Poirot Project: Reading My First Poirot Novel – a guest post by Rob Shedwick

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.

Poirot Project: The Adventure of the Western Star (review)

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’.

Beware: Here be Spoilers

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.

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!

Poirot Project: The Kidnapped Prime Minister (review)

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’.

Beware: Here be Spoilers

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).

Poirot Project: The Adventure of the Cheap Flat (review)

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’.

Beware: Here be Spoilers

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’

Poirot Project: Double Sin (review)

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 Disappearance of Mr Davenheim’.

Beware: Here be Spoilers

The seventh episode of the second series of Agatha Christie’s Poirot was first broadcast on 11th February 1990. It was based on the short story of the same name (aka ‘By Road or Rail’), which was first published in the Sunday Dispatch in 1928.

In my last post, I talked a bit about Poirot and Hastings’s living arrangements in the early short stories. This domestic set-up changes after The Murder on the Links (1923), which signals the end of the cosy ‘shared rooms’ of the Sketch short stories; by The Big Four (1927) and Peril at End House (1932), Hastings is ensconced in his ranch in Argentina with his wife, only popping back occasionally to meet up with his old friend. In the scheme of Poirot and Hastings’s friendship, ‘Double Sin’ takes place during this time – Poirot is now living alone in ‘rooms’ (he’s not yet moved into his swanky serviced apartment), and Hastings is living elsewhere. The story begins with Hastings arriving at Poirot’s lodgings:

‘I had called in at my friend Poirot’s rooms to find him sadly overworked. So much had he become the rage that every rich woman who had mislaid a bracelet or lost a pet kitten rushed to secure the services of the great Hercule Poirot. My little friend was a strange mixture of Flemish thrift and artistic fervour. He accepted many cases in which he had little interest owing to the first instinct being predominant.’

There are a couple of things that interest me about this introduction. Firstly, this story is set during the height of Poirot’s fame as a private detective, despite the fact it was published after The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926) and his first failed ‘retirement’ from detective work. The rich women with missing bracelets returns to an idea from one of the earlier short stories, ‘The Adventure of the Western Star’ (the adaptation of which will appear later in this series), that Poirot became quite fashionable for a time. Secondly, although Hastings clearly no longer shares rooms with Poirot, there’s no mention of his wife or his ranch anywhere in the story. In fact, there’s a little moment where Poirot behaves as though Hastings is still single (and Hastings responds as though he is still single):

‘“You were observing the pretty young lady who booked No. 5, the next seat to ours. Ah! Yes, my friend, I saw you. […]”
“Really, Poirot,” I said, blushing.
“Auburn hair – always the auburn hair!”’

I’m not sure if this little exchange means that the story is set earlier than it was published – though this wouldn’t really make sense as Hastings lived with Poirot right up until his bachelordom ended. Instead, I like to think of it as an indication that the two men find it easy to slip back into their old ways, even after Hastings has got married and moved away. If you remove the first sentence, ‘Double Sin’ could very easily be one of the 1923 Sketch stories.

Hastings arrives at his ‘overworked’ friend’s rooms and is quickly told that Poirot has promised to undertake some work for ‘Joseph Aarons, the theatrical agent’. Aarons doesn’t actually appear in the short story, but he appeared in the novels The Murder on the Links, The Mystery of the Blue Train and The Big Four. So, if you’re reading Christie’s stories in the order in which they were published, this character’s name will be familiar. Of course, I’m rereading them in the order ITV chose to adapt them, so have to keep referring to texts I’ve not got to yet in order to remind myself of who appears where. Had I not already read Links, Blue Train and Big Four, the name of Joseph Aarons would mean nothing. In this case – as with other minor recurring characters in Christie’s texts – it doesn’t really matter whether the reader is familiar with Joseph Aarons or not. Hastings makes this clear in his narration, when Poirot asks him if he calls the theatrical agent: ‘I assented after a moment’s thought. Poirot’s friends are so many and so varied, and range from dustmen to dukes.’ As is often the case, Hastings is acting as a stand-in for the reader; we don’t need to worry about the details, all that matters is that Aarons is one of the detective’s many random friends. His role within the story is clear without any knowledge of his backstory: all you need to know is that it is a letter from Aarons that has compelled Poirot to temporarily leave his cases in London and travel to Charlock Bay in Devon.

