2016 Poirot Project. You can read the full story of why I’m doing this in my Introduction post. The last review was of ‘The Adventure of the Western Star’, and the previous post was a guest post about The Mysterious Affair at Styles by a newly converted fan.


The Mysterious Affair at Styles was Agatha Christie’s first novel. It was first published as an eighteen-part serial in The Weekly Times (the colonial edition of The Times) between February and June 1920. The final instalment of the story included an advert for a full edition, to be published by John Lane in the US. The novel was published in the US in October 1920, and then by Bodley Head in the UK in early 1921. According to the dust jacket of the first edition, the book was the result of a bet. Agatha Christie had wagered that she could write a detective novel in which the reader would be unable to spot the murderer, despite being given exactly the same clues as the detective. The blurb also asserted that, not only had she won the bet, she had also introduced ‘a new type of detective’ in the form of Hercule Poirot.

The academic in me needs to note here that the edition of the novel I’m using is the one that appears The Complete Battles of Hastings, Vol. 1 (HarperCollins, 2003).


The novel takes place during WWI – Christie wrote it around the middle of 1916 – and is told through the narration of a man named Hastings (just Hastings, by the way, as we don’t find out his first name or rank until later) who has been ‘invalided home from the Front’ (we find out in ‘The Affair at the Victory Ball’ that he was wounded on the Somme but Styles isn’t so specific). From the off, Hastings sets himself up as the appointed chronicler of Poirot’s exploits (the Watson to his Holmes) – he says he has been asked ‘to write an account of the whole story’, though he doesn’t tell us where or when this account was due to be published. I think we have to assume that the conceit here is that the 1920 publication in The Times is the vehicle for Hastings’s narration, but it’s not made clear either here or in other stories where (or why) Hastings is publishing his accounts of the great Belgian detective.

I’ve mentioned in some of my previous posts the relationship between Poirot/Hastings and Holmes/Watson, and I think it’s worth reflecting on the way Christie uses the legacy of Arthur Conan Doyle’s earlier detective fiction in setting up The Mysterious Affair at Styles.

In A Study in Scarlet (1887) – the first part of which is subtitled Being a reprint from the reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D., late of the Army Medical Department– Doyle introduces Dr John H. Watson in some detail. Not only do we learn his full name (or, at least, his Christian name and middle initial) and his profession title, the novel begins with several paragraphs outlining the background to Watson’s fateful meeting with Sherlock Holmes. He took his medical degree in 1878 at the University of London and then studied as an army surgeon. He was then attached to the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers and stationed in India during the second Afghan war. He served in Candahar, before being attached to the Berkshires at the battle of Maiwand. During this battle, he was shot in the shoulder, damaging his subclavian artery. He was saved by Murray, his orderly, who managed to (eventually) get him to a hospital at Peshawar. There, Watson contracted enteric fever, and he was sent back to England. He was granted nine months’ leave to recover, on an income of eleven shillings and sixpence a day (£210 a year), and moved to London as he had ‘neither kith nor kin in England’. For a while, he stayed in a private hotel in the Strand, but this quickly drained his finances. Just as he has decided to leave London and find somewhere cheaper to live, Watson runs into a man named Stamford (who had been a dresser at St Bartholomew’s Hospital) at the Criterion Bar. He explains his situation to Stamford, who offers to introduce him to a ‘fellow who is working at the chemical laboratory up at the hospital’, who is looking for a flat-mate. That fellow, of course, is Sherlock Holmes.


In the first five paragraphs of A Study in Scarlet, we learn more about Watson’s background than we learn of Hastings’s in the entirety of The Mysterious Affair at Styles. We know his educational background, his military history, the exact nature of his injury, his subsequent income, his place of residence, and even the nature of the publication that will bring the exploits of his illustrious friend to the public eye. In Styles, we never even find out Hastings’s first name. Indeed, there are some details (his income, his place(s) of residence, the nature of his war injury) that we’ll never find out.

The more I think about the opening to Styles, though, the more I think we can see the beginning of the little game Christie was playing with Doyle’s work. On the surface, it seems that she omits the specifics of Hastings’s background because, in light of Doyle’s creation, it’s not needed. By this I mean, the reference to Hastings as an injured military man chronicling the cases of a detective is enough to make the reader go, ‘Ah. So he’s the Watson, then.’ We don’t need to know anything else, because we’ve seen this before. At the beginning of Styles, it’s tempting just to fill in the Hastings blanks with recourse to the more detailed CV of Watson.

However, there’s much more to it than that. If you consider the opening of A Study in Scarlet in light of the stories that follow (and in light of their legacy), you realize just how much of the information about Watson is… well… a bit superfluous. Sure, some of it turns out to be useful background in later adventures. But do we really need to know the name of the orderly who carried him to Peshawar? I guess it’s important to know Watson was shot in the shoulder, but do we need to know that it was specifically the subclavian artery that was damaged? Or how much his pay was before he met Holmes? (Don’t get me wrong, I love the Sherlock Holmes stories, and these little details give us a great introduction to the way Watson looks at the world… but still…)

In introducing Hastings, it feels like Christie is almost actively rejecting the superfluity of Doyle’s introduction. Here’s a military man, he’s been invalided, he knows a great detective – you know the type. What was his rank? Doesn’t matter. How was he injured? Doesn’t matter. Where did he serve before he was injured? Doesn’t matter. What’s his name? Doesn’t matter. Bring on the great detective.

But then, just when you start to suspect that this ‘Hastings’ is a poor man’s Watson, Christie starts to scatter little details to differentiate her creation from his forebear. And these details, which will continue to accumulate throughout the Hastings-narrated stories, turn him into a beloved character with more depth than Watson ever had. Dispensing with the ‘facts’ of Hastings’s background (aside from the little details that he worked at Lloyds before the war, and he has ‘no near relations or friends’ in England), Christie focuses on a far more engaging concern: the way Hastings likes to imagine himself.

In the first chapter, we see our narrator besotted by his first sight of his host’s wife, and then embarking on a series of ‘humorous’ anecdotes that he flatters himself ‘greatly amused [his] hostess’. Sitting amongst his new friends, he then announces that he’s ‘always had a secret hankering to be a detective’. What follows is the first introduction to our illustrious Belgian detective:

‘I came across a man in Belgium once, a very famous detective, and he quite inflamed me. He was a marvellous little fellow. He used to say that all good detective work was a mere matter of method. My system is based on his – though of course I have progressed rather further. He was a funny little man, a great dandy, but wonderfully clever.’

The tone struck here tells you everything you need to know about the relationship between Hastings and Poirot – and it reveals more of Hastings’s character than any CV could.

Before I turn to the adaptation, I guess I should say a little bit about the plot of Christie’s first novel.

As I’ve said, Hastings has been invalided out of the army. After staying for a while at a convalescent home, he meets an old friend, John Cavendish, and is invited to stay at Styles Court while he recovers. Here, he is introduced to the residents of Styles Court: John’s wife Mary, his brother Lawrence, his stepmother Emily and her new husband Alfred Inglethorp, Evie Howard (Emily’s companion), and Cynthia Murdoch, the orphaned daughter of Emily’s friend. Cynthia has been adopted into the family and works as a dispenser for the Voluntary Aid Detachment (just as Christie herself did during WWI). In addition to the family, Hastings learns of Dr Bauerstein, a London doctor who is a specialist in poisons and is recovering from a nervous breakdown, and Mrs Raikes, the ‘pretty young wife’ of a local farmer.

Shortly after arriving at Styles, Hastings takes a trip into the village and runs into an old friend… it turns out Hercule Poirot, the famous Belgian detective Hastings met before the war, is now living in Styles St Mary. As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, Poirot is a refugee from the German occupation of Belgium, and he is staying with a group of other Belgians at the invitation of Emily Inglethorp. The first description of Poirot is worth quoting in full, because this is a pretty momentous introduction (if you’re a fan):

‘Poirot was an extraordinary-looking man. He was hardly more than five feet four inches, but carried himself with great dignity. His head was exactly the shape of an egg, but he always perched it a little on one side. His moustache was very stiff and military. The neatness of his attire was almost incredible; I believe a speck of dust would have caused him more pain than a bullet wound. Yet this quaint dandified little man who, I was sorry to see, now limped badly, had been in his time one of the most celebrated members of the Belgian police. As a detective, his flair had been extraordinary, and he had achieved triumphs by unravelling some of the most baffling cases of the day.’

Not long after this, Emily Inglethorp is murdered in very mysterious circumstances, so it’s pretty handy that Poirot is in the village. Just before the investigation gets properly underway, there’s one last member of the team to introduce… ‘Detective-Inspector James Japp of Scotland Yard – Jimmy Japp’ (though Poirot never calls him Jimmy again – clearly this wasn’t a welcome nickname). Poirot knows Japp of old, and the Scotland Yard man seems more than happy to be reacquainted with his old colleague:

‘Why, if it isn’t Mr Poirot! […] You’ve heard me speak of Mr Poirot? It was in 1904 he and I worked together – the Abercrombie forgery case – you remember, he was run down in Brussels. Ah, those were great days, Moosier. Then, do you remember “Baron” Altara? There was a pretty rogue for you! He eluded the clutches of half the police in Europe. But we nailed in Antwerp – thanks to Mr Poirot here.’

We never learn any more about these cases – perhaps, like the giant rat of Sumatra, the world just isn’t ready to hear about them – but I love this little glimpse into Poirot and Japp’s early adventures and the idea of the pair hunting down a fake baron in the backstreets of Antwerp.

Now that the cast is complete, The Mysterious Affair at Styles concerns itself with the unfolding investigation. I know I’ve put a spoiler warning on this post, but I can’t really bring myself to give too much away about the details Poirot uncovers. I assume that anyone who’s read this far will already have either read the book or seen the TV adaptation, but I’m also assuming that it might have been a while ago. Spoilers now might ruin the enjoyment of a reread – and Styles definitely rewards rereading. Suffice to say, Christie plays a wonderful trick on her readers. Okay, it’s not Murder on the Orient Express or The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, but for a debut novelist who has wagered that no one will be able to spot her murderer, it’s a pretty bold move!

There are two main threads to Styles. The first is the investigation of Emily Inglethorp’s murder, and the reader is encouraged to use ‘order and method’ to work their way through the various clues that are placed before them. There’s a definite sense of a puzzle to be solved, as the book contains floorplans, descriptions and facsimiles of clues, and transcripts of testimony and conversation – we really are meant to have access to everything that the detective sees. In case we’ve missed anything, we have the voice of the detective nudging Hastings (but really the reader) along throughout: ‘So you think that the cocoa – mark well what I say, Hastings – the cocoa– contained strychnine?’

But it is easy to forget about following the clues, as Christie’s genius stroke in Styles (and, possibly, one of the reasons she thought no one would spot the murderer) is that the reader is frequently distracted from the puzzle because they’re watching the detectives bicker and banter their way through the investigation.

Up until the final revelation, our narrator remains absolutely convinced of his own ‘talent for deduction’, no matter how many times his companion points out his errors. They fall out about coffee cups and cocoa, Poirot makes fun of Hastings’s theories, and in return Hastings wonders whether Poirot has actually gone mad. The detective shows a seriously sarcastic streak, and many of his quips go whizzing right over his companion’s head (as though Hastings is more Bertie Wooster than John Watson). Here’s my favourite example of this, as it sets the tone for the men’s relationship in Christie’s later stories:

‘“We must be so intelligent that he does not suspect us of being intelligent at all.”
I acquiesced.
“There, mon ami, you will be of great assistance to me.”
I was pleased with the compliment. There had been times when I hardly thought that Poirot appreciated me at my true worth.’

(Going through the book again for this post, it’s interesting how many important clues are revealed just before or just after a bit of banter like this – like a seasoned conjuror, Christie seemed to know from the start that the more the audience watch the magicians, the more likely they’ll miss the trick.)

The investigation is wrapped up in a denouement that will set the tone for later Poirot stories, with the detective gathering the suspects and revealing the mechanics of the murder with theatrical flair. And, as one last intriguing treat, the book ends with the promise that this isn’t the last we’ve seen of Christie’s dynamic duo:

‘Console yourself, my friend. We may hunt together again, who knows? And then –’

The ITV adaptation of The Mysterious Affair at Styles was first broadcast on 16th September 1990. It was written by Clive Exton and directed by Ross Devenish. Although the episode is now sometimes listed as either the last episode of Series 2 or the first episode of Series 3, it was actually a standalone episode, broadcast to mark the centenary of Agatha Christie’s birth.

Although the rest of the early episodes of Agatha Christie’s Poirot are almost exclusively set in 1935, ‘The Mysterious Affair at Styles’ is, like its source text, set during WWI. (Of course, that makes the chronology of the TV show a little wonky, as there’s nearly twenty years between ‘Styles’ and ‘The Adventure of the Clapham Cook’, which does make you wonder… what have they been doing for all that time?) But, as with all of Exton’s scripts, there’s a clear desire to stay faithful to Christie’s text and, given that Styles is perhaps the novel with the clearest connection to the time of its setting, that means staying faithful to that setting.

Christie’s novel is rather circumspect about the nature of Hastings’s war injury. Additionally, there’s never any real sense of Hastings being traumatized by his experiences. For modern readers, now used to talking openly about the horrors young men faced during WWI, Hastings’s casual attitude to his military experience can be a little unsettling. At one point in the novel, Hastings gazes out across the ‘green and peaceful’ Essex countryside and muses on how hard it is to remember ‘that, not so very far away, a great war was running its appointed course’. As I’ve said in a previous post, in ‘The Kidnapped Prime Minister’, Hastings reveals a reluctance to see ‘premature peace’ and a desire to see the war played out until military victory is achieved. There is very little indication that Hastings has been permanently affected by his wartime service (except for, possibly, recurring bouts of fever – but that’s assuming that the malaria he mentions in Peril at End House was contracted during the war).

Exton’s adaptation stays faithful to this depiction of Hastings as a man who (on the surface) is rather blasé about his experiences. However, it’s impossible to ignore the few details given in Christie’s text. Hastings wasn’t a military man before the war – he worked in insurance – but he fought at the Front, and he was so severely injured that he didn’t see active service again (at the end of the novel he’s offered a desk job at the War Office). So, although Hastings rarely evinces any sign of trauma, we know this is a man who has endured just as much pain and fear as John H. Watson before him (although he’s only given one month’s sick leave to Watson’s nine).

In the TV episode, Exton subtly plays with this material. Although Hastings is never anything other than cheerful when talking about himself – dismissing his injury as ‘just a scratch’ when offered sympathy – we occasionally get to see a hint of what might lie beneath that mask. The episode opens with Hastings in his convalescent home, watching a film about General Haig’s 1917 Flanders campaign. A close-up of Hugh Fraser’s face is enough to convey something of the trauma that lies beneath the fatuous surface.


As in Christie’s novel, Hastings is rescued from the hospital by the arrival of his old friend John. He travels to Styles St Mary (by a gorgeous steam train) and joins the family at Styles Court. Again, this is fairly faithful to the source. The house is presided over by the imperious but generous Emily Inglethorp (played by Gillian Barge), though she is now John and Lawrence’s mother, rather than stepmother. This small change, along with the removal of Dr Bauerstein from the plot, is simply the result of having to condense an entire novel into two hours of television – and it’s far from being the most dramatic change to a novel that we’ll see in the series.

Similarly, the adaptation keeps the basic shape of Christie’s plot and some of the more memorable bits of dialogue, with most of the ‘big’ clues retained, but streamlines and jettisons some of the flourishes in order to fit the puzzle into its new form. Obviously, as a big fan of the book, there are a couple of clues that I miss in the TV version (and I’m sure other fans will have their own examples), but the main ‘trick’ is kept – and, in my opinion, done very well indeed.

Just like with Christie’s book, though, a lot of the joy of ‘The Mysterious Affair at Styles’ lies in the characterization, particularly the relationship between Poirot and Hastings (and, to a lesser extent, Japp). We get to see the lovely reunion of the two central characters…


… and the adaptation retains Japp’s enthusiastic nostalgia for the ‘Abercrombie forgery case’, with the addition of a few throwaway lines for Japp that, while not found in the source, viewers will find familiar from Philip Jackson’s earlier performances (‘My word, Poirot, you’re the goods!’, ‘Haven’t had my tea yet, you know.’).


However, while I have nothing but love for the way in which Exton (and Suchet, Fraser and Jackson) translate Christie’s characters to the screen, I’ve got mixed feelings about some of the other characters.

It’s fair to say that the Cavendish brothers are not dramatically different in The Mysterious Affair at Styles. While there is plenty of information about how their lives are different – and they definitely do behave differently in the aftermath of their stepmother’s death – they aren’t exactly chalk and cheese. In some of Christie’s later country house mysteries, she would create families with much more clearly differentiated siblings (4.50 From Paddington springs immediately to mind), but that’s just not the case here. The TV versions of John (David Rintoul) and Lawrence (Anthony Calf) reflect this, as they’re really not that dissimilar.

The brothers’ mother and stepfather – the stepmother and step-stepfather of the novel – also feel very close to their literary counterparts. In my opinion, Michael Cronin’s portrayal of Alfred Inglethorp is just perfect, and absolutely captures the ‘rather alien note’ struck by Christie’s character.


Sad as I am to make a criticism of the episode, the women just aren’t quite right. Evie Howard (Joanna McCallum) feels a little too young and (at least when she sneaks crumbs of seed cake) a little too wry for the sensible factotum with the manly voice. Weirdly, McCallum was actually exactly the right age to play Evie Howard, as she was forty when the episode aired. But Christie’s story was careful throughout to distract the reader from the fact that Evie is probably about the same age as Mary and five years younger than John – and I just don’t think the TV Evie is quite as successful in this.

Cynthia Murdoch and Mary Cavendish are also a bit further away from their literary counterparts. The former (played by Allie Byrne) is pretty and charming, and it’s very easy to see how she charms the men she meets. However, some of the character’s more sparkling dialogue is cut and there’s very little reference to her working in the dispensary. This is a bit of a disappointment, as Christie’s female dispensing chemists are always a bit feisty (like Tuppence Beresford and Julia Simmons, for instance) – and it’s always tempting to imagine that these characters are a tiny little bit based on the author herself. Even more egregious though: the TV version of Cynthia Murdoch doesn’t have red hair.


