Poirot Project: The Veiled Lady (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 'Peril at End House'.

Beware: Here be Spoilers (including a Sherlock Holmes one this time)

The third episode of the second series of Agatha Christie’s Poirot was first broadcast on 14th January 1990. It was written by Clive Exton and directed by Edward Bennett. The episode was based on the short story ‘The Case of the Veiled Lady’, which was first published in The Sketch in 1923.

‘The Case of the Veiled Lady’ is one of the original Sketch short stories and so it’s narrated by Hastings. It begins with a bored Poirot bemoaning his lack of cases and claiming that, because he’s so famous, London’s criminal classes have curtailed their activities. He refers to a recent newspaper report of a jewel theft, which he claims is ‘not badly imagined’ (but ‘not in [his] line’). What happens next is a frequent occurrence in the early Poirot stories: Hastings reads some newspaper headlines out loud. This happens a lot. It happens in ‘The Adventure of the Clapham Cook’, for instance, and in Christie’s version of ‘The King of Clubs’. In Peril at End House, Hastings describes this activity as his ‘perusal of the morning news’, and this seems like a nice name for the trope. Here, as in every other insistence, Hastings’s Perusal of the Morning News includes a seemingly trivial detail that will turn out to be important and, we find out, Poirot was listening to every word, despite appearing to ignore his friend.

The two men are interrupted in their chit-chat by a visitor – a ‘heavily veiled lady’ (a description which Poirot places in inverted commas, noting the way this woman ‘mounts the steps’, ‘rings the bell’ and ‘comes to consult us’). I’ve often wondered how deliberately this is meant to evoke the opening of Arthur Conan Doyle’s ‘The Speckled Band’* – in Doyle’s story, Helen Stoner is described as being ‘heavily veiled’, so I wonder if Poirot is specifically quoting the Sherlock Holmes story in his description.

The woman in the veil reveals herself to be Lady Millicent Castle Vaughan, the Duke of Southshire’s new fiancée. Millicent is being blackmailed by a ne’er-do-well named Lavington, and she needs Poirot’s help to retrieve a compromising letter. On hearing this story, Poirot (apparently) switches into full avuncular mode: ‘Have faith in Papa Poirot. I will find a way.’

Poirot is then visited by a man who calls himself Lavington, who ‘accidentally’ lets slip that he will shortly be leaving for Paris. Naturally, Poirot decides to burgle the man’s house while he’s out of the country, and is able to retrieve the Chinese puzzle box in which the letter is stowed. All is not what it seems, however, and his final confrontation with ‘Millicent’ reveals that Poirot isn’t the mug she took him for.

The episode is a pretty faithful adaptation of the short story. ‘Millicent’ is played by Frances Barber (her first of two appearances in the series), and she’s pretty convincing as both Millicent and Gertie. When she’s finally caught by Japp, the TV Gertie utters a similar ‘Nabbed!’ line to that of the short story, and does indeed look at Poirot ‘with almost affectionate awe’ when she realizes the game is up.

As in other episodes, Miss Lemon is added to the story – though sadly Pauline Moran doesn’t have a lot to do here aside from looking like she’s going to lamp ‘Lavington’ (Terence Harvey) when he calls to see her employer. Japp does appear in the short story, but his role is expanded in the TV adaptation – and he gets a wonderful final line (more on that shortly).

The beginning of the story is moved to a picturesque lake, where Poirot, Hastings and Japp are just chilling out, watching kids sail toy boats. Poirot, again, bemoans the lack of good cases, and Japp tells him about the jewellery theft. Hastings does his Perusal of the Morning News later in the episode, in between the meetings with ‘Millicent’ and ‘Lavington’. Millicent’s entrance into Poirot’s flat is removed, with the woman requesting a meeting at her hotel instead, though the content of their conversation remains the same. (The Athena Hotel in this episode is being played beautifully by Senate House, University of London.)

However, while much of the plot and dialogue is retained from the short story, there are two very memorable changes made. Firstly, the TV episode expands the brief description of Poirot’s burglary into a comic set-piece. In the story, Poirot and Hastings set out ‘just on midnight’ to enter Lavington’s house. Hastings has dressed in ‘a dark suit, and a soft dark hat’, which Poirot finds amusing: ‘You have dressed the part, I see’. They are able to open the window sash with ease, and Poirot confesses that earlier that day he went to the house, convinced the housekeeper that he was there to fit ‘burglar-proof fastenings’, and sawed through the catch. This little exchange has some comic elements – not least that Poirot gained entrance by using an ‘official’ card from Japp, but never explains how he came by this card (I like to imagine that he swiped a pile of them at some point, just in case).