As travelling to Charlock Bay by train is somewhat difficult, Hastings books the two men on a Speedy Cars ‘motor coach’ – much to Poirot’s chagrin. On board the coach, they meet a young woman named Mary Durrant, who is carrying a collection of valuable miniatures that are to be sold to an American dealer (Mr J. Baker Wood). Also travelling with them is a man who is ‘trying to grow a moustache and as yet the result is poor’. Hastings is quite taken by the flame-haired Miss Durrant; Poirot is intrigued by the man with the ‘indeterminate moustache’.

At Ebermouth, the coach stops for lunch, and the man with the indeterminate moustache (Norton Kane) removes his suitcase from the coach and leaves the party. Later in the day, when they arrive at Charlock Bay, Miss Durrant discovers that her suitcase has been forced and the miniatures stolen. Poirot is fascinated, and promises to help the distraught young woman.

Just in case the reader is still labouring under the illusion that the ‘business’ with Joseph Aarons is going to play any part in the plot, Hastings summarily dismisses this:

‘We lunched with Joseph Aarons, and after lunch, Poirot announced to me that he had settled the theatrical agent’s problem satisfactorily, and that we could return to Ebermouth as soon as we liked.’

Whatever the problem was, the detective managed to solve it over one lunch date, leaving us in no doubt that a) Poirot can work pretty fast when he needs to, and b) this was really all just an excuse for Poirot and Hastings to go on a coach trip. Sure enough, there’s no more mention of this problem, and Poirot devotes his attention for the rest of the story on the mystery of the missing miniatures.

Like the other earlier Poirot short stories, the puzzle is wrapped up quickly and neatly by the great detective. The solution is a satisfying one, but what really makes this story for me is Poirot’s explanation of how/why he was so interested in the case. At the end of the story, he offers several insights, which are so perfectly Poirot you can’t help but smile.

On ruling out Norton Kane as a serious suspect, Poirot says: ‘With that moustache? A criminal is either clean shaven or he has a proper moustache that can be removed at will.’ While this is partly a continuation of what seems to be a small obsession with Kane’s moustache on the part of our fastidious dandy, what Poirot says makes complete sense. We’ve been told several times that Kane’s ‘indeterminate moustache’ simply draws attention to the man – not very handy for a jewel thief. It’s interesting that the TV adaptation of ‘Double Sin’ followed ‘The Disappearance of Mr Davenheim’, as dramatic and removable facial hair is central to the disappearing act in that story.

On explaining how Mary Durrant attempted to use the two men in her nefarious scheme, Poirot (with characteristic snark) explains:

‘Mademoiselle Mary has only to find a couple of mugs who will be sympathetic to her charm and champion beauty in distress. But one of the mugs was no mug – he was Hercule Poirot!’

For once, the implications of this don’t go over Hastings’s head, who grumpily thinks to himself: ‘I hardly like the inference.’ But Poirot’s cheeky little comment does remind us that Mary Durrant isn’t the first pretty girl to think she can play Poirot for a mug (that would be Lady Millicent Castle Vaughan – aka Gertie – in ‘The Veiled Lady’), and she won’t be the last (Nick Buckley is just around the corner). Poirot will be approached and befriended by a number of young women in his career – and he’ll always be sympathetic to their charms and a champion in their distress – but because of the likes of Millicent and Mary, we never really know whether we should trust any of them.

Finally, in a hasty attempt to retract his implied insult, Poirot claims that the other ‘mug’ was actually J. Baker Wood, and that the detective felt a strong need to help the hapless American: ‘we visitors, Hastings, must stand together. Me, I am all for the visitors!’ This isn’t a sentiment that Poirot always expresses directly, but there are other stories in which he forms an unspoken bond as a result of shared ‘foreignness’ (e.g. with Mrs Vanderlyn’s French maid in ‘The Incredible Theft’). Significantly, though, it’s rare for Poirot to express this sense of solidarity with Americans; more usually, when confronted by someone from the US, the Belgian aligns himself with his fellow Europeans (the English) against the transatlantic ‘other’. Perhaps it’s the fact that J. Baker Wood has been duped by two (apparently) quintessential English women that provokes his statement.