In Christie’s novel, Cynthia’s auburn hair is one of the features that Hastings admires early on. This particular predilection will become a running joke in the subsequent stories, with Poirot frequently teasing his friend about his fondness for redheads. For some reason, and I’ve never been sure why, the TV series mentions this aspect of Hastings’s characterization early on (in ‘Four and Twenty Blackbirds’ but then drops it, replacing some of the literary redheads (e.g Mary Durrant in ‘Double Sin’) with brunettes. Between darkening her hair and playing down her chemistry, the TV adaptation waters down Cynthia a little too much for my liking.

Finally, then, there’s Mary Cavendish. Played by Beatie Edney (in her first of two appearances in the series), the TV character is also somewhat watered down from the source.


In the novel, Hastings’s descriptions of his friend’s wife are remarkably effusive:

‘I shall never forget my first sight of Mary Cavendish. Her tall, slender form, outlined against the bright light; the vivid sense of slumbering fire that seemed to find expression only in those wonderful tawny eyes of hers, remarkable eyes, different from any other woman’s that I have ever known; the intense power of stillness she possessed, which nevertheless conveyed the impression of a wild untamed spirit in an exquisitely civilized body – all these things are burnt into my memory. I shall never forget them.’

While Edney’s performance occasionally captures a sense of wildness, I’m not sure there’s really an ‘intense power of stillness’ or ‘slumbering fire’. Part of the problem is that, in removing some of the subplots from the adaptation, the character of Mary has been substantially reduced. In the TV version, she is a nervous and jealous wife, driven to wildness by her suspicions about her husband’s infidelity (and, possibly, worse). This is a far cry from Christie’s ‘proud wild creature’, who is the daughter of a beautiful Russian woman and a world-travelling English father. In the novel, Mary Cavendish’s malaise derives more from her husband’s monotony than his adultery.

It’s time to finally wrap this post up now, I think. I’ll end with a high point… I really like the fact that the adaptation retains the scene in which Hastings watches Poirot build card houses. This is such an important part of the story – both in terms of the detective’s investigation, but also in setting up the character of Poirot – that it’s nice to see it played out on screen. And it is a very impressive house of cards…


Overall, Exton’s adaptation is a fitting tribute to Christie’s debut novel. Although it’s not actually our introduction to the characters – as it was made after two solid series of adventures – it works as an affectionate flashback to where it all began. The Mysterious Affair at Styles introduced readers to a duo that (despite a pretence at similarity) were very very different to Holmes and Watson, and the 1990 adaptation captures the essence of this relationship beautifully. I think the programme-makers were aware of the significance of their centenary adaptation, and the result is something designed to delight Christie fans.

But it can’t be denied that this episode is all about the boys. The female characters in The Mysterious Affair at Styles don’t get much of a look-in here, which is a shame because (despite some claims to the contrary) Christie created an array of complex and fascinating female characters in the Poirot stories.

Speaking of which… it’s time I looked at one of those characters in more detail…

This post is part of my 2016 Poirot Project. You can read the full story of why I’m doing this in my Introduction post. The previous post was a review of ‘The Mysterious Affair at Styles’.


I’ve said a few times that this project is going to be rather completist – I can’t watch ‘Curtain’ until I’ve rewatched all the other episodes and reread all the stories and novels. But as I approached ‘How Does Your Garden Grow?’, it occurred to me that, to be truly completist, I might have to dip into some of Agatha Christie’s other writing as well. You see, there are some characters in the Poirot stories who appear in non-Poirot stories as well. To do justice to the project, shouldn’t I be looking at the full careers of these characters?

As far as I remember, there are five significant characters who appear in both Poirot and non-Poirot stories: Miss Lemon, Ariadne Oliver, Mr Satterthwaite, Colonel Race and Superintendent Battle. (And there’s also Mr Robinson and Colonel Pikeaway from Cat Among the Pigeons– but I must confess I’d completely forgotten about these characters until I started writing this post, so I’ll have to decide what to do about them later.) My plan is to write about the ‘further adventures’ of each of these characters just before I reach the first Poirot story/novel in which they appear. In some cases (like Miss Lemon), that means writing about a character who has already appeared in the TV series; in other cases (like Superintendent Battle), it means writing about a character who doesn’t appear in the TV series at all. Interestingly, all five characters made their debuts in non-Poirot stories (either standalone novels or less well-known detective series) before entering the world of the famous Belgian sleuth, so their earlier appearances (possibly) act as backstory to their roles in the Poirot stories.

So… the first character with a backstory is Poirot’s efficient secretary Miss Lemon.

Miss Lemon (and it’s just ‘Miss’ Lemon for now – she won’t get a first name until 1955 and Hickory Dickory Dock) made her first appearance as Poirot’s secretary in ‘How Does Your Garden Grow?’, which was first published in 1935. I’m going to talk more about that story in my next post, so for now I want to look at a couple of stories featuring Miss Lemon from 1932.

Parker Pyne Investigates was first published by William Collins in 1934. (For info, I’m using the 1968 Pan Books edition, which I apparently bought for 29p in an Oxfam shop. As I’m sure I’ll mention in some future posts, I worked full-time in an Oxfam shop after finishing my A-Levels, and I read a lot of Christie during this time. Most of the older paperback editions I own have Oxfam prices pencilled on the first page, so I assume most of them were bought at that time.)


Parker Pyne appears in fourteen short stories by Agatha Christie – the twelve that are collected in Parker Pyne Investigates, ‘Problem at Pollensa Bay’ (published in 1935) and ‘The Regatta Mystery’ (more on that one in a later post). As a detective, he is quite a different kettle of fish to Hercule Poirot. In fact, in the first six stories in which he appears, he is hardly a ‘detective’ at all.

Parker Pyne advertises his services with a cryptic – but enticing – announcement in newspapers:

‘Are you happy? If not, consult Mr Parker Pyne, 17 Richmond Street.’

The cases he takes on in the first six stories are, then, cases of (usually domestic) unhappiness, as is clear from the titles: ‘The Case of the Middle-Aged Wife’, ‘The Case of the Discontented Soldier’, ‘The Case of the Distressed Lady’, ‘The Case of the Discontented Husband’, ‘The Case of the City Clerk’ and ‘The Case of the Rich Woman’ (all first published in 1932). In each of these stories, a client comes to Pyne with a tale of unhappiness, discontent or boredom, and the consultant agrees to rectify the situation in exchange for cash (which appears to be simply to cover expenses).

Pyne’s expertise derives from a background in the civil service:

‘You see, for thirty-five years of my life I have been engaged in the compiling of statistics in a government office. Now I have retired, and it has occurred to me to use the experience I have gained in a novel fashion. It is all so simple. Unhappiness can be classified under five main heads – no more, I assure you. Once you know the cause of the malady, the remedy should not be impossible.’

Some people, including whoever wrote the ‘Parker Pyne’ entry on Wikipedia (this article has multiple issues), seem to think that Pyne’s government work might have been along the same lines as that of Mycroft Holmes. I don’t see it myself. I see Pyne more as a somewhat mundane statistician, who is logical enough to be convinced of the predictability of human nature but romantic enough to meddle in domestic affairs. The first six Parker Pyne cases are quite charming, in their own way, but could hardly be called ‘mysteries’. The main appeal of these tales is the quirky consultant and, possibly more importantly, his unusual staff, rather than the cases they work on.

As an aside, the second half of Parker Pyne Investigates collects six stories published in 1933. In these stories, Pyne is travelling (without his staff) and investigates a series of more traditional ‘mysteries’. I’ll be returning to some of these stories in a (much) later blog post.

Back to the 1932 stories, obviously the most important person for the purposes of the current post is Parker Pyne’s secretary. She is introduced to us in ‘The Case of the Middle-Aged Wife’:

‘When she had gone he pressed a buzzer on his desk. A forbidding-looking young woman with spectacles answered it.
“A file, please, Miss Lemon. And you might tell Claude that I am likely to want him shortly.”
“A new client?”
“A new client. At the moment she has jibbed, but she will come back. Probably this afternoon about four. Enter her.”
“Schedule A?”
“Schedule A, of course.”’

And that’s all we get. Pyne’s Miss Lemon is young but stern, and she wears glasses. From her brief exchange with Pyne, we can see she’s brisk and efficient – and, perhaps, we can also discern a little hint of the mutual unspoken understanding that develops between Poirot and his Miss Lemon later on.

There are only two other mentions of Pyne’s secretary in any of the short stories. In ‘The Case of the Distressed Lady’, she’s again mentioned by name. At the story’s opening, she buzzes Pyne to inform him that a young lady wishes to see him, but that the visitor hasn’t got an appointment (Pyne agrees to see her anyway). And at the beginning of ‘The Case of the Discontented Soldier’, when the eponymous client enters the office ‘[a] plain young woman looked up from her typewriter and glanced at him inquiringly’. I assume that this is also Miss Lemon, though she isn’t mentioned by name.

I like these two mentions of the character because, although they are very brief, we get a sense of the ‘Miss Lemon’ who’ll become more familiar in Christie’s Poirot stories. But, in addition to this, there are some nice little echoes of the ‘Miss Lemon’ who appears in the ITV adaptations. Although Miss Lemon didn’t appear in either of the source stories, the TV Miss Lemon also expresses consternation about clients who don’t have appointments or give their full names (‘The Incredible Theft’, ‘The Veiled Lady’), and she is frequently seen behind her typewriter, even when it doesn’t work properly (‘The Dream’). There are just enough points of similarity between Pyne’s secretary, Poirot’s secretary and the TV character for us to imagine that these are all versions of the same character.


But are they the same character? I’ll talk about the relationship between Christie’s Miss Lemon and the TV character in the next post, but how sure can we be that Pyne’s ‘Miss Lemon’ and Poirot’s ‘Miss Lemon’ are meant to be the same person?

At the beginning of ‘How Does Your Garden Grow?’, Poirot’s confidential secretary is described for the first time:

‘Miss Lemon was forty-eight and of unprepossessing appearance. Her general effect was that of a lot of bones flung together at random. She had a passion for order almost equalling that of Poirot himself; and though capable of thinking, she never thought unless told to do so. […] Her real passion in life was the perfection of a filing system beside which all other filing systems should sink into oblivion. She dreamed of such a system at night.’

There are definitely some similarities between this character and the one who appears in the Parker Pyne stories. Neither of them are particularly attractive – one is ‘plain’ and ‘forbidding-looking’, the other is ‘unprepossessing’ and like ‘a lot of bones flung together’. Both are efficient and, when we see them for the first time, immersed in filing. Poirot’s secretary is described as a ‘machine’; Pyne’s secretary is professional to the point of being brusque.

But I can’t ignore the discrepancy in their ages. Pyne’s Miss Lemon is young, but Poirot’s secretary is 48. The stories were only published three years apart, so can this really be the same person? (And I’ll just add that there’s no suggestion the Parker Pyne stories are set much earlier than their publication dates. In addition to all the cars, office equipment and slang that allow us to roughly date them, there’s a cute little giveaway in ‘The Case of the Distressed Lady’: at the end of the story, Pyne observes a ‘gentleman selling Dismal Desmonds’ on the street. Dismal Desmond, a bizarrely popular stuffed toy of (from what I can ascertain) a bereaved dog, was created in 1926 and continued in popularity throughout the 1930s.)

Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
Postcard of Dismal Desmond posing with Louise Brooks, c. 1928. Thanks to Carrie Lewis for this providing this image.

This is something that some Christie fans have pondered over. The ‘Parker Pyne’ Wikipedia page (this article has multiple issues) insists that we are meant to understand that it’s the same person, but that her work with Parker Pyne happened a number of years prior to her employment with Poirot. Personally, I think that’s looking for more consistency than is actually present. It’s really tempting to see Christie’s work as a ‘fictional universe’, in which we can discern a chronology of events and a continuity of character, but it really doesn’t work like that (unless you’re happy with the idea that Poirot doesn’t age substantially between WWI and the 1960s, while Miss Lemon ages a couple of decades in the space of two or three years).

Instead of thinking of Pyne’s Miss Lemon as a younger version of the same character, I prefer to think of her as a prototype for the character that appears in the Poirot novels. Clearly something about the ‘forbidding-looking young woman’ stuck in Christie’s imagination and led her to give the character another outing (albeit in a somewhat different guise) – and one in which the character is more developed and fleshed out (even, twenty years later, acquiring a first name and a sister). Of course, this also suggests that Christie thought the character worked better as an older woman, as it’s as a middle-aged spinster that Miss Lemon really takes form. I find this very interesting, as it seems to imply that Christie saw more scope for developing an interesting older female character (and a spinster too... quelle surprise).

Significantly, this is not the only minor or incidental female character from a Parker Pyne novel who is revisited and developed further in the Poirot stories. Of course, there’s Ariadne Oliver (who actually got her own novel before entering the world of the great Belgian detective). However, there is another, less sympathetic woman (who I actually quite like) from a Poirot story who has her prototype in a Parker Pyne story… but that, mon ami, is a post for another day.

This post has been about Miss Lemon’s background. In the next post, I’m going to look at the first Poirot story in which she appears, but also write a bit more about the relationship between Christie’s character and the character portrayed by Pauline Moran in the ITV series.

On to ‘How Does Your Garden Grow?’ then. And would the real Felicity Lemon please stand up?

This post is part of my 2016 Poirot Project. You can read the full story of why I’m doing this in my Introduction post. The previous post was ‘The Further Adventures of Miss Lemon’, and the last review was of ‘The Mysterious Affair at Styles’.


The first episode of the third series of Agatha Christie’s Poirot was first broadcast on 6th January 1991, following the pattern set by the first two series of beginning a new set of stories immediately after Christmas. The episode was based on the short story of the same name, which was first published in the Ladies’ Home Journal (in the US) and The Strand (in the UK) in 1935.

As I mentioned in my previous post, ‘How Does Your Garden Grow?’ is a significant story in the Poirot canon, as it is the first to introduce the detective’s confidential secretary, Miss Lemon. This raises two interesting issues when rereading the stories in the adaptation (rather than publication) sequence: (1) there are significant differences between the character in Christie’s fiction and the TV character of the same name; and (2) Miss Lemon has already appeared in sixteen episodes of the TV show at this point, so ‘How Does Your Garden Grow?’ no longer represents her introduction. In my opinion, the adaptation offers an interesting (though subtle) solution to these issues, but more on that below.

First, I want to say a little something about Christie’s short story.

The story (written in third person, as Hastings is no longer our chronicler by this point) begins with Hercule Poirot in his flat, reading through his correspondence. Among his ‘neat pile’ of letters is a note from Amelia Barrowby requesting a ‘strictly private’ consultation about a ‘delicate family matter’. Poirot is clearly intrigued by the note, but he wants a second opinion. Fortunately, one of his employees is in the next room…

Here’s the first introduction to Poirot’s new ‘Watson’:

‘At ten o’clock precisely he entered the room where Miss Lemon, his confidential secretary, sat awaiting her instructions for the day. Miss Lemon was forty-eight and of unprepossessing appearance. Her general effect was that of a lot of bones flung together at random. She had a passion for order almost equalling that of Poirot himself, and though capable of thinking, she never thought unless told to do so.’

From the start, then, Poirot’s relationship with Miss Lemon is on very different terms to his relationship with Hastings. Technically, it’s an employer-employee relationship, with Miss Lemon waiting to receive ‘instructions’ from Poirot at the beginning of each day. And yet it’s also, in some ways, a more apt relationship, as Miss Lemon embodies the precision and ‘passion for order’ that Poirot often lamented was missing from Hastings. Like Poirot, Miss Lemon reveals an awareness of the need to treat each potential client according to their individual personalities – when Poirot asks her to write some refusals ‘couched in correct terms’, Miss Lemon annotates each with a coded acknowledgement of the ‘correct terms’ to use for each: ‘[s]oft soap’, ‘slap in the face’, ‘curt’, etc. (And it’s interesting that these are all approaches Poirot will take himself with unwanted clients – from his ‘perfect politeness’ in letting down the Home Secretary in Peril at End House, his brutal ‘I do not like your face, Mr Ratchett’ in Murder on the Orient Express, to his quickly regretted curtness to Mrs Todd in ‘The Adventure of the Clapham Cook’– suggesting that Miss Lemon knows almost instinctively how her boss likes to do business.)

And, although she never gets to be a narrator like Hastings, we do get to a little glimpse into the mind of Poirot’s new associate near the beginning of the story. When Poirot asks for Miss Lemon’s opinion on Amelia Barrowby’s letter, she isn’t particularly pleased to be asked:

‘Very occasionally her employer appealed to her human, as opposed to her official, capacities. It slightly annoyed Miss Lemon when he did so – she was very nearly the perfect machine, completely and gloriously uninterested in all human affairs. Her real passion in life was the perfection of a filing system beside which all other filing systems should sink into oblivion. She dreamed of such a system at night. Nevertheless, Miss Lemon was perfectly capable of intelligence on purely human matters, as Hercule Poirot well knew.’

This description of Poirot’s ‘perfect machine’ is ostensibly at odds with the earlier descriptions of his old friend Hastings. At first glance, it seems that Miss Lemon has been introduced as the polar opposite of her predecessor. However, there are little signs that she isn’t quite as different as she appears. In particular, we very quickly discover that Miss Lemon isn’t above criticizing her employer and his affectations (albeit with less humour than Hastings). Christie shows this by continuing to reveal little bits of Miss Lemon’s thoughts throughout ‘How Does Your Garden Grow?’ Just a few lines after the ‘perfect machine’ description, Poirot makes one of his characteristic comical-broken-English statements, and we are told: ‘Miss Lemon, who considered that Poirot had been long enough in Great Britain to understand its slang terms, did not reply.’ With that, Miss Lemon slips subtly into a role that Hastings had occasionally occupied: the voice of dissent against the little Belgian’s more exaggerated mannerisms (and, in this example, her consideration is surely shared by the reader who raises an eyebrow every time Poirot mangles an expression he must have heard a hundred times since arriving in England two decades ago).

Despite the fact that it’s only a short story, Christie really develops a sense of Poirot and Miss Lemon’s relationship in ‘How Does Your Garden Grow?’ It’s done with a light touch, a sense of gentle humour (mostly directed at her detective), and an awareness of fans’ fondness for the Poirot-and-Hastings (for some later fans, Poirot/Hastings) relationship. In her autobiography, Christie was somewhat brusque about her decision to get rid of her original ‘Watson’ character, stating: ‘Truth to tell, I think I was getting a little tired of him. I might be stuck with Poirot, but no need to be stuck with Hastings too.’ Fans of Christie’s work are familiar with the perennial narrative (partly perpetuated by these throwaway authorial comments) that the author couldn’t stand her detective creation – and I’ll come back to this more when I start thinking about Ariadne Oliver – but there’s a bit of a disjunction between what Christie said about her characters and the affectionate way they come across in the books. Either Christie was prone to exaggerating her irritation with the little egg-shaped Belgian (and, again, Ariadne Oliver springs to mind here), or she took great pains to respect her fans’ fondness for the characters in her writing. I like to believe it’s the latter, and this seems to be the case in ‘How Does Your Garden Grow?’

In this story, Christie is, in fact, attempting to replace her popular ‘Watson’ with a new unknown character. A writer less in tune with her readers might have simply swept Hastings under the carpet, never to be mentioned again, and focused on Miss Lemon. However, what we have here is a playful piece of reflection on the different ‘Watsons’ in Poirot’s career, which results in some light teasing of the detective himself.

Miss Lemon is everything that Poirot wanted Hastings to be. She lives for ‘order and method’ – she even dreams about it at night – and she doesn’t bother herself with the frivolity of human life that so excited Hastings (to the exacerbation of Poirot). There’s a little detail offered near the beginning to show how perfect Miss Lemon is for Poirot. After Poirot responds to Miss Barrowby’s request but receives no answer, Miss Lemon spots the announcement of the woman’s death in the newspaper and brings it to her employer’s attention (a much more business-like use of the newspapers than his old friend’s Perusal of the Morning News). Miss Lemon tells him that she ‘saw it in the tube and tore it out’, but Poirot’s mind registers ‘approval of the fact that, though Miss Lemon used the word “tore”, she had neatly cut the entry with scissors’. Surely this is the sidekick Poirot has been dreaming of ever since he fell out with Hastings over a cup of cocoa.

But no… Poirot’s approval quickly dissipates as he discovers the limits of Miss Lemon’s ability (or willingness) to play Watson. As he muses on the case of Miss Amelia Barrowby, Poirot attempts to get his associate to hypothesize on the psychology of the participants. He asks her to imagine she is in the situation of the prime suspect, and Miss Lemon isn’t pleased:

‘Miss Lemon dropped her hands into her lap in a resigned manner. She enjoyed typing, paying bills, filing papers and entering up engagements. To be asked to imagine herself in hypothetical situations bored her very much, but she accepted it as a disagreeable part of a duty.’

She offers Poirot monosyllabic responses to his questions, which annoys the detective. Eventually, he gives up:

‘Poirot sighed. “How I miss my friend Hastings. He had such imagination. Such a romantic mind! It is true that he always imagined wrong – but that in itself was a guide.”’

Miss Lemon is unmoved by this nostalgia, and simply ‘looked longingly at the typewritten sheet in front of her’. This isn’t the first time Poirot has expressed his fondness for Hastings’s ‘romantic mind’, or the extent to which he misses it when it’s not there: he said something similar in Peril at End House after being forced to solve The Mystery of the Blue Train with his valet George because Hastings was in South America. Christie might have been happy to jettison Hastings, but her detective never really shared her enthusiasm for his friend’s departure.

Before I move on to the TV adaptation, I should say a little bit about the mystery in ‘How Does Your Garden Grow?’ As I’ve said, Poirot receives a letter from an older woman named Amelia Barrowby. She is concerned about ‘a very delicate family matter’, and would like Poirot to investigate – with an assurance of confidentiality and privacy. Readers might note some similarity here with Mrs Pengelley’s tentative enquiries at the beginning of ‘The Cornish Mystery’, and so, when Miss Lemon discovers that Miss Barrowby died shortly after writing to Poirot, it’s not a massive leap (for the detective and the reader) to presume foul play.

Poirot travels to Charman’s Green in Buckinghamshire to investigate (cheekily ignoring a letter from Miss Barrowby’s niece declaring that ‘the matter […] is no longer of importance’). The significance of the story’s title is revealed when Poirot sees the house’s English country garden:

‘Rose trees that promised a good harvest later in the year, and at present daffodils, early tulips, blue hyacinths – the last bed was partly edged with shells.’

The other members of the household are quickly revealed as Miss Barrowby’s niece Mary Delafontaine, Mary’s husband Henry, and Katrina, a ‘half-Russian’ girl who worked as a ‘kind of nurse-attendant’ to the old woman. When the local police (in the form of Inspector Sims, ‘a big, burly man with a hearty manner’) confirm death by strychnine poisoning, the three become suspects.

Katrina’s foreignness is stressed on a number of occasions, with Henry bluntly suggesting that his aunt-by-marriage had concerns about ‘Bolshies, Reds, all that sort of thing’. Mary is a sensible English housewife, whose main preoccupation is gardening – to the extent that she has almost started to physically resemble her garden, with her eyes that are the colour of forget-me-nots. If you’re familiar with your Christie, it’s pretty obvious whodunit here. Spoiler alert: it isn’t the foreign person.

A bigger mystery – as is often the case – is how the poison was administered, given that Miss Barrowby ate the same food as her family. There’s a Christie favourite in the form of potentially poisonous medicine (this time a ‘cachet’ administered by Katrina), and then a suspicious packet of strychnine found in the girl’s bedroom. But the real clue has, of course, been on display the entire time.

Aside from the introduction of Miss Lemon, the story has some nice touches. As in The Mysterious Affair at Styles, it is Poirot’s quirky obsession with symmetry and order that allows him to spot the giveaway clue. And the detective’s attitude towards the young Russian woman is also pleasantly characteristic. While all manner of suspicion is heaped upon her, Poirot repeatedly draws attention to the girl’s vulnerability and isolation: ‘I do not think she has any friends.’ He then modifies this: ‘I was wrong […] She has one.’ After (obviously) exonerating Katrina, Poirot announces the identity of this friend: ‘Me!’ This reminds us of Poirot’s regular alliance with immigrants and foreigners, including his bold statement of ‘Me, I am all for the visitors!’ at the end of ‘Double Sin’.

So… time to move on to the TV episode…


The adaptation was written by Andrew Marshall and directed by Brian Farnham. Adapting ‘How Does Your Garden Grow?’ poses an immediate challenge within the context of the ITV series. As I’ve already said, Pauline Moran’s Miss Lemon has appeared in sixteen previous episodes at this point, and the character has been established along quite different lines to Christie’s creation (and her prototype). In addition to this, the series (at this point) is an ensemble piece, so we’re quite used to seeing Miss Lemon alongside Hastings and Japp. Obviously, Marshall couldn’t just ignore this context and translate Christie’s story directly to the screen; however, for readers familiar with the short story, it would’ve been a shame to see no acknowledgement of its significant place within the Poirot stories as a whole. I quite like the compromise position that Marshall’s adaptation strikes.

While the episode does feature Hastings and Japp, it’s notable for being a bit more Miss Lemon-heavy than previous episodes. Miss Lemon is the member of the gang most likely to be absent from the early series (Pauline Moran appeared in 32 episodes, compared to Philip Jackson’s 40 and Hugh Fraser’s 43). She did not appear in The Mysterious Affair at Styles (as it would’ve been impossible to write her into that story), but she was also missing from ‘The King of Clubs’ (in which Poirot investigates with Japp and Hastings) and, later in this series, she will be absent again from ‘The Tragedy at Marsdon Manor’. Nevertheless, we’ve seen some hint of Miss Lemon’s talents for investigation: she carries out background searches in Peril at End House (undertaken by Poirot himself in Christie’s story), she goes undercover in ‘The Adventure of the Cheap Flat’, and her input was pivotal in resolving the case in ‘The Kidnapped Prime Minister’. This episode is very much in this mould, but with some added extras in honour of the original short story.


Specifically, we get to see more of Poirot and Miss Lemon working as a team. They travel to Miss Barrowby’s house together (on Poirot’s particular request) and – crucially – both observe the all-important flowerbed on their arrival. As in the short story, Poirot relies on Miss Lemon’s knowledge of tradesmen to extract relevant information from the fishmonger. And, also like in the short story, Poirot runs his hypothetical scenarios about Katrina by his secretary. In the latter case, though, there are necessary changes made. Firstly, the exchange takes place in a more convivial setting (the pair are out for coffee in a stylish establishment, rather than in Poirot’s office); secondly, Miss Lemon offers a more imaginative response than her literary counterpart. Still, the ever-so-slightly sardonic expression on her face suggests that this Miss Lemon (as in the short story) doesn’t enter into the exercise with quite the ‘romantic mind’ of Arthur Hastings.

There is another nod to the short story (and one of the bits of characterization the TV Miss Lemon shares with her counterparts in Christie’s stories), as we see the return of Miss Lemon’s filing system. When Poirot and Miss Lemon travel to Miss Barrowby’s house, they leave Hastings in Whitehaven Mansions. A certain Mr Trumper gets in touch to request payment of a bill, and Hastings (in his wisdom) decides to hunt out the relevant invoice. Towards the end of the episode, Miss Lemon returns to find her precious filing system in disarray. Her fury reminds us that there is one thing all versions of Miss Lemon share: their ‘real passion in life was the perfection of a filing system’.


I did warn you what would happen if Poirot let Miss Lemon out into the field!

Before I move on to the rest of the story, there are a couple more details about Miss Lemon that are revealed in the course of this episode. We discover that she is a lot more aware of her employer’s affectations than Hastings is. At the beginning of the episode, Poirot (who has been exhibiting slightly odd behaviour – more on that shortly) locks himself in the bathroom for a suspiciously long time. Miss Lemon and Hastings ponder over this new eccentricity:

Miss Lemon (with a note of mischief): ‘Perhaps he’s dyeing his hair.’
Hastings: ‘But… he’s a man.’

I don’t want to say for certain that Poirot dyes his hair – but it is a rather suspiciously perfect shade of black, which is (and will remain for some time) mysteriously devoid of grey. This little exchange makes it seem like Miss Lemon is a bit more worldly – and a bit more aware of Poirot’s vanities – than his hapless old friend.

The second little nugget comes when Poirot and Miss Lemon begin to investigate the death of Miss Barrowby. Rather thsn hearing the information from a local policeman (whose appearance is removed in order to leave a space for Japp), Poirot goes to the pathologist (played by John Rogan) with Japp in order to discover the cause of death. And he takes his secretary along with him. The men are politely concerned about the poor woman’s sensibilities, but she brushes aside their anxiety:

Miss Lemon: ‘I did help in the hospital morgue during the war.’
Poirot: ‘Not fighting, Miss Lemon?’
Miss Lemon: ‘Mr Poirot!’

It’s a nice piece of backstory to her character, which goes some way to explain her lack of discomfort when filing away details of her employer’s grislier cases. Poirot’s teasing reply reminds us that, in the Poirot and Parker Pyne short stories, Miss Lemon was a pretty formidable woman.


Reluctantly, I should probably move on from Miss Lemon and talk about the rest of the episode. The adaptation begins with Poirot visiting the Mayfair establishment of Mr Trumper, hairdresser and perfumer, to purchase a new cologne. This is Poirot at his most dandyish – dare I say, foppish? – and there’s almost a touch of camp about his behaviour in the scene. When Mr Trumper enquires as to the reason for Poirot’s slightly giddy mood, the little Belgian cryptically replies ‘I am to become a pink rose!’, before rushing home to lock himself in the bathroom for a major preening session.

A quick aside… G.F. Trumper is a real barber and perfumer. A shop at 9 Curzon Street, Mayfair, was opened in the late nineteenth century by George Trumper, and it’s still open today (along with a second premises in Duke of York Street). The TV show used the Curzon Street shop for the scenes in which Poirot purchases his cologne, though the part of Mr Trumper was played by actor Trevor Danby. This feels like such a good find on the part of the locations team, I think they should be mentioned by name for once… well done, Scott Rowlatt and Paul Shersby!

Eventually, we discover the reason for this strange behaviour – a rose is to be named in Poirot’s honour at the RHS Flower Show. And so, the gang are all off to Chelsea! Except… poor old Hastings seems to have come down with a severe bout of hay fever (or is he allergic to some new scent in the apartment?), so he’s left home alone with Miss Lemon’s filing system. The trip to the flower show gives us two extra details. It seems we’re still in 1935, as the RHS banner informs us.


The thing is… the 1935 Chelsea Flower Show took place on the 22-24 May. Which means that the events of ‘How Does Your Garden Grow?’ must take place before the events of ‘The Veiled Lady’ (set in July that year) and ‘The Cornish Mystery’ (set in July and August). It also means this story takes place before ‘The Adventure of the Cheap Flat’, as that episode has Poirot, Hastings and Japp watching ‘G’ Men at the cinema, and the film wasn’t released in the UK until November 1935. Mind you, that would mean that… oh, forget it… the episodes don’t follow a logical calendar. At this point in the series, it’s just always 1935 and that’s all there is to it.

Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.

Thank you to Carrie Lewis for providing this image

Okay… two further asides about the naming of the rose. At the RHS show, we get to see the return of Japp-the-Botanist, as he casually remarks: ‘I would have expected you to be a polyantha rose, rather than a hybrid tea. The scent is much stronger, you know?’ While we’ll see Japp in his garden later in the series, for now this is a nice reminder of his interest in flora at the beginning of ‘The Market Basing Mystery’.

And, while there isn’t a Hercule Poirot rose, his creator did have a flower named after her in 1988 (also a ‘lightly fragrant’ pink hybrid tea). I don’t know whether the programme-makers were aware of this when writing this episode a couple of years later, but I quite like this detail.

Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.

Agatha Christie rose - thanks to Darren Michaels for providing this picture

The actual mystery part of the episode begins, not with an anxious letter, but with an encounter between Amelia Barrowby (Margery Mason) and the great detective. The old woman recognizes Poirot and makes it clear that she would like to talk to him. She presses a packet of seeds (‘Catherine the Great’ stocks) into his hand. (Another aside… I can’t seem to help myself today… the conversation with Amelia Barrowby leads Poirot to say: ‘One day I hope to retire to grow the vegetable marrows, but until then I have only the window box.’ Fans of Christie’s fiction will recognize this as a nod to The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, making it a rare call-forward – there are very few direct references to yet-to-be-adapted stories in the series.)


By the time Poirot and Miss Lemon call on Miss Barrowby, she’s already died. From this point, the mystery unfolds in a similar way to in the short story, though there are some alterations and expansions.

Miss Barrowby was cared for by Katrina Reiger (played by Catherine Russell), who is a Russian immigrant. As in Christie’s story, this is a cause for suspicion, though it is significantly expanded from Henry’s casual talk of ‘Bolshies’ and ‘Reds’. The other two suspects are, again, Mary Delafontaine (Anne Stallybrass) and her husband (Tim Wylton), but their motive is developed further with some shady financial dealings. This latter detail is disclosed indirectly to Poirot in an odd little sequence involving a solicitor judging a horse show and using this as a coded metaphor for the terms of Miss Barrowby’s will (which always reminds me of Arthur Wimborne’s blatantly obvious crossword ‘code’ in the BBC’s adaptation of 4.50 from Paddington). Additionally, we have the extra details of Henry Delafontaine’s secret drinking (which does lead to a funny little scene in the denouement) and the replacement of Inspector Sims with Inspector Japp (who is discovered staking out Miss Barrowby’s house). The nursery rhyme title is also underlined further with the discovery of a silver bell alongside the shells in the flowerbed.

Overall, though, these additions enhance Christie’s story, rather than change it, and several of them allow for the TV Poirot’s now-familiar traits to shine. For instance, the changes made to Katrina – no longer simply a bit ‘foreign’, she is now a refugee Russian aristocrat – means that Poirot isn’t simply protective of the girl because she is friendless, but that he is aware of the peril she may be in from the very ‘Bolshies’ and ‘Reds’ she is suspected of aiding, and he feels a kinship based on their shared refugee status. He is also able to dabble in a bit of matchmaking at the end of the episode, as he brings together Katrina and Nicholai (Peter Birch), a man who works at the Russian Embassy. And Poirot does love a bit of matchmaking.

Ultimately, though, this episode is all about Miss Lemon for me. The short story is her introduction to the Poirot canon, so it seems fitting that the TV episode lets her take centre stage. Significantly, the discovery of the all-important garden clue – that the shell border isn’t complete and so doesn’t fit with the ‘order’ of Mary’s garden – is passed from Poirot (who spots it in the short story) to Miss Lemon (who comments on it in the adaptation). This seems like a nice way of acknowledging the relationship introduced in Christie’s short story. As his literary counterpart does when he sees the neatly cut newspaper article, the TV Poirot registers his approval at Miss Lemon’s assessment of the shell border. It seems that this Miss Lemon, like Christie’s, really does have ‘a passion for order almost equalling that of Poirot himself’.

Okay… that’s probably more than enough for this episode.

tl;dr I love Miss Lemon.


Moving on to the next episode… ‘The Million Dollar Bond Robbery’

This post is part of my 2016 Poirot Project. You can read the full story of why I’m doing this in my Introduction post. The previous post was a review of ‘How Does Your Garden Grow?’


The second episode of the third series of Agatha Christie’s Poirot was first broadcast on 13th January 1991. It was based on the short story of the same name, which was first published in The Sketch in May 1923.

After moving around a bit for the last two episodes (The Mysterious Affair at Styles was published earlier, and ‘How Does Your Garden Grow?’ later), we’re back on the familiar territory of the Sketch short stories, with our faithful chronicler Hastings describing another of the cases he worked on with his friend Poirot. And – even more familiar territory – the story begins with Hastings’s Perusal of the Morning News:

‘“What a number of bond robberies there have been lately!” I observed one morning, laying aside the newspaper. “Poirot, let us forsake the science of detection, and take to crime instead!”’

Sadly, this isn’t the beginning of a new career for Poirot and Hastings, as the jokey conversation about bond robberies and ocean liners that follows is soon interrupted by their landlady, who ushers in a new client (landlady, dear, not housekeeper). Miss Esmée Farquhar has come to ask Poirot to help her fiancé, Philip Ridgeway, the man implicated in the very bond robbery they were just discussing. The men agree to take the case and hurry away to interview Ridgeway over lunch at the Cheshire Cheese.