The TV adaptation of ‘Double Sin’ was directed by Richard Spence and written by Clive Exton. With the exception of the double-length series opener, all the other episodes so far in this series have been adaptations of Sketch short stories (i.e. the 1923 series of stories in which Poirot and Hastings live together). As I’ve said ‘Double Sin’ is a later post-Links story, but because it’s so similar in style to the 1923 stories, Exton hasn’t had to do too much to make it follow on from ‘The Disappearance of Mr Davenheim’ and the rest of the series. Hastings doesn’t need to be added, as he was already there as narrator; the story is set when the two men are sharing a flat in London so Miss Lemon fits right in; Inspector Japp, as usual, can replace ‘the police inspector in charge of the case’… except actually that’s not what happens here (but more on that in a moment).

The episode begins with Poirot in a bad mood. The two friends are visiting a park, and Poirot is in a funk. He wants to retire and complains to Hastings that his career is over. This is a departure from the ‘overworked’ Poirot of the short story, but it continues a theme that runs throughout this series of the TV show.

It’s Poirot’s bad mood, rather than a communication from Aarons, that prompts the men to go on a little trip – though it’s up north, rather than down south, that they head here. They travel to Whitcombe (a fictional Lancashire town, actually filmed in Morecambe). Soon after they arrive, Hastings discovers that their old friend Japp is in town – the policeman is doing a ‘North Country’ lecture tour – what a coincidence!

As Poirot doesn’t seem interested in attending his friend’s lecture, Hastings suggests they take a ‘Speedy Tours’ coach to Windermere. Here, they meet Mary Durrant (played by Caroline Milmoe) and Norton Kane (the man with the indeterminate moustache) (played by Adam Kotz) and, as in the short story, Hastings is charmed by the young woman, while Poirot is curious about the young man. There is a small detail removed from the short story, which is a shame. In Christie’s text, Poirot orchestrates the seating arrangements with a delightful tact that goes straight over his companion’s head:

‘Poirot, rather maliciously, I thought, assigned me the outside place as “I had the mania for the fresh air” and himself occupied the seat next to our fair neighbour [Mary Durrant]. Presently, however, he made amends. The man in seat 6 was a noisy fellow, inclined to be facetious and boisterous, and Poirot asked the girl in a low voice if she would like to change seats with him.’

Is it just me? or does it seem like this might have been Poirot’s plan all along? (Though, is it not also a little odd that Poirot appears to matchmaking his married friend, while Hastings’s poor wife waits patiently on the ranch?)

The TV episode omits this little detail – though it would have made more sense within their chronology! – and simply has Hastings sitting next to Mary from the start.

The disappearance of the miniatures is revealed in a similar way to in the short story, and Norton Kane is once again framed as the main suspect. The TV episode gives more attention to the poorly-moustachioed man, making him seem even more suspicious than in the source text, but adds an expanded backstory to explain his bizarre behaviour. I suppose it should also be noted that the miniatures themselves are also slightly elevated here: they’re now Napoleonic and have increased in value from £500 to £1500.

It’s the investigation that is most altered in the adaptation. As Poirot is insistent he is ‘retired’, he refuses to accept the case. It falls to Hastings to take on the mantle of detective, as he does in other episodes in the series (‘The Disappearance of Mr Davenheim’ and ‘The Adventure of the Western Star’). This leads to some comical moments, as Hastings puts his theories to the local policemen (played by David Hargreaves and Gerard Horan) and is shot down by the common-sensical northerners, and then is given a series of subtle hints by Poirot, despite the fact that the detective is ‘not investigating’. I particularly like Hasting’s attempts to look after his little grey cells through diet and sleep, and his joyous exclamations when he wakes up with (what he believes is) the solution: ‘It must have been the haddock! I feel wonderful!’

Poirot, though, remains in his funk. He takes no enjoyment in his friend’s investigations, and refuses to accompany Hastings on the case. We discover why in due course: when Hastings goes to bed early to let the haddock do its work, Poirot sneaks out of the hotel to attend Japp’s lecture.

This is a lovely moment. Up until this point, we’ve been led to believe that Poirot is simply jealous that Japp has been asked to do a lecture tour – and this is probably partly the case. But as Poirot listens to Japp discussing private detectives, it becomes clear that Poirot is actually worried that the policeman will either slight his abilities, or else leave them out entirely. I’ve always felt that this isn’t just about Poirot’s ego – throughout the series, the friendship between the men is emphasized, and I’ve always felt that part of Poirot’s worry comes from the fear that his friend might say something mean.