The puzzle is a neat one. Ridgeway was entrusted with a million dollars’ worth of Liberty Bonds by the London and Scottish Bank. The bank wanted to extend their credit in America, and so had decided to ship the bonds over the Atlantic; Ridgeway travelled to New York with the valuable cargo on the Olympia (one of the ocean liners of which Poirot and Hastings seem so enamoured at the beginning of the story). The bonds were sealed in a package, then placed in a portmanteau with a special lock (a unique lock with three keys – one given to Ridgeway, the other two held by the bank’s managers, Mr Shaw and Mr Vavasour). Although every care appears to be taken, disaster strikes – shortly before the boat docks, Ridgeway discovers the portmanteau has been opened and the bonds taken. Within half an hour of the Olympia’s arrival in New York, brokers reported that the bonds were being offered for sale.

And yet… Ridgeway discovered the bonds were missing before the ship docked and, as a result, all passengers were searched on landing. The ship was also searched ‘with a toothcomb’. The bulky package of bonds had disappeared into thin air. Scratches on the case suggest that someone originally tried to force the lock, but it was eventually just opened with the key. But how is that possible? Ridgeway’s key remained on his person at all times, and the other two keys were in a safe at the London and Scottish Bank, accessible only to Mr Vavasour (Ridgeway’s uncle) and Mr Shaw (who has been away from the bank due to severe bronchitis). And even if the thief had somehow managed to get hold of one of the keys, why did they try to force the lock first?

These questions are the heart of the puzzle. Like many of the Sketch stories – which are all quite short – we aren’t presented with a large cast of suspects like in the novels. Instead, we have a little brainteaser that requires some lateral thinking. The brevity of the form means that every seemingly throwaway line (‘One broker swears he bought some of them even before the Olympia got in.’) is a clue to the solution.

Poirot knows what this all means. After interviewing all the relevant people, he has a little chat with Hastings (which feels a bit like he’s addressing the reader as well):

‘“No, I am disappointed in the case – it is too easy!”
“Easy?”
“Yes, do you not find it almost childishly simple?”’

This is a pretty standard feature of detective fiction – bizarrely early in the narrative, the detective will announce that he/she has worked it all out (or almost all of it) but they can’t yet reveal the solution. It’s a narrative conceit intended to indicate to readers that they have now received all the clues necessary to solve the puzzle (and to remind them that they might need to go back and think about the implications of everything they’ve seen). Most detectives do this at some point (Sherlock Holmes does it, Miss Marple does it, even Jonathan Creek does it), and it’s usually explained away with a wave of the hand (‘I don’t know how to prove it yet.’ ‘I don’t want to alert the culprit until I have more evidence.’)

But, on this occasion, the detective is just being a plain and simple show off. When Hastings asks his friend why he doesn’t just reveal the solution, Poirot (almost breaking the fourth wall here) says:

‘As to why I wait – eh bien, to the intelligence of Hercule Poirot the case is perfectly clear, but for the benefit of others, not so greatly gifted by the good God – the Inspector McNeil, for instance – it would be as well to make a few inquiries to establish the facts. One must have consideration for those less gifted than oneself.’

Inspector McNeil is the Japp-substitute in this case, but one feels like Poirot might be referring to someone other than the hapless policeman. Is his hesitation for the benefit of Hastings? Or the reader? His friend is not impressed with this:

‘Good Lord, Poirot! Do you know, I’d give a considerable sum of money to see you make a thorough ass of yourself – just for once. You’re so confoundedly conceited!’

To be fair, Hastings has got a point.

Once those of us who are ‘less gifted’ catch up, the solution is revealed, and it’s a satisfying one. I know some people might be a little concerned that Christie’s answer relies on a fact that hasn’t previously been revealed (which is a big no-no in Golden Age detective fiction). But I quite like it – it’s not that the fact wasn’t revealed, it’s that the possibility of its existence simply didn’t cross our minds. Poirot tells us the bonds can’t be sent by wireless, and transatlantic air travel is in its infancy – so what can possibly travel between Liverpool and New York quicker than a boat?*

‘The Million Dollar Bond Robbery’ is a great short story, which does exactly what you’d expect from the form. Let’s see how the adaptation measures up…


The episode was directed by Andrew Grieve and written by Anthony Horowitz. This is the first of eleven episodes dramatized by Horowitz and, as you might expect from the man who created Foyle’s War (which is another favourite of mine), the adaptation is very good. It follows the short story closely, with a few expansions and additions that enhance, rather than change, Christie’s narrative.

We begin in Threadneedle Street (mentioned in Christie’s story), watching financiers scurry through the London rain to their respective establishments. Among the commuters are Mr Shaw (played by David Quilter) and Mr Vavasour (played by Ewan Hooper), the managers of the London and Scottish Bank. Their regular walk to work is disrupted, however, as a car swerves towards Shaw and almost runs him down.

This dramatic opening gives way to a familiar scene: Poirot and Hastings are in their apartment, and Hastings is perusing the morning news. As the robbery hasn’t yet taken place, the conversation about their potential life of crime is dropped; however, like his literary counterpart, Hastings is rather fascinated by the paper’s description of an ocean liner. Poirot (as in the story) announces that his seasickness would prevent him from taking a trip on such a vessel, but he seems far more disdainful of boats in general than in Christie’s text. In the 1923 story, Poirot imagines ‘dreamily’ what pleasure he could have if only he wasn’t afflicted with the mal de mer; Suchet’s Poirot translates this into a slightly grumpier assessment of the perils of the sea, explaining to Hastings that, since he crossed the channel ‘twenty years ago’, he has had a deep aversion to sea voyages of any kind. (It would be churlish to point out that – in the TV chronology – Poirot has already travelled to Rhodes and taken a cruise around Egypt, both for recreational purposes.)

The first big change to the story is the way in which Poirot is brought into the case. In this version, it is Vavasour and Shaw who contact the detective, rather than Esmée Farquhar (renamed, for some reason, Esmee Dalgleish in the episode). Poirot isn’t asked to investigate the theft, but rather asked to accompany the bonds to America to prevent a theft. As you can imagine, Hastings is over the moon about this.

Poirot’s employment by Vavasour and Shaw before the crime means that we get to see some of the background to the case with our own eyes (rather than it simply being described after the fact). We see Ridgeway (played by Oliver Parker) and Esmee (Natalie Ogle), and discover that he is a young man with some money problems (unlike the impeccable character in Christie’s story). Suspicion is immediately thrown on Ridgeway as it’s discovered that he owned a car of the same make as the one that was driven at Shaw in the opening sequence (a Singer). The young man insists that he sold the car because it wouldn’t start properly – a story that Hastings immediately reveals as a lie, since the Singer is known for its ‘brand new ignition system’. For once, Poirot is forced to bow to his associate’s superior knowledge.

We’re then shown the security measures to be taken to protect the bonds. Inspector McNeil is replaced by Mr McNeil (played by Paul Young), the head of security at the London and Scottish. Interestingly, the removal of the original policeman isn’t to make room for Japp, as this is one of the few early episodes that doesn’t feature the inspector at all. Instead, the role is altered because, at this point, no crime has taken place. McNeil simply reveals the precautions taken to secure the bonds for their transatlantic journey (which, as in the story, involve a unique lock and three closely-guarded keys).

Another important change to the story is that Ridgeway is no longer the first choice of courier. It is Shaw himself who is meant to be making the journey to the States. Not long before the voyage – disaster! Someone slips a dose of strychnine into Shaw’s coffee – he survives, but he’s too ill to travel with the bonds. Ridgeway is going to have to go in his place.

(A little aside… I love the scene in which Shaw gets the poisoned coffee. I’ve never seen a tea-lady push a trolley up a corridor with more sense of menace.)


It’s now time for the much-anticipated sea voyage. Poirot collects together the necessary equipment to survive the ordeal.


This is a little bit of a departure from Christie’s fiction. Poirot’s seasickness is something that is mentioned several times in the short stories, but he doesn’t resort to patent medicines to survive it. In ‘The Kidnapped Prime Minister’, Poirot copes with crossing the channel by employing ‘Laverguier’s system’ (‘You breathe in – and out – slowly, so – turning the head from left to right and counting six between each breath.’) In the 1923 version of ‘The Million Dollar Bond Robbery’ (published the week after ‘The Kidnapped Prime Minister’), the detective explains that, while this might be fine for traversing la Manche, it won’t work for transatlantic sailings (because of ‘the difficulty of practising the so excellent method of Laverguier for a longer time than the few hours of crossing the Channel’). This will also be his remedy on the voyage to France in Murder on the Links. By ‘Problem at Sea’ (published thirteen years later), he seems to be able to survive longer journeys, but still has to spend some evenings in his cabin (‘I detest la mer.’). He doesn’t mention Laverguier’s system here, but he doesn’t mention medicine either.

Now, I can sort of see why the programme-makers added Poirot’s medicine chest to the episode. Christie had her detective build up from Channel sailings (in 1916, presumably, and then again before the end of WWI, before a couple of trips in 1923), to continental train journeys (in 1928 and 1934) that would necessarily begin with boat travel, to trying to avoid the sea by flying from France to England (in 1935), before (finally) having him attempt longer sea journeys (in 1935 and 1936). After that, there’s no stopping him, and he’s off to Egypt (again), Iraq and Jerusalem. The problem for the TV series is that, having altered the order of the stories, we’ve already seen Poirot on holiday at sea before the stories in which his seasickness is an issue (although, weirdly, he denies this here and in ‘The Veiled Lady’). Given that there seems to be a desire to retain Poirot’s seasickness as a recurring characteristic, the easiest way to explain his international travel is a quick shot of a monster medicine cabinet. Problem solved.

And, for added humour, the medicine seems to work just fine. Poirot has a great time on the ocean liner… it’s Hastings who ends up bedridden with the mal de mer (you do see that one coming though).

Now… about that ocean liner…

The story has the bonds travel on the Olympia, but the TV episode puts Poirot and Hastings on the Queen Mary. This is another example of the way in which the early series weave contemporary detail into the productions. But oh! wait a minute! the maiden voyage of the Queen Mary was in May 1936, meaning that this episode takes place almost exactly a year after the previous one (which was definitively set in May 1935). This fact is confirmed when Miss Lemon and Hastings make a reference to ‘The Lost Mine’ (in which Poirot’s bank manager was arrested for murder and fraud), saying that it occurred ‘last year’. It’s a good thing I’ve given up on a logical calendar of cases, as this is the sort of thing that might drive me mad.

Poirot and Hastings’s trip on the Queen Mary is introduced with a faux-Movietone newsreel, in which the two travellers feature (a technique that has previously been used in ‘The Dream’ and ‘The Disappearance of Mr Davenheim’). The announcer points out ‘Europe’s most famous detective’ among the passengers (remember that – it’s important for the next episode).


The final addition to the plot is a female traveller on the Queen Mary. Miranda Brooks (Lizzy McInnerny) catches Hastings’s eye, but his seasickness prevents him from furthering their acquaintance. Poirot also notices the woman, but (of course) this is for a quite different reason.

Later in the episode, we meet Nurse Long, the woman who has been helping Shaw recover from strychnine poisoning. Is there something a bit familiar about this woman? Hmmm…

Now, I’m in two minds about the Miranda Brooks/Nurse Long character. I understand why she’s been added to the story. In Christie’s text, Shaw himself travels in the cabin next door to Ridgeway, disguised as a nondescript ‘elderly gentleman, wearing glasses’ – his ‘bronchitis’ was simply a lie. Given that things are generally handled in more detail in the TV episode, a convenient case of bronchitis (which no one thought to check) would have been too suspicious. Instead, Shaw needed to be more definitely put out of action, and a substitute sent in his place. This substitute had to be a close accomplice of Shaw’s, so what better than a girlfriend.

So there’s nothing wrong with Miranda Brooks’s existence, but I just can’t decide what I think about her disguise. When Poirot meets her on the Queen Mary, her American accent is absolutely atrocious. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that the character isn’t meant to be American – let’s be honest, there are some shocking accents on the show that aren’t meant to be suspicious (Mrs Vanderlyn, anyone?) No, my issue is more with her appearance as Nurse Long. Even if I hadn’t seen Miranda Brooks, I would’ve been suspicious of Nurse Long – she’s so obviously in disguise. No one in Poirot looks that frumpy and plain unless they’re deliberately trying to be anonymous (and there’s a particularly egregious example of this coming up later in the series).

Maybe I’m alone in this assessment though, as my husband didn’t spot that she was wearing a disguise, and I’ve seen some reviews of the episode that praised the success of Miranda’s transformation. And whatever the viewers think, the disguise certainly fooled Hastings, as he is blown away by the revelation. Discovering that Miranda and Nurse Long are the same person seems to push the man into some sort of existential crisis. When his concerned friend asks him the cause of his anxiety, the poor baffled man replies: ‘If a woman can do that one way, she can do it the other!’ Pauvre Hastings!


Overall, then, this a great episode. It stays close to the original story, and adds some little flourishes that enhance the TV characters we’ve come to know and love. The only thing missing is the good Chief Inspector Japp, but I’m pretty sure he’ll be back again soon.

On to the next episode: ‘The Plymouth Express’


* Answer: a faster boat

This post is part of my 2016 Poirot Project. You can read the full story of why I’m doing this in my Introduction post. The previous post was a review of ‘The Million Dollar Bond Robbery’.


The third episode of the third series of Agatha Christie’s Poirot was first broadcast on 20th January 1991. It was based on the short story of the same name (aka ‘The Mystery of the Plymouth Express’), which was first published in The Sketch in April 1923.

In the grand scheme of Agatha Christie’s Poirot, ‘The Plymouth Express’ is a bit of an oddity. As with a number of her early Poirot stories, Christie revised, expanded and republished ‘The Plymouth Express’ into a novel (The Mystery of the Blue Train) a few years later. In the same way ‘The Market Basing Mystery’ became ‘Murder in the Mews’, ‘The Submarine Plans’ became ‘The Incredible Theft’, ‘The Mystery of the Baghdad Chest’ became ‘The Mystery of the Spanish Chest’, ‘The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding’ became ‘The Theft of the Royal Ruby’, and ‘The Second Gong’ became ‘Dead Man’s Mirror’. Two posthumously published short stories reveal the origins of two other Poirot novels: Dumb Witness began life as ‘The Incident of the Dog’s Ball’, and Dead Man’s Folly started out as ‘Hercule Poirot and the Greenshore Folly’. (And that’s not even to mention ‘The Regatta Mystery’ and ‘The Yellow Iris’, which were expanded and rewritten to replace Poirot with a different detective.) The TV series is relatively consistently with how it treats these doppelganger stories – on the whole, the series uses the later (longer) version of the story as its basis. The only exceptions to this are ‘The Yellow Iris’ (where the earlier version is adapted, because that’s the version with Poirot in it), ‘The Regatta Mystery’ (which isn’t included at all) and ‘The Plymouth Express’.

For some reason, the programme-makers decided to adapt both ‘The Plymouth Express’ and The Mystery of the Blue Train for the series. I imagine the idea was that the two stories are sufficiently different, and were adapted sufficiently far apart to feel like distinct stories (I’d disagree, perhaps, as I think the stories are no more different than ‘The Market Basing Mystery’ is from ‘Murder in the Mews’ – but at the point when ‘The Plymouth Express’ was made, I don’t think the showrunners were particularly concerned with adapting all of the novels in addition to the short stories.) So, while I would normally read both versions of a story before writing about the episode, I have restricted myself to ‘The Plymouth Express’ for this post – I’ll return to The Mystery of the Blue Train when I get to that episode.

‘The Plymouth Express’ is an oddity for another reason as well. Although this is one of the original Sketch stories – and it is narrated by Hastings – the story doesn’t begin in Poirot’s apartment, and there’s no Perusal of the Morning News. Instead, we start off in the company of a character we’ve never heard of (and who we’ll never hear from again):

‘Alec Simpson, RN, stepped from the platform at Newton Abbot into a first-class compartment of the Plymouth Express. A porter followed him with a heavy suitcase. He was about to swing it up to the rack, but the young sailor stopped him.’

We follow Simpson on his train journey for a few paragraphs, until he decides to stow his suitcase under the seat opposite:

‘“Why the devil won’t it go in?” he muttered, and hauling it out completely, he stooped down and peered under the seat…’

This opening is rather different to the other Sketch stories. It almost feels like we’ve stumbled into a thriller, and there’s something quite cinematic about it. The ellipsis serves to defer the revelation that we know is coming (he’s surely found a body under the seat), and instead we’re simply told that ‘a cry rang out into the night’ and the train drew to a halt.

Cut to:

Poirot and Hastings are in their apartment, and the detective tells his friend that he’s received a note from a Mr Ebenezer Halliday, the father of Mrs Rupert Carrington – née Flossie Halliday – who wants to engage the services of the great detective. As this is a short story (and the Sketch stories are really rather short), the connections are made quickly. Flossie Halliday was the woman found murdered on the Plymouth Express; she was apparently murdered for the valuable jewel case she was carrying on the train. Ebenezer Halliday is ‘the steel king of America’, and Rupert Carrington is ‘a good-looking, well-mannered, utterly unscrupulous young scoundrel’ (and not the first scoundrel to whom Flossie has been attracted, as her previous flirtation – with the Count de la Rochefour – is described as a ‘bad affair’ by Poirot).

Despite its somewhat cinematic opening, ‘The Plymouth Express’ is, at its heart, a classic Sketch story… and a very enjoyable one at that. The puzzle is good, and the resolution relies on a subversion of the rules of Golden Age detective fiction – and the culprit is cut from a different cloth to the usual Christie baddie. It’s not Christie’s most audacious rule-breaking, but it’s a notable one. Along with the story’s somewhat unorthodox opening, ‘The Plymouth Express’ gives a little taste of Christie’s occasional forays into thriller writing, though it’s definitely wearing in a ‘whodunit’ wrapper.

Wealthy heiress Flossie Carrington – now estranged from her husband – had boarded the Plymouth Express with the intention of attending a party in Bristol. She was travelling with her maid Jane Mason. However, at Bristol, Flossie announced to Mason that she would not be alighting. She told her maid to get off the train and wait at Bristol – she would travel back on an up-train and meet her later. Mason explained later that she saw a man sitting in her mistress’s carriage (though she didn’t see his face). At Weston, Flossie stepped out of the train to buy a couple of magazines. By Newton Abbot, she was dead. Was her husband responsible? Or was it the shady Count de la Rochefour? Or could it have been someone we barely even noticed?

While the story might be a little different to the other Sketch stories, there’s still plenty of the usual stuff as well. The story is narrated by Hastings, though he is a little less conspicuous than in some other stories. The dynamic duo is joined by Inspector Japp, and there are some little interactions between the policeman and the detective that are rather charming. Japp greets Poirot ‘with a sort of affectionate contempt’, but seems more than happy to work with his ‘old friend’. Later on, when Poirot (with seemingly miraculous insight) deduces that the victim spoke to a paper-boy at Weston station, Japp is mystified:

‘Japp’s jaw fell. “How on earth did you know? Don’t tell me it was those almighty ‘little grey cells’ of yours!”
“I am glad you admit for once that they are all mighty!”’

Japp’s praise is a bit back-handed, though, as he makes a couple of rather barbed references to Poirot’s advancing years:

‘Wonderful how you manage to deliver the goods sometimes, at your age and all. Devil’s own luck, of course.’

It’s quite sweet the way that Poirot takes all of this with a sort of twinkling good humour, and the story concludes with the little Belgian allowing his Scotland Yard pal to take full credit for solving the mystery (with the cheeky caveat that, while Japp has ‘official credit’, Poirot ‘as the Americans say, ha[s] got his goat!’)

One final little detail about the short story… while some of the other Sketch stories (like ‘The Veiled Lady’ and ‘The Adventure of the Cheap Flat’ make light-hearted reference to the stories of Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘The Plymouth Express’ sees Poirot make a more pointed swipe at his illustrious predecessor. When talking to Halliday about Flossie’s relationship with the count, Poirot comments:

‘But to track footmarks and recognize cigarette-ash is not sufficient for a detective. He must also be a good psychologist!’

The mention of ‘cigarette-ash’ is surely a dig at Sherlock Holmes – who, in The Study in Scarlet, talks rather haughtily about his ability to ‘distinguish at a glance the ash of any known brand’, adding that he once wrote a monograph on the very subject. Clearly, Poirot isn’t impressed.

So… on to the TV version of ‘The Plymouth Express’…


The episode was written by Rod Beacham and directed by Andrew Piddington. Like most of the third series, it’s a fairly faithful adaptation with embellishments, rather than more dramatic alterations, to Christie’s story.

One of the main changes is that we see Flossie before her death. The episode opens with Rupert Carrington (played by Julian Wadham) arriving at his (ex-)wife’s apartment. It’s clear from the start that he’s a bit of a wrong ’un, and he suffers a rather high-handed dismissal from Flossie (Shelagh McLeod). Next, we see the Comte de la Rochefour (Alfredo Michelson) arriving at a hotel – and, to be honest, it’s pretty clear that he’s a wrong ’un too. But Flossie seems to like him.


Shelagh McLeod’s portrayal of Flossie is interesting. The woman is confident – almost veering towards arrogant at times – and utterly self-assured. Unlike the character from Christie’s story, who is dead before we even know her name, the TV Flossie is very much alive, and we get to see her happy and enjoying her lavish social life. She revels in the attentions of the count, and we see her gleefully enumerating the flowers and gifts with which he has showered her. It’s not clear whether she has any real feelings for the man, or whether she is just toying with him because she likes his effusive way of flirting with her. Or, maybe, she’s just glad to be having some fun after separating from her hopeless (and financially dubious) husband.

There’s a scene in ‘The Plymouth Express’ that is a little bit reminiscent of one in ‘Problem at Sea’. Flossie sits in front of her mirror, gazing at her own reflection and smiling at the effect her appearance might have on the men in her life. There’s a similar moment in ‘Problem at Sea’, when Adeline Clapperton (who, interestingly, was also previously married to a man named Carrington) plucks her eyebrows and sings to herself. Adeline is also a rich woman married to unreliable (and impecunious) man, and she also seems (in my opinion anyway) justified in her occasional refusals to fund her spouse’s selfish and spoilt lifestyle. Like Flossie, Adeline also ends up dead.

However, Flossie is a bit of a different kettle of fish to Adeline Clapperton. In Christie’s short story, she is simply a victim (albeit one with slightly bad taste in men). In the TV adaptation, she lacks the stridency of Adeline and never publicly embarrasses her husband or her lover. She doesn’t talk about herself and her achievements with the same level of attention-seeking as the victim in ‘Problem at Sea’, and she’s also much younger, so her ‘mirror scene’ doesn’t have the same undertones of ‘inappropriateness’. Nevertheless, Flossie isn’t the typical sympathetic young woman of the Poirot stories either: she is bolder, more independent, more self-possessed. I like her.


Throughout the episode, Poirot is sympathetic to the victim. In the short story, the detective describes the dead woman as a ‘poor little lady’, but this description isn’t really appropriate for the TV character. Instead, we see Poirot’s determined quest to get justice for the woman – or, rather, to allow her grieving father to see justice done.

The TV version of Halliday (played by John Stone) is now an Australian millionaire (and is now called Gordon, rather than Ebenezer). He consults with the famous detective as soon as his daughter is missing, and Poirot seems to feel a particular desire to help the distraught man. I assume this is because the man isn’t British – and Poirot has declared his loyalty to ‘the visitors’ on a number of previous occasions. It is for Halliday that Poirot exerts his little grey cells, and it is the comprehension of the man’s grief that makes for a rather downbeat ending to the episode.

Characterization aside, the episode mainly follows the original short story. Quite a few minor little details from Christie’s text have been retained – e.g. Flossie’s distinctive ‘electric blue’ travelling outfit (though she loses her white fur toque in the adaptation) and the significance of the newspaper-boy (played by Steven Mackintosh). The newspaper misdirection is expanded upon in the TV episode, with the magazines substituted for a ‘late edition’ of a paper and a cryptic comment about the edition’s significance added. Unlike in the Sketch story, Poirot actually appears to be fooled (briefly) by this false lead, and spends a bit of time comparing early and late editions to work it out. This does allow for one of my favourite little details of the episode: we get a nice shot of Miss Lemon carrying a stack of newspapers into the office, and guess which one’s right on the top…


Poirot is joined in his investigation by Japp and Hastings – nice to see Japp back after his absence in the previous episode– and the pair of them seem to be embroiled in a bit of a scuffle to be ‘Watson’. There’s a great scene where Japp and Hastings quarrel over their respective theories (Japp thinks Carrington is the murderer, but Hastings is convinced it’s de la Rochefour); Poirot calmly arbitrates between the two, allowing them to explain their position and encouraging each to try and persuade the other – before stone cold proving that they’re both wrong.

Earlier in the episode, we’re also treated to another funny Hastings-the-detective moment. When discussing the theft of the jewel case by the murderer, Hastings postulates:

‘Well… perhaps he took it to distract us from his real motive.’

This is funny because, in almost every other Agatha Christie story, this would be a very astute suggestion. But, in typical fashion, Hastings manages to make this pronouncement in the one story where the theft of the jewel case is the real motive. Poor old Hastings.

Now… about that motive…

I like the ending of Christie’s short story, as it’s a bit of a twist. We’re not supposed to suspect servants in Golden Age detective fiction, so Jane Mason almost manages to sneak under the radar. And it’s quite nice that her associate (the wonderfully named Red Narky) is nabbed by Japp, who discovers him while conducting exactly the sort of mundane police work that Poirot isn’t able to do (Japp has been doing a check of pawn shops to see if any of the jewels are hocked).

In the adaptation, Poirot is similarly able to spot that Jane Mason (played by Marion Bailey – who does an impressive job of fading into the background until the final scenes) is guilty. In this version of the story, though, he is also able to identify her accomplice. He finds the (less wonderfully named) Mr McKenzie (Kenneth Haigh) in ‘the admirable files of Miss Lemon’, and sets up a sting operation of his own.

And this is where my only criticism of the episode lies. Poirot chooses not to wear a disguise when he visits McKenzie. Now, in ‘The Lost Mine’, Christie made it quite clear that Poirot disdains disguise; however, the TV series has featured a memorably ‘incognito’ Poirot in a previous episode. And yet, in this episode, he visits the jewel thief looking and acting more Poirot than he’s ever done before. That seems a little bit foolish, no?

Worse still… McKenzie doesn’t even recognize him!

In ‘The Veiled Lady’, we saw two jewel thieves (Gertie and Joey) who were so familiar with the great Hercule Poirot that they even hired himself themselves. Even more egregiously, in the episode just before‘The Plymouth Express’, Poirot was caught on camera during the Movietone news reports of the Queen Mary’s maiden voyage, in which he was described as ‘Europe’s most famous detective’. Has McKenzie been living under a rock or something? How can he not recognize the great Hercule Poirot!

Ah well… naïve jewel thieves aside, this is a great episode based on a very enjoyable short story. It does end on a rather sad note, as Poirot is clearly affected by the grief of the man who hired him. More so than in previous episodes, Poirot seems a bit weighed down by the implications of his adventures. The adaptation ends, not with a cheeky jibe at Japp, but with Poirot reading a poignant note from Halliday, in which the man talks about returning to Australia and attempting to come to terms with the tragedy. Miss Lemon and Hastings respond with respectful silence, and the final shot of the episode is of Poirot standing alone in the adjoining room, his movements slowing winding down to a freeze-frame.


This sombre ending gives us a hint of the tonal shift that the series will undergo later in its run, but for now it’s a momentary image of the detective’s more empathetic side. Only momentary, though, as the next episode has a final shot that is almost the complete opposite (and it has Peter Capaldi dressed as a clown).

But I’m getting ahead of myself… let’s start at the beginning and look at ‘Wasps’ Nest’ in more detail…

This post is part of my 2016 Poirot Project. You can read the full story of why I’m doing this in my Introduction post. The previous post was a review of ‘The Plymouth Express’, but this is a quick post with something a little bit different.

As you may recall, one of the unexpected side effects of doing this project is that I've started to get my other half interested in Agatha Christie's writing. He was a bit reluctant at first but he's been getting into the ITV series and, earlier this year, he read his first Poirot novel. As he said in his review of The Mysterious Affair at Styles, he was encouraged to give Agatha Christie a go after getting hooked on the recent BBC adaptation of And Then There Were None and reading Christie's novel straight afterwards.

Now, as well as being the long-suffering husband of a woman who obsessively her thoughts about Poirot stories, my other half is also a very talented musician and composer. And he's just written his first track inspired by Agatha Christie's writing! So... please enjoy... 'Then There Were None' by Digital Front.

This post is part of my 2016 Poirot Project. You can read the full story of why I’m doing this in my Introduction post. The previous post was a review of ‘The Plymouth Express’.


The fourth episode of the third series of Agatha Christie’s Poirot was first broadcast on 27th January 1991. It was based on the short story of the same name, which was first published in the Daily Mail in November 1928 (thus representing one of the few things that the Daily Mail has ever published that I would actually want to read).

‘Wasps’ Nest’ is a very short, almost minimalist short story – but I’ve always been rather fond of it. Although the story was published a couple of months after ‘Double Sin’, Hastings is absent (he’s presumably back in Argentina by now) and there’s no mention of Japp either. Despite having made his first appearance a few months earlier in The Mystery of the Blue Train, George isn’t present here either. Interestingly, unlike in many of Christie’s other short stories, there are also no references to Poirot’s past cases or clients.

These absences give the story a sort of pared-down feel: we are simply given Poirot and a puzzle. Nothing more, and nothing less. But the nature of the puzzle is quite different to those found elsewhere in the Poirot stories, as we’re told early on that no crime has actually been committed. As Poirot explains to John Harrison (one of only two other characters who appear in the story): ‘I am investigating a crime that has not yet taken place.’

Now, the possibility of this pre-emptive approach is an issue in another of the Poirot short stories. In ‘Triangle at Rhodes’ (which was published after, but adapted before, ‘Wasps’ Nest’), Poirot is also confronted by the probability of a murder and must decide how to act to prevent it. In the ITV version of ‘Triangle at Rhodes’, Poirot is fairly adamant that such a feat is impossible (and, indeed, he fails in the task), which makes ‘Wasps’ Nest’ seem almost like an attempt to try again. However, the short stories are a little different: ‘Wasps’ Nest’ came first, and in the later story Poirot is less insistent about the impossibility of intervention. In addition to this, the minimalist nature of Christie’s ‘Wasps’ Nest’ makes it seem even more distinct from ‘Triangle at Rhodes’, both in terms of its stripped-down cast of supporting characters and the role of the detective himself.

Christie’s story begins with a man named John Harrison surveying his garden. There is a very brief description of Harrison, followed by an equal-sized description of his garden. Within just a few lines, however, his reverie is interrupted by the arrival of a familiar figure:

‘It was, indeed, the famous Hercule Poirot whose renown as a detective had spread over the whole world.’

It seems Harrison and Poirot have a previous acquaintance, as the little Belgian acknowledges on his friend’s open-ended invitation to visit if he was in the area. It’s when Harrison asks the reason for Poirot’s trip that we get the (rather cryptic) explanation:

‘If one can investigate a murder before it has happened, surely that is very much better than afterwards. One might even – a little idea – prevent it.’

It’s not long before we realize that it might well be Harrison himself who is at the centre of Poirot’s investigation.

That said, there’s actually surprisingly little investigation here. The story consists almost entirely of dialogue between Harrison and Poirot, and with a few additional facts provided by the detective’s exposition. In their first conversation, Poirot learns that Harrison has a problem with a wasps’ nest in his garden. His friend Claude Langton is coming over later that evening to dispatch the creatures with a syringe of petrol. At this point, Poirot reveals that he already knows that Langton has purchased some cyanide at the local chemist:

‘Harrison stared. “That’s odd,” he said. “Langton told me the other day that he’d never dream of using the stuff; in fact, he said it oughtn’t to be sold for the purpose.”’

Poirot is unperturbed by this revelation, and simply asks Harrison if he likes Langton. He then reveals that he knows that Harrison is engaged to a woman named Molly Deane, who was previously engaged to Langton. After this, he promises to return at nine o’clock, when Langton will be arriving to destroy the wasps.

The puzzle seems a simple one – Poirot repeatedly assures Harrison (and us) that he believes someone is going to die, and we assume that he thinks that Langton is going to use the cyanide to poison his love rival. Of course, there’s more to the story than meets the eye, as we soon discover.

If the puzzle is a bit different in this story, so too is the detective. Without Hastings or Japp (or Miss Lemon or Ariadne Oliver) as a companion, Poirot is curiously solitary here. While there are other stories and novels that don’t feature any of ‘the gang’, Christie usually supplies a temporary sidekick or ‘Watson’ (and they are often called just that – for example, Ellie Henderson in ‘Problem at Sea’ is given the name, as is Dr Sheppard in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd). There is no Watson in ‘Wasps’ Nest’ – there is simply Poirot. And this, along with the lack of actual investigation, makes the detective take on a rather different role in the story.

‘Wasps’ Nest’ features Poirot at his most thoughtful – even philosophical. From the very beginning, his conversation with Harrison is circumspect to the point of being cryptic. Rather than identifying clues, the strange little Belgian offers profound pronouncements on the nature of life, death and human nature. For example, when Harrison laughs at the concept of ‘hate’, Poirot intones:

‘The English are very stupid […] They think that they can deceive anyone but that no one can deceive them. The sportsman – the good fellow – never will they believe evil of him. And because they are brave, but stupid, sometimes they die when they need not die.’

Perhaps the most dramatic – if rather odd – speech in the story comes shortly after this, when Poirot turns his attention to the titular nest in the garden:

‘There on the bank, close by that tree root. See you, the wasps returning home, placid at the end of the day? In a little hour, there will be destruction, and they know it not. There is no one to tell them. They have not, it seems, a Hercule Poirot. I tell you, Monsieur Harrison, I am down here on business. Murder is my business. And it is my business before it has happened as well as afterwards.’

Aside from the curious (and delightful) image of a Wasp-Poirot, this speech raises some interesting questions. What is the analogy that Poirot is drawing here? Are the wasps the counterparts of the stupid English he described above? Is Poirot equating (a portion of) the human race to insects? If so, what does that make him? And in what way – given that no one has hired him or requested that he investigate – is this potential murder his business?

Make no mistake: this is Poirot at his most metaphysical. Throughout the story, he appears almost deific in both his judgment and his knowledge of humanity. When we discover that Poirot has orchestrated the entire ‘chance’ visit to see Harrison – and that he did this as a result of randomly seeing Langton’s name in the chemist’s poison book – the whole thing seems almost supernatural. Poirot seems to have always known what would transpire. And Harrison’s final words – the final words of the story – cement this pseudo-divine intervention:

‘“Thank goodness you came,” he cried. “Oh, thank goodness you came.”’

This isn’t Poirot-the-conjuror or Poirot-the-physician – this is Poirot the deus ex machina.

Nevertheless, Christie apparently couldn’t resist adding a couple of slightly more humanizing elements to the story. Even without a sidekick providing commentary, we get a couple of little glimpses into the inner workings of our hero. And yet… unlike in the other short stories, these are also somewhat portentous. In both cases, these glimpses serve to situate Poirot on the side of justice – but distinctly outside the forces of ‘law and order’. (This is a position we’ve seen Poirot take up before – and we’ll certainly see it again.)

The first comes in an almost throwaway explanation for how he was able to substitute cyanide for washing soda without being spotted:

‘There was a pickpocket once – I interested myself in him because for once in a way he had not done what they say he has done – and so I get him off. And because he is grateful he pays me in the only way he can think of – which is to show me the tricks of his trade.’

Wow. There’s a lot going there! This isn’t simply a reminiscence of a past case, like the Abercrombie forgery case or the adventure of ‘Baron’ Altara (mentioned in The Mysterious Affair at Styles). In fact, this doesn’t appear to be a case at all. Poirot ‘interested himself’ in the pickpocket, but he wasn’t actually employed to investigate him. Also notice how Poirot sets himself on the opposing side to the forces of law (presumably the police) when he talks about ‘what they say he has done’. And the man isn’t even unequivocally innocent – Poirot’s defence is couched in the vagaries of ‘for once’ and ‘in a way’ – but there is no question that the little Belgian had the power to ‘get him off’, if he was ‘interested’ to do so. I’ll say it again: wow.

The second detail is one that is, perhaps, a little more familiar to Poirot fans: the detective reveals his disgust at hanging. I’ve mentioned before that Poirot is often amenable to allowing murderers to ‘escape the noose’, particularly when he has some fondness or respect for them. Here, however, he gives a far more direct condemnation of hanging: it is ‘the worst death any man can die’. Again, Poirot is situating himself against the law and offering a more independent sense of ‘justice’.*

Okay… so all very deep stuff here. Time to turn to the ITV adaptation – and to have a look at how the programme-makers handled the darkly philosophical tone of ‘Wasps’ Nest’.