His fears are unfounded, of course. Japp sings Poirot’s praises to the rafters, speaking of his pleasure and gratitude at being able to work alongside the little Belgian detective. David Suchet plays Poirot’s response to this beautifully, allowing a series of emotions to play over his face that take us from his initial surprise, through his touching affection, and back to his characteristic pride. At one point, you can even see the tiny hint of a tear in his eye.

The three men come together to wrap the case up and confront the thief at the end of the episode. Japp and Poirot light-heartedly tease Hastings for barking up completely the wrong tree; however, the tables are then turned when Hastings discovers a newspaper clipping in Poirot’s wallet – it seems he knew about Japp’s lecture all along, and that was the reason for his sudden desire to see the Lake District. Now it’s Hastings’s turn to rib his friend – and Japp laughs along. It’s quite charming, really.

So… while the boys are on their jollies in the Lake District, what’s Miss Lemon up to?

Poirot’s secretary isn’t in the short story, and it seems there’s no place for her on the TV version of the Speedy Tours coach either. Instead, she gets her own (rather odd) little story. After being confronted by some kids doing penny-for-the-guy, Miss Lemon is flustered and loses her keys. This means she can’t leave the flat until she finds them – and she can’t find them until she employs the ‘order and method’ espoused by her employer.

While this little vignette is a bit superfluous, there are a couple of nice bits. George Little is back as Dicker – hooray! – in his last (physical) appearance in the series. It’s Dicker’s longest scene, as well, and we get a slight sense of him as a character as well.

When poor Miss Lemon is forced to sleep in her office, as she can’t leave Mr Poirot’s flat unlocked, she has a very weird dream. In an evocative mist, the faces of Poirot and Hastings float towards her, speaking snatches of characteristic dialogue – only Hastings’s voice comes out of Poirot’s mouth, and vice versa. It’s bit trippy, but I kind of like it.

To finish, some miscellaneous thoughts…

I’m afraid I don’t like the TV version of Miss Penn (played by Elspet Gray). In the short story, Mary’s aunt is a sweet little old lady with ‘pink-and-white skin’ and ‘a cape of priceless old lace’. This exterior ensures that Hastings (and, perhaps, the reader) never suspects that Miss Penn might be the ‘masculine woman’ who sold the ‘stolen’ miniatures to J. Baker Wood.

In the TV episode, Miss Penn uses a wheelchair, and this serves as the reason Hastings doesn’t suspect her. However, she does seem like she could disguise herself as a ‘masculine woman’. Even in the chair, her height is apparent, and she’s been divested of the frilly, lacy, pink-and-white innocence of her literary counterpart. (As soon as my husband Rob saw her – bearing in mind he’d never seen a single episode until I started this project – he pointed at the screen and shouted ‘It was her!’) Turns out a fake wheelchair is a much weaker disguise than simply ‘being a little old lady’.

The episode makes up for its far-too-obvious Miss Penn with some stunning settings. Maybe it’s because I’m Cumbrian, but I’m glad the programme-makers switched the location to the Lakes (Poirot goes to Devon far too much). The Midland Hotel in Whitcombe is actually the Midland Hotel in Morecambe, and J. Baker Wood’s hotel is being played by the gorgeous mock-Gothic Wray Castle in Ambleside.

Also nice is a little exchange between Hastings and Miss Lemon at the beginning of the episode. After Poirot and Hastings return from the park, the detective continues to grumble. Miss Lemon comments sotto voce that her employer is acting very middle-aged, to which Hastings replies: ‘Well, he’s always been middle-aged. Have you seen that picture of him at his christening?’

Finally, there’s another detail that shows Clive Exton knew his source material well. In Christie’s short story, Poirot explains to Mary Durrant that he will discover the whereabouts of her miniatures:

‘Ah! But it is an idea that! You think I take the rabbits out of the hat? No, mademoiselle. Me, I am the opposite of a conjurer. The conjurer, he makes things disappear. Me, I make things that have disappeared, reappear.’

(That’s right… it’s another reference to conjuring!)

As the TV Poirot refuses the investigate, this little speech is cut from the adaptation. Instead, Poirot simply asks Mary if she knows who he is. She replies:

‘You’re not that conjuror, are you?’

After Poirot’s little hobby in the previous episode, she can be forgiven for making this mistake.

Time to move on though, as these reviews seem to be getting longer and longer. God knows how much I’ll be writing by the time I get to Curtain.

The next episode is ‘The Adventure of the Cheap Flat’