The episode was written by David Renwick and directed by Brian Farnham. On the surface, the tone and atmosphere is quite different to that of the short story, and we’re moved back to the familiar ground of the early ITV series. The gang’s all here – Hastings, Japp and Miss Lemon have been added to the episode – and the lush 1930s aesthetic is introduced early on. We begin at ‘Marble Hill’ tube station (filmed in the Grade II* listed Arnos Grove Underground Station, designed by Charles Holden in the early 1930s), where our little detective is in a grump again. In an attempt to cheer their friend up, Hastings and Japp have decided on an excursion to a garden fete, and the men are awaiting the arrival of Mrs Japp so they can set off.

Of course, Mrs Japp comes from the same police-spouse school as Mrs Columbo and so she never actually turns up. Japp himself is also quickly taken out of action when he is struck down by appendicitis – this is the first indication of the writer responding to the restrictions of Christie’s text, as there’s really no role for a policeman in a story where no crime actually takes place.

Hastings and Miss Lemon are also more ornamental than useful in the episode, and much of Hastings’s activity revolves around the fact that he’s got himself a new camera – ‘The new toy. I give it two, perhaps three weeks,’ Poirot says with a twinkle – and has turned Poirot’s bathroom into a darkroom.


So the adaptation manages to walk a rather wobbly line between including Poirot’s sidekicks (in deviation from Christie’s story) and not giving them any real role in the storyline (in deference to the original). In order to make their superfluity a little less obvious, a clue involving a photograph found in Langton’s house is added to tie in with Hastings’s new camera – but this is a tenuous connection at best.

Following the format of the TV series, the roles of the other characters are also expanded. It wouldn’t do to rely simply on Poirot’s conversations with Harrison – that would be very slow TV, even for early 90s (it was a simpler time) – and so the characters of John Harrison (Martin Turner), Molly Deane (Melanie Jessop) and Claude Langton (Peter Capaldi) have to be seen together on screen, rather than just simply described by an omniscient Belgian. As is quite common in the early episodes, this expansion is partly done by showing a scene that is merely described by the detective in the source material. In Christie’s story, Poirot explains that he has ‘seen Claude Langton and Molly Deane together when they thought no one saw them’. In the TV episode, this is played out in front of our eyes. For some reason, it is played out in a way that involves a young Peter Capaldi dressed as a clown – but who am I to judge the creative decisions?


The character of Molly is fleshed out in the episode, and she is reimagined as a fashion model. This allows for a few additional supporting characters to make brief – but pretty insignificant – appearances. The only other ‘new’ character who is seen on screen is an ominous old man (played by John Boswall) with a skull-headed cane, who stalks the edges of the story like some terrifying grim reaper until his identity is revealed towards the end of the episode.


I’m not too bothered about the theatricality of this character – who turns out to be called Dr Belvedere. For one thing, it’s in-keeping with the general tone of the early series. And for another, it’s not a huge deviation from the original story. Poirot’s portentous speeches in Christie’s work conjure up a sense of evil and death at large, waiting to be confronted by the detective, so it’s not a huge leap to see that personified on screen. Moreover, when the literary Poirot reveals that he knows that John Harrison has been visiting a doctor, he says that Harrison looked like ‘a man under sentence of death’ after his consultation – so why not have the TV characters followed by a man who looks very capable of issuing such a sentence?

There are a couple of other changes to the adaptation, though these were clearly done to expand the very short source text into a full episode. Poirot isn’t aware of the entry in the poison book prior to running into Harrison – which allows for a short comedic scene in which Poirot asks Hastings to cover for him with the chemist while he snoops through the book – and Molly Deane apparently suffers a car crash while driving to Harrison’s home. Unlike in the short story, it is Langton who suggests using cyanide on the wasps rather than Harrison, and the substitution of the cyanide for the washing soda is carried out at Langton’s house rather than on Harrison’s person. These changes all serve to throw more suspicion onto Langton, which is really only an expansion of the misdirection in the first part of Christie’s text.

For most of the episode, ‘Wasps’ Nest’ loses the oddly detached feel of the short story. Poirot doesn’t really come across as a deus ex machina– instead, as he reads Molly’s tealeaves and sneaks a look at a poison book, he seems like the more familiar conjuror-detective, playing up the theatrics of his investigation as he did in the fake séance in Peril at End House and the ventriloquism finale of ‘Problem at Sea’.

But just as we think the adaptation has dispensed with the more philosophical elements of its source, we move into a denouement that is much more faithful to the original story.

In resolving the puzzle, Poirot chooses to visit Harrison alone at his house. The rest of the gang are absent, and Langton and Molly have receded into the background. Poirot has already hinted that this resolution will be rather different to the others in the series, as shortly before his final encounter with Harrison, he offers an unusual summary of the case: ‘Everything has happened. And yet nothing has happened.’

Once Poirot is in Harrison’s garden, the wasps come back into focus. Poirot gives a (slightly truncated) version of his analogy – ‘For the wasps, there is no Hercule Poirot to warn them!’ – and Harrison resigns himself to his fate, and (in an added moment of poignancy) to an acceptance of the wasps’ presence in his garden. As Poirot leaves, Harrison acknowledges the detective’s role in words almost identical to his literary predecessor: ‘Thank God you came!’

Poirot doesn’t answer. He simply walks into the early evening light and disappears slowly from view before the credits roll. The deus returning to the machina.


Gosh. That was a bit deep, wasn’t it? Maybe it’s time for some ghostly hijinks, a comedy inn-keeper, some cheeky waxworks and an actual murder… next up: ‘The Tragedy at Marsdon Manor’


* It is my contention that Poirot is anti-hanging, though he is (very) occasionally happy to see particularly unpleasant murderers sent to the gallows. Not only does he allow a surprising number of killers to ‘escape the noose’ and openly comments on the cruelty of hanging, but he also at one points reinvestigates a case of wrongful execution (Five Little Pigs), which suggests some implied criticism of the death penalty. Significantly, one of Christie’s other detectives takes a different viewpoint. Miss Marple has ‘no patience with modern humanitarian scruples about capital punishment’ (The Thirteen Problems) and is ‘really very, very sorry that they have abolished capital punishment’ (4.50 From Paddington). It’s usually said that it is Miss Marple who is ‘giving voice’ to Christie’s own views on capital punishment – which is sort of backed up by a digression in her autobiography in which she muses on the nature of evil and its possible punishment. (‘Why should they not execute [murderers]?’ she wonders, before praising transportation and suggesting ‘experimental research’ as a more humane alternative to life imprisonment.) But whether or not Christie herself was in favour of hanging (and whether this view remained consistent throughout her career, which straddled the abolition of the death penalty), the fact remains that her most prolific creation was distinctly ambivalent towards it.

North Manchester FM presenter Hannah Kate wants you to scare her this Halloween!


She’s asking people throughout Greater Manchester to submit their scariest 3 minute stories for a new creative writing competition. Writers keen to be crowned Greater Manchester’s spookiest wordsmith can submit a recording of their mini-tale via Hannah’s website, with the best entries being played on air on the Halloween edition of Hannah’s Bookshelf on Saturday 29 October.

The Halloween flash fiction competition will be judged by Dr Sorcha Ní Fhlaínn and Dr Xavier Aldana Reyes of MMU’s Centre for Gothic Studies, with the writer of the best entry receiving a prize from Breakout, Manchester’s real life escape room game. Entries need to be 3 minutes long, meaning a word count of 350-400 words. The judges will be looking for style and originality, as well as how scary the story is.

North Manchester FM presenter Hannah Kate says: ‘I want this competition to bring out some of the region’s scariest talent. It’s difficult to tell a good tale in just 3 minutes, but I know that there’s people out there who are up for the challenge.’

All writers need to enter the competition is a computer with a microphone… and a good story. Entries can be recorded via Hannah’s website. More information and rules of the competition can also be found on the website.

Hannah’s Bookshelf is North Manchester FM’s weekly literature show, and it goes out live every Saturday 2-4pm. The show has been running since January 2015 and has featured guests including Rosie Garland, Ramsey Campbell, Tony Walsh and Gwyneth Jones. The show broadcasts on 106.6FM for North Manchester residents and through the ‘listen online’ feature for the rest of the world.


For further information please contact:

Email: David Kay or Hannah Kate
Website: North Manchester FM or Hannah Kate

On 28th October, Digital Periodicals (the Victorian Gothic department of Hic Dragones) will be launching the first issue of George Reynolds's 1847 penny dreadful Faust. The eBook serial will be published in 12 fortnightly instalments, each costing just £1. This freshly transcribed and fully illustrated serial is the only modern edition of Reynolds’ action-packed tale of deadly sin, imperilled virtue and political intrigue.

To have everything your heart desires – what price would you pay?

From the author of Mysteries of London and Wagner the Wehrwolf comes a unique take on the legendary story of Faust. In the 1490s, amidst the secretive tribunals and power games of Europe, an impoverished student enters into a pact that will twist his mind and shatter his spirit. The promise of power, wealth and vengeance comes at a terrifying cost – but can true love conquer the demon’s hold? and what fate awaits a man who would sell his very soul?

Find out more on the Hic Dragones website.

And check out the brand new Faust trailer (with music by the fantastic Digital Front)!

The May 2016 issue of Gothic Studies is now out.

Articles:

Playing the Man: Manliness and Mesmerism in Richard Marsh's The Beetle
Natasha Rebry

'Your Girls That You All Love Are Mine Already': Criminal Female Sexuality in Bram Stoker's Dracula
Beth Shane

'Mensonge': The Rejection of Enlightenment in the Unreliable 'Souvenirs' of Charles Nodier
Matthew Gibson

The Mirror and the Window: The Seduction of Innocence and Gothic Coming of Age in Låt Den Rätte Komma In/Let The Right One In
Amanda Howell

Labyrinths of Conjecture: The Gothic Elsewhere in Jane Austen's Emma
Andrew McInnes

Gothic Stagings: Surfaces and Subtexts in the Popular Modernism of Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot Series
Taryn Norman

Reviews:

Roger Luckhurst, Zombies: A Cultural History (London, 2015)
Deborah G. Christie

Minna Vuohelainen, Richard Marsh (Cardiff, 2015); Stephan Karshay, Degeneration, Normativity and the Gothic at the Fin de Siècle (Basingstoke, 2015)
Emma Liggins

Wickham Clayton (ed.), Style and Form in the Hollywood Slasher Film (London, 2015)
Shellie McMurdo

Lorna Piatti-Farnell and Maria Beville (eds), The Gothic and the Everyday: Living Gothic (London, 2015)
Hannah Priest

Cristina Artenie, Dracula Invades England: the Text, the Context and the Readers (Montreal, 2015)
Jillian Wingfield

For more information, or to subscribe to the journal, please visit the Manchester University Press website. As part of their Halloween special offer, online access to this issue of Gothic Studies is free throughout October.

On 28th October 2016, North Manchester-based micro-press Hic Dragones will launch a new edition of the 1847 penny dreadful FAUST. Written by best-selling Victorian author George Reynolds, this Gothic version of the Faust legend was serialized in the mid-nineteenth century in the penny papers. It tells the story of a man who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for power, vengeance and wealth, against the backdrop of secret tribunals and power struggles in medieval Europe.

This is the first modern edition of Reynolds’s FAUST, and the meticulously transcribed collection also features all of the original illustrations. The eBook serial will be published in 12 fortnightly instalments by Hic Dragones’ Victorian Gothic imprint Digital Periodicals, joining their catalogue of classic penny dreadful titles such as VARNEY THE VAMPIRE, THE MYSTERIES OF LONDON and WAGNER THE WEHR-WOLF.

Editor Hannah Kate says: ‘Many people will be familiar with the Faust legend from the versions written by Marlowe, Goethe or Mann. But this is the quintessential Victorian Gothic take on the story – full of scheming nobles, masked identities and daring escapades. It’s surprising that Reynolds’s FAUST fell into obscurity, as the author was one of Victorian London’s pulp fiction stars. This new edition will bring his work to a whole new audience.’

FAUST will be available in Kindle and ePub format at £1 per issue from the publisher’s website.

A video trailer is available to watch here:



Ends

For further information, please contact Hannah Kate.

Issue 1 of the Digital Periodicals edition of George Reynolds's Faust is available now - and it only costs £1! The next issue will be out on Friday, but there's still plenty of time to catch up with Issue 1 before then... and it's pretty wild stuff too...


The year is 1493, and a penniless young student has made a momentous bargain to save himself from the noose. He says he did it for love... but will the lure of power and vengeance be too great?

Elsewhere, another young man is summoned by the Vehm - a secret tribunal that takes the law into its own hands and conducts clandestine trials and punishments. What do they want with Charles Hamel? And does this have anything to do with Count Manfred's dubious claim to Linsdorf Castle?

On top of all this, Manfred has attacked Rosenthal Castle! And Theresa has been abducted! Has she bought herself enough time? Or will the dastardly Manfred force her into marriage? And just why does that old portrait look so much like Theresa's handmaiden?


This is the first modern edition of the classic penny dreadful version of Faust, and it's fully illustrated and compatible with all e-readers. Issues will be released fortnightly and are available exclusively from the publisher's website. Check out the video trailer here:

This post is part of my 2016 Poirot Project. You can read the full story of why I’m doing this in my Introduction post. The previous post was a review of ‘Wasps’ Nest’.


The fifth episode of the third series of Agatha Christie’s Poirot was first broadcast on 3rd February 1991. It was based on the short story of the same name, which was first published in The Sketch in April 1923.

‘The Tragedy at Marsdon Manor’ opens with Hastings entering Poirot’s rooms to discover his friend packing a ‘small valise’ in preparation of a trip – the great detective has been called away on a case. Because I’m rereading the short stories in the order of ITV’s adaptation, it’s easy to forget what immediately preceded this trip, so a little recap might be in order…

Just one week before ‘The Tragedy at Marsdon Manor’ was published, The Sketch published ‘The Adventure of the Western Star’. In this story, Poirot has a bit of fun at his old friend’s expense, letting Hastings believe in a completely misguided theory before pulling the rug from under his feet with a flourish. ‘The Adventure of the Western Star’ ends with a tetchy confrontation between the two men:

‘“It’s all very well,” I said, my anger rising, “but you’ve made a perfect fool of me! From beginning to end! No, it’s all very well to try and explain it away afterwards. There really is a limit.”
“But you were so enjoying yourself, my friend, I had not the heart to shatter your illusions.”
“It’s no good. You’ve gone a bit too far this time.”
“Mon Dieu! but how you enrage yourself for nothing, mon ami!”
“I’m fed up!” I went out, banging the door. Poirot had made an absolute laughing-stock of me. I decided that he needed a sharp lesson. I would let some time elapse before I forgave him. He had encouraged me to make a perfect fool of myself.’

Seven days later, readers were presented with ‘The Tragedy at Marsdon Manor’, which begins:

‘I had been called away from town for a few days, and on my return found Poirot in act of strapping up his small valise.’

When Hastings enquires as to whether Poirot has been employed on a case, the detective explains the situation (more on that shortly), before commanding his associate to join him:

‘Five minutes to pack your bag, Hastings, and we will take a taxi to Liverpool Street.’

He gets no argument from Hastings, who simply wants to know:

‘What is our plan of campaign?’

I love this opening, because it’s a lovely portrait of Poirot and Hastings as a dynamic duo. Even though the story is far from a ‘thriller’ – it’s much more ‘country house murder’ than the stories collected as The Big Four, for example – there’s a sense of urgency to the opening that differs from the more common Perusal of the Morning News intros found in a lot of the other Sketch stories. This is a bread-and-butter case for Poirot (he’s been employed by an insurance company to investigate a suspicious death), and Hastings is acting as his professional associate. The military flavour of Hastings’s response reminds us of his background, casting him squarely as Watson to Poirot’s Holmes; his acquiescence to the detective’s plan of action suggests he’s going to play sidekick here, unlike in other stories where he reveals more desire to be a detective.

However…

When you read the story in the context of what came immediately before (and what would come shortly afterwards), it leaves a few questions. How does this opening relate to the ending of ‘The Adventure of the Western Star’? How much time elapsed between the two cases?

Personally, I don’t think there’s much to be gained from imagining the Sketch stories in a linear chronology. For one thing, there are a few cases that – as Hastings makes clear in his narration – take place earlier than the others (‘The Kidnapped Prime Minister’, ‘The Chocolate Box’, ‘The Lost Mine’ and ‘The Lemesurier Inheritance’). Although some of the other stories give a hint of the order in which they take place – e.g. ‘The Adventure of the Western Star’ references ‘The Affair at the Victory Ball’ and ‘The King of Clubs’ – there isn’t a definitive chronology to the cases. Again, this reminds us of Watson’s narration of the Sherlock Holmes stories; this is a ‘casebook’, in which the detective’s associate cherry-picks the most interesting cases to write up, moving between periods in his friend’s career without too much concern. So, it’s quite possible that ‘The Tragedy at Marsdon Manor’ took place before‘The Adventure of the Western Star’, or equally that it took place many months later.

But that falling out must have been fixed in readers’ minds, surely? And then just one week later, Hastings was breezing into Poirot’s rooms as though nothing had happened. We never see or hear anything about their reconciliation. We just pick up their story as though no disagreement had ever occurred. And that’s really quite sweet.


But there’s another question raised by the opening to ‘The Tragedy at Marsdon Manor’. Where has Hastings been?

Unlike in other stories, where the question is ‘Where does Hastings live?’ (sometimes it’s ‘our rooms’, sometimes it’s ‘Poirot’s rooms’ – make your mind up, Arthur), here we find ourselves wondering ‘Where does Hastings go when he’s not with Poirot?’ He says he was ‘called away from town’ – but why? and by whom? As I’ve said before, Hastings doesn’t actually seem to have any family or property of his own. He certainly doesn’t seem to have a job by this point in the duo’s career, and there’s no mention of him being in business of any sort, though Poirot makes occasional reference to some ‘doubtful speculations’. So why would Hastings suddenly be ‘called away from town’ as though he’s got fingers in all sorts of other pies?

I have a rather romantic theory about this – though it’s not really backed up by anything apart from my insistent belief that, no matter what she said in her autobiography, Christie’s stories repeatedly suggest that Poirot and Hastings belong together. Perhaps – just perhaps – Christie was subtly preparing readers for an imminent bombshell. ‘The Tragedy at Marsdon Manor’ was published a month before Murder on the Links. So that novel was already written and in print by the time the short story made its appearance. Until this point, readers had been given no opportunity to imagine Hastings having a life without Poirot, but Christie knew she was about to rip the men’s BFF-world apart. Is it too fanciful to believe that Hastings’s little ‘away from town’ trip is preparing the ground for the heartbreak (and trust me, when we get to ‘The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding’ you’ll be in no doubt that it is heartbreak) to come?

Probably.

But I still quite like my theory.

Anyway… now that I’ve spent a ridiculous amount of time overanalysing the story’s opening, I should say something about the rest of it.

Poirot has been employed by the Northern Union Insurance Company to investigate a suspicious death. Mr Maltravers was a man of ‘quite sound health’ who passed away due to an ‘internal haemorrhage’. Although the death wasn’t initially considered to be suspicious, the insurance company later discovered that the man was on the verge of bankruptcy and had used his last ‘ready money’ to pay for premiums on a £50000 life insurance policy. They have asked Poirot to ascertain whether or not the man committed suicide in order to allow his wife to benefit from the policy. Poirot isn’t optimistic about his chances of success, as he believes the verdict of ‘internal haemorrhage’ seems ‘fairly definite’. Nevertheless, he agrees to undertake some enquiries.

Poirot and Hastings travel to Marsdon Leigh at once. They interview the local GP, Dr Bernard – who tells them that, although he hadn’t attended Mr Maltravers in life, he did examine the body and discovered the cause of death to be clear (blood on the lips, but no external wound) – Mrs Maltravers – who tells them about her husband’s movements prior to his death – and then Captain Black (a family friend). Black tells them a bit about the background to his visit, before Poirot decides to freestyle:

‘With your permission, I should like to try a little experiment. You have told us all that your conscious self knows, I want now to question your subconscious self.’

The detective then enters into a little word association game with Black and, seemingly satisfied with the results, thanks the man for his time. When Hastings admits to being confused by the shenanigans, Poirot (perhaps chastened by their argument at the end of ‘The Adventure of the Western Star’) explains with uncharacteristic clarity.

What the word association reveals is that, during his dinner visit shortly before Mr Maltravers’s death, Black had told a story about a man in East Africa who had committed suicide by shooting himself through the roof of his mouth with a rook rifle. The bullet had lodged in his brain, and so the only external sign had been blood on the man’s lips. Of course, at this point we all remember that both Dr Bernard and Mrs Maltravers had mentioned a rook rifle being found next to Mr Maltravers’s body – it seems that Poirot might be able to prove it was suicide after all…

But we’re not at the denouement yet.

Our detective makes a lengthy phone call to London, and then takes himself off for a few hours to think. When he returns, he explains to Hastings that they must pay another visit to Mrs Maltravers. Hastings believes that they are going to break some ‘painful’ news to the young widow, but it turns out that Poirot has other ideas.

That’s right! It’s another bonkers finale!

Just as dinner is being served, Poirot asks Mrs Maltravers if she knows about the rumours in the village that Marsdon Manor is haunted. If this seems like an odd direction to take a tactful conversation about insurance fraud, we don’t have too much time to ponder. Poirot’s talk of ghosts is immediately interrupted by the sound of smashing crockery and a screaming parlour-maid. Poirot comforts the terrified servant, only to be told that the poor women was startled by a man standing in the hallway: ‘I thought – I thought it was the master – it looked like ’im.’

Things get even creepier – there’s tapping on the window, a moaning wind, a door latch that won’t stay shut. And then, when a sense of terror has truly invaded the room, the locked door to the morning room slowly, impossibly, begins to open…

‘Suddenly, without warning, the lights quivered and went out. Out of the darkness came three loud raps. I could hear Mrs Maltravers moaning.
And then – I saw!
The man I had seen on the bed upstairs stood there facing us, gleaming with a faint ghostly light. There was blood on his lips, and he held his right hand out, pointing. Suddenly a brilliant light seemed to proceed from it. It passed over Poirot and me, and fell on Mrs Maltravers. I saw her white terrified face, and something else!
“My God, Poirot!” I cried. “Look at her hand, her right hand. It’s all red!”’

With that, Mrs Maltravers screams hysterically and confesses to the murder of her husband. Poirot snaps on the light, reveals their old friend Inspector Japp outside in the garden, and explains the whole thing. Having worked out that Mrs Maltravers murdered her husband for the insurance money (inspired by Captain Black’s East Africa story), he realized that he ‘had not a shadow of proof in support of [his] theory’ and so organized ‘the elaborate little comedy you say played tonight’. The end.

I think this is the first time that Poirot has faked a séance/message from beyond the grave to force a confession, but it certainly won’t be the last. By the time we get to Peril at End House, Hastings is so familiar with this method that he enters into the role of medium without even being asked.

I know I spent quite a bit of time pondering over the story’s opening, but ‘The Tragedy at Marsdon Manor’ is a fairly standard Poirot short story. There’s a neat little puzzle – gun found near the body, but no bullet wound – but it’s not one of my favourites. Personally, I find it too light on clues and too heavy on tricks to force confession (the word association, the ghost). But it’s a pretty standard workaday case for the detective, and one for which (I assume) he was handsomely paid.

Let’s have a look at how ITV handled it…

The adaptation of ‘The Tragedy at Marsdon Manor’ was written by David Renwick and directed by Renny Rye. As you might expect from this creative team, it’s a reasonably faithful adaptation of Christie’s story. Where changes and expansions have been made, they’re pretty much in-keeping with either the spirit of Christie’s original story or the tone of the ITV series.

In this version of the story, Poirot and Hastings have been called to Marsdon Leigh by Samuel Naughton (played by Desmond Barrit), who wants them to investigate a murder. On their arrival, they discover that Naughton is actually a mystery writer (who goes by the penname Clarrisa Naughton), and that he’s written himself into a hole with his latest novel. He wanted the great detective to come and explain which of his suspects is the guilty party. Poirot, understandably, is not amused.


Intending to travel back to London as soon as possible, Poirot and Hastings are stopped in their plans by the discovery of Mr Jonathan Maltravers’s body. One of the policemen attending the scene (played by Geoffrey Swann) spots Poirot and asks him to come and help them, and he is soon joined by Inspector Japp, who is tasked with revealing the details of Jonathan Maltravers’s insurance policy.

Although the circumstances of Poirot’s involvement are different, the mystery is essentially the same. Maltravers died of indeterminate causes after setting up a large insurance policy to benefit his wife. In the opening scene, we saw the man shooting at rooks (though, in this version, the rook rifle is not found near his body).

Obviously, because of the nature of the series, viewers aren’t expected to buy the idea of death by natural causes – or even Susan Maltravers’s (Geraldine Alexander) suggestion that her husband died of severe shock after being frightened by one of Marsdon Manor’s ghosts. Thus, the TV adaptation has to add a few more suspects, clues and red herrings to the original story (in which, it has to be admitted, there is really only one suspect if you discount the possibility of suicide).

Captain Black is now one of the suspects. Here, instead of being a distant acquaintance whose ‘people’ knew Maltravers, he is a friend of Susan Maltravers and, as we discover, is in love with the woman. But he isn’t the only love rival in the episode – Mr Maltravers now has a secretary with whom he was once romantically involved, Miss Rawlinson (Anita Carey).


The character is Miss Rawlinson is quite cleverly drawn. Her dislike of Jonathan’s young wife comes off her in waves, and there’s a proprietorial air to the way in which she moves about Marsdon Manor. She seems suspiciously unwelcoming of the new mistress of the house, and you begin to suspect that she might be deliberately trying to undermine Susan’s mental health. There are shades of another, more famous character here – and I think this might be deliberate. The secretary is called Miss Rawlinson, but can it be a coincidence that the writers named the gardener ‘Danvers’?

Along with the living suspects, the TV episode gives us an additional spooky suspect by expanding the short story’s brief mention of Marsdon Manor being haunted. The ghost is now given a name (Rebecca Mary Marsdon) and a tragic backstory. Susan Maltravers has apparently been unsettled by a number of supernatural occurrences, and the opening sequence shows the woman seemingly being terrorized by a sinister spectral force. This gives a bit more basis for Poirot’s final stunt, which plays out in a very similar way to in the short story (with the added creepy detail of Maltravers’s ‘ghost’ being played by Samuel Naughton in a wax death-mask).

Given that this is a ‘murder mystery’ series, Renwick would no doubt have been aware that viewers would be convinced from the off that someone has murdered Jonathan Maltravers. The most important thing, therefore, is to make sure that as little suspicion as possible is thrown on Susan Maltravers – who is, of course, the natural suspect. I can’t help wondering if the casting was intended to help with this. For Agatha Christie fans in 1991, Geraldine Alexander would still be partly associated with her earlier role in the BBC Miss Marple adaptation Sleeping Murder. (Okay… for some of us, that’s still the role we associate with Geraldine Alexander.)


In Sleeping Murder, Alexander plays Gwenda Reed, a young woman who moves into a new house and is haunted by seemingly supernatural events. I adore Sleeping Murder (though it utterly terrified me as a kid), so I’m going to restrain myself from saying too much about it here. But I can’t help but think that there are some scenes in ‘The Tragedy at Marsdon Manor’ that recall scenes from the earlier Christie adaptation – particularly the scene where Susan comes out of the bathroom and sits at her mirror.


I feel as though we’re being subtly lured into seeing Susan as another version of Gwenda – the woman is being driven mad by something that appears inexplicable, but is actually the memory/action of human malevolence.

Maybe that’s just me though. I do love Sleeping Murder.

Anyway, some final thoughts on ‘The Tragedy at Marsdon Manor’. Normally I’d say that I need to get to Curtain by Christmas, but I think we can all agree that that’s not going to happen now. But I should wrap this post up…

The light-hearted aspect of the episode comes, in part, from Samuel Naughton. As an aside, Poirot does eventually concede and suggest a conclusion for Naughton’s novel – he explains that the ‘bedridden explorer’ is the guilty party, having shot a poison dart into the fruit cake (Ariadne Oliver has nothing to fear from Clarrisa Naughton). We also have a silly little subplot involving a local waxwork museum, which houses a model that seems rather familiar…


The waxwork museum is really just a bit of silliness, but I do like the men’s second visit when Hastings and Japp cheekily rearrange the model’s tie and hat.

In a number of previous posts, I’ve mentioned some little details that have been used to set the ‘perma-1935’ scene for the early series. In some cases, this involves the use of contemporary songs, films and buildings, but here we’re back to the military backdrop of the late 1930s. As the investigation into Jonathan Maltravers’s death unfolds, Marsdon Leigh is preparing for the National Civil Defence Day, and we hear a news announcer explaining that this is a project proposed by Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin. As Baldwin was PM from 1935-37, and the Civil Defence Service was formed in 1935, we have a very clear indication of when this story is set.


The National Civil Defence Day allows for a dramatic ‘attempt’ to be made on Susan Maltravers’s life (via chloroform in her gas mask), but it also returns us to the feeling that pervades a lot of the early series – it’s always 1935; Poirot’s Europe is always teetering on the brink of war. It’s like the threat of a thunderstorm that we never see break.

And on that note, time to move on… the next episode is ‘The Double Clue’…

This post is part of my 2016 Poirot Project. You can read the full story of why I’m doing this in my Introduction post. The previous post was a review of ‘The Tragedy at Marsdon Manor’.


The sixth episode of the third series of Agatha Christie’s Poirot was first broadcast on 10th February 1991. It was based on the short story of the same name, which was first published in The Sketch in December 1923.

I might as well get this out of the way… ‘The Double Clue’ isn’t one of my favourite short stories (I don’t hate it – I’m just a bit meh about it), and the adaptation really isn’t one of my favourite episodes either. And – if I wanted to get into an Agatha Christie fandom fight – I’d also say that I don’t really like the way this story has been elevated into a more significant moment in the Poirot canon than it actually is.

As I’ve been rereading Christie’s Sketch stories, I’ve become quite taken with the way she riffs off Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories in a rather affectionate homage-y sort of way. So, ‘The Veiled Lady’ references ‘The Speckled Band’; ‘The Lost Mine’ and ‘The Disappearance of Mr Davenheim’ make little nods to ‘The Man with the Twisted Lip’; and ‘The Adventure of the Cheap Flat’ is a playful take on ‘The Red-Headed League’. Given this, it was probably only a matter of time before Christie turned her cheeky gaze on ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’ – the first of Doyle’s Holmes short stories.

And so we have ‘The Double Clue’, and Poirot’s version of Irene Adler.

In case it needs any introduction, Doyle’s story sees Holmes consulted by a member of the Bohemian royal family, who has become entangled with the retired opera singer and ‘well-known adventuress’ Irene Adler. The Grand Duke is now being blackmailed by Adler, and he needs Holmes’s help to retrieve some incriminating letters and a photograph, so that she can’t publicize the eponymous scandal and prevent the Grand Duke’s forthcoming marriage to the King of Scandinavia’s daughter. It’s a big case, but Holmes seems to act as though it won’t pose any particular challenge.

But in that the great detective is sorely mistaken. Despite Holmes utilizing his apparently superhuman powers of disguise, Adler is always one step ahead of him, and he is unable to apprehend (or even unmask) the criminal that lies beneath the woman’s respectable exterior. The story ends with Adler writing to Holmes to reveal that she was onto him from the start, but to return the incriminating photograph nevertheless (she’s now married, and gives the excuse of loving her husband to explain why she’s dropping the blackmail plan). She tells him that she’s decided to leave the country before he can catch her, and wishes him a cordial (perhaps even affectionate) goodbye.

Holmes is so taken with the intelligence of the woman – apparently he’s impressed with the way she saw through his disguise – that he asks to keep the photograph of Adler as a souvenir. And that’s it. That’s all there is to the story. But, for some reason (which I’ll come back to shortly), both Holmes and Watson are determined to build this little interlude into the most significant interaction the detective has ever had with the opposite sex. Watson begins the story by saying that, for Holmes, Adler ‘eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex’, and he ends it by noting that this (rather underwhelming) case has completely changed Holmes’s perception of women:

‘He used to make merry over the cleverness of women, but I have not heard him do it of late.’

Christie’s take on ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’ also sees a great detective running up against an ‘adventuress’. And it also ends with the adventuress heading off into the sunset. But ‘The Double Clue’ is not‘A Scandal in Bohemia’, and (more importantly) Vera Rossakoff is not Irene Adler.

As with a few other Poirot stories, ‘The Double Clue’ sees Christie takes the basic outline of a Holmes story and transposes it into the fashionable world of the 1920s. Like his forebear, the detective is consulted at the beginning of the story – but by a ‘celebrity’, rather than a ‘hereditary king’. Marcus Hardman is a man who has ‘spent his money zealously in the pursuit of social pleasure’. Unfortunately, he has been relieved of some of this money/pleasure by a dastardly jewel thief. Loathe to call the police, Hardman has called upon the great Belgian detective (‘as a compromise’) in an attempt to retrieve the stolen jewellery.

The mystery should be a relatively straightforward one for Poirot. The jewels were stolen at a tea party the previous day. Among the guests were a South African millionaire named Johnston, Lady Runcorn, Bernard Parker and Countess Vera Rossakoff (‘a very charming Russian lady, a member of the old régime’). When the safe is examined, two clues are discovered: a man’s glove and a cigarette case engraved with the initials B.P.

‘The Double Clue’ isn’t as perplexing a mystery as many of the other Poirot stories, and it lacks the intricate clueing of much of Christie’s other writing. The central puzzle – the ‘double clue’ of the title – is a bit disappointing when compared with, say, the twin necklaces of ‘The Adventure of the Western Star’ or the disappearing bonds in ‘The Million Dollar Bond Robbery’. But that’s because this story isn’t just about the puzzle – it’s also about one of the suspects.

Although Hardman tells us that Vera Rossakoff is a ‘charming’ lady, Hastings (our narrator) comes to a different conclusion. He is quite taken aback by the woman’s appearance:

‘Without the least warning the door flew open, and a whirlwind in human form invaded our privacy, bringing with her a swirl of sables (it was as cold as only an English June day can be) and a hat rampant with slaughtered ospreys. Countess Vera Rossakoff was a somewhat disturbing personality.’

Rossakoff bombards the men with a passionate defence of Bernard Parker – who is currently the chief suspect – before sweeping out of the room, insisting that she will clear the man’s name. Poirot says very little during this interaction, and offers Hastings (and the reader) little insight into his assessment of the Russian countess, save that he believes she is genuinely Russian.

However, when you read the story for a second time, you realize that Poirot has twigged a lot more about Rossakoff than he’s letting on. Just a few paragraphs after his first meeting with the countess, Poirot is found studying the Russian alphabet. When you know the story’s ending, you know that this is the point where Poirot has worked out the meaning of the cigarette case’s engraving, and so has a good idea who the culprit is.

So, ‘The Double Clue’, on the face of it, bears little resemblance to ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’. The set-up, development and solution of the mystery are nothing like that found in Doyle’s story. Instead, the similarity lies in the eventual fate of the female culprit, and in the detective’s lingering admiration for her at the end of the case.

When Poirot has satisfied himself that Rossakoff is the jewel thief, he takes an unusual step. Rather than pushing for her apprehension – which he could no doubt do, as he’s had people arrested on far flimsier evidence and could always fake a séance if he wanted to make her confess – he speaks to the woman confidentially, and offers to let her escape if she hands back the jewels. It’s a rather nice little exchange, in which Poirot and Rossakoff are politeness personified, but utterly unambiguous about what has happened.

Rossakoff hands back the jewels, pays Poirot a compliment, and announces that she will be leaving London. In return, Poirot makes a neat little bow and hands back the cigarette case without comment. Immediately after this, Poirot expresses his admiration of the woman to Hastings:

‘“What a woman!” cried Poirot enthusiastically as we descended the stairs. “Mon Dieu, quelle femme! Not a word of argument – of protestation, of bluff! One quick glance, and she had sized up the position correctly. I tell you, Hastings, a woman who can accept defeat like that – with a careless smile – will go far! She is dangerous, she has the nerves of steel; she –” He tripped heavily.’

Poirot’s exclamation of ‘What a woman!’ undoubtedly recalls Holmes’s lifelong admiration of Irene Adler (‘she is always the woman’). But there’s a really important difference here… Holmes admires Adler because she got the better of him; Poirot admires Rossakoff because she recognizes that he got the better of her. And isn’t that just Poirot all over?

It could be argued that, far from Rossakoff being the woman, Poirot is actually the man in this story. After all, like Adler, it’s Poirot who is in the driving seat the whole time (even if his opponent doesn’t realize it), and it’s Poirot who reveals that he saw through a ‘disguise’ (his handing back Rossakoff’s cigarette case is a bit like Adler revealing that she knew all along that the clergyman was Holmes). And it’s Rossakoff – not Poirot – who suggests that her opponent stands almost alone of his gender:

‘It is a great compliment that I pay you there – there are very few men in the world whom I fear.’

The fact is that Poirot doesn’t need an Irene Adler – Rossakoff was never going to be the woman for Poirot, because (unlike Holmes) the little Belgian has got plenty of women. Throughout the run of Poirot stories, there will be so so many more female characters than in the Sherlock Holmes stories. I don’t actually know for sure how many female murderers there were in Doyle’s stories, but I can’t think of a single one off the top of my head.* Poirot is surrounded by female murderers, thieves, fraudsters and blackmailers – and he falls for the charms of several of them (Nick Buckley and Jane Wilkinson are the obvious ones, but he’s also very sympathetic to Jacqueline de Bellefort). But the shoe is sometimes on the other foot, and Rossakoff isn’t the first female jewel thief to look on Poirot with ‘affectionate awe’ – Gertie (in ‘The Veiled Lady’) thinks he’s a ‘nippy old devil’, and even hires him herself. As well as the bad girls, Poirot is also surrounded by slightly better behaved women. Two of his regular associates are women, and he reveals a number of friendships – both old and new – with women of different ages (e.g. he acts as ‘avuncular’ to young women like Katherine Grey, but is also rather protective of older women such as Emily Arundell). He also flirts cheekily with younger women in ‘The Triangle at Rhodes’ and ‘The Third Floor Flat’, waxes lyrical at the beauty of motherhood in ‘The Adventure of the Western Star’, and admires the professionalism of the female chemist in The Mysterious Affair at Styles. Never mind how good a jewel thief she is, Poirot simply hasn’t got room in his life for an Irene Adler.

There’s an interesting little comment at the beginning of ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’ that reveals something about the differences in how Holmes and Poirot relate to women (or, perhaps, how they relate to their ‘significant others’ Watson and Hastings). Doyle’s short story begins with Watson paying a call on Holmes after a period of separation. Watson explains this:

‘I had seen little of Holmes lately. My marriage had drifted us away from each other.’

As the two men begin to talk, it’s quickly apparent that Holmes doesn’t have the slightest inclination to ask after Mrs Watson. He’s more interested in playing his usual parlour game of deducing odd little nuggets of information about his visitors (such as the fact that Watson has a clumsy parlourmaid) than talking about what’s going on in his friend’s life. So distant have the two men been that Holmes didn’t even know Watson was practicing medicine again. Compare this with Poirot and Hastings’s reunion in Peril at End House. Here, the pair have also been separated by the associate’s marriage. But Poirot and Hastings have been much further apart than Holmes and Watson (who both remained in London, just not in regular communication) – Hastings has moved to Argentina, where he runs a ranch with his wife Dulcie (or Bella, as Hastings can’t seem to remember her name). Nevertheless, it’s clear that, not only has Poirot kept in touch with his old friend, he is also acquainted with Mrs Hastings. In fact, he has a rather high opinion of her.

When Hastings rails at Poirot for questioning his intelligence, he asks whether or not he’d be able to run such a successful ranch if he was as stupid as Poirot continually implies. The detective shakes his head:

‘Do not enrage yourself, mon ami. You have made a great success of it – you and your wife.’

I think the implication here is pretty clear. Poirot has a high regard for Dulcie/Bella, as he believes she’s keeping Hastings on the straight-and-narrow. Holmes, on the other hand, seems monumentally uninterested in his friend’s marriage, and has no concern whatsoever for his old friend’s wife. For Doyle’s detective, there really is only one woman.

Anyway, time to move on to the TV adaptation of ‘The Double Clue’. But just one final point before I do…

Although the story and TV episode are naturally dominated by the introduction of Vera Rossakoff, it’s worth giving a little bit of attention to the presentation of two of the other characters – Marcus Hardman and Bernard Parker.

When Hastings and Poirot first meet Hardman, he is described as ‘a small man, delicately plump, with exquisitely manicured hands and a plaintive tenor voice’. The man describes the scene of the crime to the detective, and is then asked questions about the guests at his tea party. When they reach Parker, Hardman is evasive:

‘He is – er – he is a young fellow. Well, in fact, a young fellow I know.’

Now, it’s quickly explained that Hardman’s reluctance comes from the fact that Parker privately organizes the sale of heirlooms for upper class families who have fallen on hard times. His job is a sensitive one, and Hardman is hesitant to reveal such a role exists. However, there’s a lingering suggestion in the way Hardman introduced Parker, and this doesn’t go away when we meet the man himself. Hastings offers the following description of the ‘young fellow’:

‘We found him reclining on some cushions, clad in an amazing dressing-gown of purple and orange. I have seldom taken a greater dislike to anyone than I did to this particular young man with his white, effeminate face and affected lisping speech.’

Hardman and Parker are both described in terms of their effeminacy, and there is a question mark placed over their relationship to one another. While I wouldn’t go so far as to say these characters are coded as gay, there’s certainly something ‘other’ about them (particularly Parker) that Hastings finds distasteful. I’m not sure we’re supposed to imagine that Hardman and Parker are definitely in a relationship, but we’re certainly meant to be suspicious that this might be the case.

So now to the ITV adaptation…

The adaptation of ‘The Double Clue’ was written by Anthony Horowitz and directed by Andrew Piddington. On the whole, it’s a fairly faithful retelling of Christie’s story (plot-wise), with a few extra details thrown in to expand the story to fit the TV format.

The biggest alteration, in this respect, is the inclusion of Japp and Miss Lemon – but that’s to be expected from the early series. The addition of Japp alters the story’s set-up a bit, as the theft of Hardman’s jewellery is now part of a series of thefts that have baffled Scotland Yard. Japp is under pressure from his bosses to solve the case, and he enlists Poirot’s help to do so.

This alteration doesn’t really work, as Poirot is able to solve the case with remarkable ease (even for him). He very quickly ascertains that Rossakoff was the only guest present at all of the thefts, a fact which you’d think Japp would have picked up on at some point. There’s a rather clumsy suggestion that Rossakoff’s presence has been overlooked because the police are ‘too English’, but this doesn’t really hold water. In ‘How Does Your Garden Grow?’, the Russian woman was the first (and only) person anyone apart from Poirot suspected, so it seems strange that Japp would now assume a Russian countess was utterly beyond suspicion. Nevertheless, this explanation allows for Japp to be part of the gang for this episode, which is always welcome in my book.

Aside from this, the only major alteration to Christie’s puzzle comes from the revelation that Lady Runcorn’s maiden name was Beatrice Palmerston, which allows her to more obviously be in the frame for owning the cigarette case.


However, although the clues and puzzle are pretty much the same as in Christie’s short story, there are some quite dramatic alterations to tone in the adaptation. In particular, the two (possible) relationships that are hinted at in the short story undergo quite big changes in the TV episode. I’ll come to Poirot/Rossakoff in a moment, but first I want to look at Hardman/Parker.

The TV version of Hardman (played by David Lyon) is nothing like his literary counterpart. There is nothing of the effeminacy hinted at in the short story, and one would be hard-pressed to describe Lyon’s voice as a ‘plaintive tenor’. Rather than hosting an intimate little tea party, this version of Hardman throws a thoroughly respectable evening do, which is attended by a large number of people. And, while the TV Hardman is a little evasive about his relationship with Parker, this comes across more as dislike, rather than as embarrassment.

Parker, on the other hand, is even more exaggerated than the character in Christie’s story. In the adaptation, the ‘young fellow’ is transformed into a rather slimy – and undeniably camp – individual (played by David Bamber). While the literary character served an embarrassing, but necessary, function in high society, this Parker appears to have insinuated himself into fashionable circles by flirting with, and imposing on, the cash-strapped upper classes.


When Hastings visits Parker at home, he finds him much the same as in Christie’s short story. However, there’s an interesting moment in the TV episode that suggests that this version of the character is more clearly meant to be read as gay. The episode has an additional clue – the discovery of a piece of embroidery marked with the initials ‘B.P.’ – due to the enhanced confusion over who owns the cigarette case. Hastings confronts Parker and asks if this has anything to do with him. Parker says he has no idea what Hastings is talking about, and questions the implications of his being asked if he’s ever done any embroidery. But the way Bamber delivers his lines here is highly suggestive. He demurs and giggles at the question, lowers his eyes, and then looks searchingly at Hastings as if trying to work out a subtext. Parker seems flirtatious, but also curious. It’s like he’s trying to work out whether or not Hastings is speaking to him in code: ‘Are you asking if I’m gay? Do you want me to be gay? Are you gay?’

The uneasy outcome of this is that, while Christie’s 1923 text hinted at the possibility of a gay relationship (albeit not a particularly solid one, given that Hardman is more than happy when he believes Parker is the jewel thief), the 1991 adaptation is uncomfortable with this, and replaces it with a rather unpleasant effete man who flirts with both women (to slime his way into society) and men (when he thinks they’re possible conquests). By removing any effeminacy in the presentation of Hardman, the adaptation makes Parker seem more like a predatory weirdo than a (slightly dodgy) ‘young fellow’. It’s sad to think that the hint in Christie’s story that Hardman is worried his boyfriend has stolen his jewels needed to be played down for TV in the 1990s.

And as the homosexual relationship is erased, a heterosexual one springs up to fill its place. Sigh.


As I’ve said, Poirot’s admiration of Rossakoff in Christie’s short story is the result of her behaviour after he has identified her as the thief. Unfortunately, this wasn’t enough for the ITV adaptation – instead, it appears someone thought it was time for Poirot to get a girlfriend.

The TV Rossakoff (played here by Kika Markham) is a very different kettle of fish to the character in Christie’s short story. Rather than bursting into the story swathed in fur and feathers, this countess arrives with an air of mystery and romance. We see her leaving a train, surrounded by shadows; we see her sitting at a window gazing wistfully at rain; we see her approach Poirot with grace, elegance and – of course – a hint of tragedy.


Poirot, in turn, is utterly charmed from the first moment he meets Rossakoff. He is visibly infatuated as he bows over her hand and mutters ‘Enchanté, madame,’ and he continues this rather awed approach each time he sees her.

Poirot and Rossakoff start going on dates together. Specifically, they visit an art gallery (filmed in Senate House, a location also used in ‘The Veiled Lady’) and flirt with an over-the-top repressed politeness. He winces when she calls him ‘Hercule’, but they each reveal a little of their souls as they point out art with which they feel a connection. They speak of feeling exiled from their countries, and walk arm-in-arm.

It’s completely rubbish, and it’s the reason I don’t like this episode.

Never mind that Poirot appears to have forgotten the investigation entirely at this point – even though his friend’s job is on the line– he seems to have forgotten all the values and morals that have underpinned his character from the start. While Poirot always has a soft spot for people displaced from their homeland, there’s nothing in any of the stories to suggest that he’d find a jewel thief who lifts necklaces from posh people’s parties any other than dull. Admittedly, Poirot does occasionally let criminals get away (or ‘escape the noose’ if the crime is murder) if he believes they aren’t really ‘bad’ people, but there’s no justification at all for Rossakoff’s thefts, other than that she wanted some nice stuff. So the fact that Poirot just lets her get away with it leaves us with the suggestion that he simply fancies her too much to see her arrested – and that’s not Poirot at all.


That’s right – he just lets her get away with it. And not in the brief ‘I’ve got no evidence, so if you give me the jewels we’ll say no more about it’ way he does in the short story. Oh no. Here, the detective lies to his friends to protect the countess, invents a story about a mysterious tramp, hires a man to play the tramp (which results in Hastings being shot at by the actor Poirot has employed), goes on a romantic picnic with the real thief, retrieves the jewels, puts the blame for the cigarette case on Lady Runcorn (inventing a spurious story about the innocent woman wanting to sell it to Hardman), and then hires two detectives (Redfern and Blake) to watch over Rossakoff as she makes her getaway. It’s a far cry from him simply telling Rossakoff to hurry up and give him the necklace, because he’s got a taxi waiting.

Poirot’s final comments on/to Rossakoff in each of the different versions reveal how much of a shift has occurred in their relationship. In the TV episode, he is clearly heartbroken by the impossibility of their being together. After the case has been ‘resolved’, Poirot and Rossakoff take tea at the railway station and say their goodbyes Brief Encounter style. Poirot admits to the affection and admiration he feels for the woman, but adds (with a note of tragedy) that they are opposites:

‘You must continue your work, and I must continue mine. But not in the same country.’

Wait… what? Did Poirot just say that she must continue nicking rich people’s necklaces? How bizarre.

By contrast, Christie’s version of the story has the detective more impressed by the woman’s boldness in defeat. He enthusiastically gushes to Hastings about Rossakoff’s audacious acceptance of the outcome, and the way she didn’t flinch when he confronted her:

‘A remarkable woman. I have a feeling, my friend – a very decided feeling – I shall meet her again. Where, I wonder?’

I like this ending better.


To finish up, I want to say something about the way the other characters respond to Poirot getting a girlfriend. Because this doesn’t sit well with Hastings and Miss Lemon, who are thrown together for most of the episode as a result of their friend’s strange behaviour (in fact, a couple of the interviews that are conducted by Poirot and Hastings in the story are carried out by Hastings and Miss Lemon in the adaptation). Neither of them seem able to understand what is going on.

There’s something quite sweet about the way Hastings and Miss Lemon mourn the potential loss of their friend, but also something a bit uncomfortable. Hastings’s reaction – he is utterly baffled and bereft – is in-keeping with the men’s relationship in both the TV show and Christie’s fiction. I’ll be coming on to the ‘The Theft of the Royal Ruby’ soon, but there’s a bit in the 1923 version of that story where Poirot confesses his heartbreak at Hastings’s marriage in a similar tone to the way Hastings’s responds to Poirot’s relationship here. I also quite like the way Hastings becomes rather protective of his friend, determining to complete the investigation and (if necessary) reveal that Rossakoff has been lying.

But Miss Lemon’s reaction is a bit less cute. Her utter distress at the thought of Poirot getting a girlfriend is a bit… well, a bit much. We know how fond of the little Belgian she is, but it borders on downright jealousy here. In one conversation, as she takes a sombre tea with Hastings, she actually seems to be choking down tears as she blurts out: ‘I don’t want to talk about it!’ Never mind that this is a million miles away from the ‘perfect machine’ Miss Lemon of Christie’s fiction, it seems to cross a line in the presentation of the TV character – Miss Lemon doesn’t fancy Poirot, and it’s weird to see her behaving as though she does.


As you can see, this episode irritates me a bit. I much prefer the affectionate fun of Christie’s short story than the doleful ‘star-crossed lovers’ nonsense of the TV version. The 1923 version really reads like a playful take on a Sherlock Holmes story, particularly when it’s read in context of the other Sketch stories. But the TV version removes this playfulness and turns it into something rather melodramatic. I suppose one consolation is that this is definitely not the worst presentation of Poirot’s relationship with Rossakoff in the ITV series – as the detective predicted in Christie’s story, he would run into her again. But it’s going to be a while before I get to that…

One final thing before I finish… it would be remiss of me not to point out that Christie would recycle one half of the story’s ‘double clue’ in a later, much more famous Poirot story. Using the Russian alphabet to decipher a monogram? To paraphrase Poirot:

‘I have a feeling, my friend – a very decided feeling – I shall see that again. Where, I wonder?’

Next up… it’s ‘The Mystery of the Spanish Chest’.


* Thank you to Ian Preston, who just reminded me on Twitter that there is a female killer in ‘The Adventure of the Second Stain’. I’m sure there are a couple of others as well, but I can’t remember them.

So... in 2016 I set out to rewatch every episode of ITV's Agatha Christie's Poirot, rereading the original stories as I went along. The reason behind this is that I've struggled to watch Curtain, even though I've read the book several times. I thought that by being completist, I might finally be able to watch the finale of David Suchet's portrayal of Poirot (rather than switching it off after 30 seconds, which is the most I've managed so far).

In my usual style, though, I've been way more completist than I really needed to be. And so some of my posts have drifted into quite long pieces musing on Christie's creations, the context of the stories and their adaptations, and my memories of watching the episodes for the first time. This - along with the fact that 2016 has been exhaustingly hectic - has resulted in me most definitely not watching every episode. In fact, I've only made it through the first 3 series!

Since it's coming up to the end of the year, and I'm definitely not going to get to the end of the series in 2016, this is a little recap of the posts I've already written for my little project...

There's my Introduction post to get started (which includes a few more of the personal reasons for doing this). And then the episode-by-episode posts...

Series 1

The Adventure of the Clapham Cook
Murder in the Mews
The Adventure of Johnnie Waverly
Four and Twenty Blackbirds
The Third Floor Flat
Triangle at Rhodes
Problem at Sea
The Incredible Theft
The King of Clubs
The Dream

Series 2

Peril at End House
The Veiled Lady
The Lost Mine
The Cornish Mystery
The Disappearance of Mr Davenheim
Double Sin
The Adventure of the Cheap Flat
The Kidnapped Prime Minister
The Adventure of the Western Star

Feature Length Episode

The Mysterious Affair at Styles

Series 3

How Does Your Garden Grow?
The Million Dollar Bond Robbery
The Plymouth Express
Wasp's Nest
The Tragedy at Marsdon Manor
The Double Clue
The Mystery of the Spanish Chest
The Theft of the Royal Ruby
The Affair at the Victory Ball
The Mystery of Hunter's Lodge

Other Posts

As I just can't help digressing, I've posted some other miscellaneous musings while I've been working my way through the episodes...

Reading My First Poirot Novel - a guest post by Rob Shedwick
The Further Adventures of Miss Lemon
Agatha Christie Inspired Music by Digital Front

And finally, we decided to have a bit of a Poirot-themed trip after we watched 'The Disappearance of Mr Davenheim'. In June, we went to Surrey to visit Brooklands Museum - one of the brilliant locations used in the series. The first picture below is from the TV show, but the rest are from our visit (including the pic of a 1930s Lagonda!)





So I'm going to press on and start 2017 with The ABC Murders... I reckon I'm definitely going to get to Curtain by next Christmas...