The TV episode takes this little vignette and runs with it with a quite adorable little sequence (at least, I think it’s adorable – maybe not everyone will agree). After ‘Lavington’ leaves the flat, Hastings realizes that Poirot has a sneaky plan. Cut to: Poirot disguised as a Swiss locksmith, tootling through Wimbledon on a bike as a jaunty version of Gunning’s theme tune plays.

Poirot is such a method actor, he’s even dewaxed his moustache for the part. (When my husband Rob saw that for the first time, he said, ‘Oh no! Look at his moustache! That must be killing him.’) He presents himself to the suspicious housekeeper Mrs Godber (Carole Hayman), who doesn’t understand his talk of mountains and cantons: ‘You’re never Chinese!’

Poirot and Hastings return that night – both dressed for the part this time – and search Lavington’s house. They discover the Chinese box (which disappoints Hastings, as you ‘can buy them for tuppence in Limehouse’ – a little nod to the setting of the next episode), but before they can take another step… the police show up. The TV Mrs Godber is cannier than her literary counterpart; she knew Poirot was lying and so set a trap for him. Hastings panics and – wildly – throws himself out the window. Poor Poirot is taken down the nick.

I like Poirot’s disguise, but I like Japp’s arrival at Wimbledon police station even more. Alerted by Hastings, he’s come to get his friend out of trouble – but not before he’s had a bit of fun at Poirot’s expense. Looking through the window on Poirot’s cell, Japp tells the desk sergeant (Tony Stephens) that he’s been after this ‘vicious looking character’ for a while: ‘Nobody knows his real name. But everyone calls him Mad Dog.’ Poirot angrily exclaims, ‘This is not funny, Japp.’ But Japp, and the viewer, has to disagree.

The second major change in the story comes at the end. In ‘The Case of the Veiled Lady’, Poirot confronts ‘Millicent’ in his own flat. After revealing the stowed jewels in the puzzle box’s second compartment, Poirot says that Japp will be able to confirm that they are the jewels stolen in the Bond Street robbery. And as if by magic, ‘Japp himself stepped out from Poirot’s bedroom’. The policeman reveals the woman’s true identity, and Poirot reveals that he’d suspected her all along, because ‘the shoes were wrong’.

In the adaptation, the final meeting is switched to the second dramatic location of the episode – London’s Natural History Museum. Poirot meets ‘Millicent’, reveals the jewels, but they are joined by ‘Lavington’ (real name Joey Wetherley) who tries to take the jewels back and make his getaway. This leads to a classic Poirot chase scene around various museum galleries, before the two wrong ’uns are finally nabbed.

While it is lovely to see the Natural History Museum here – and I particularly like the museum cat who gives away Gertie and Joey’s hiding place – there is a stonking anachronism in this episode. Funnily enough, the programme probably got away with this for years, but events in 2015 mean that it’s a bit more obvious now. When Poirot and Hastings arrive at the museum, there, standing in the Grand Foyer in all his glory, is Dippy the Diplodocus.

But as anyone who paid attention to the 2015 ‘Save Dippy’ campaign will undoubtedly know, Dippy was only moved to the Grand Foyer in 1979. Prior to that, the foyer was home to African elephants and a series of display cases – check out the second photo in the slideshow on this page to see what the foyer should have looked like.

This is a bit of a shame, really, as the museum was only ‘window dressing’ after all. I suspect this was a simple mistake on the part of the programme-makers, as they’re quite careful with historical detail elsewhere in the series.

Diplodocus notwithstanding, this is a very enjoyable episode. It’s a close adaptation of the short story, with the nice punchline that criminals are so in awe of Poirot, they’re actually hiring him themselves. Frances Barber puts in a really fantastic performance, and the scenes with Japp, Hastings and Poirot are as charming as ever.

So I’ll end with a couple of ‘miscellaneous gems’…

Interestingly, there are two points at which this episode contradicts details found in Christie’s Peril at End House. In the 1932 novel, Poirot definitively tells Japp: ‘I do not disguise myself, Japp. Never have I disguised myself.’ (Of course, this in itself contradicts a detail from the 1929 short story ‘The Third Floor Flat’, in which Poirot appears to have disguised himself as an Irishman named O’Connor.) Also in Peril at End House, Poirot suggests that Hastings’s patriotic pride in the feats of Michael Seton ‘consoles for the defeats at Wimbledon’ (in 1932, there’d been no British winners of the Gentleman’s Singles for twenty-two years) – in the TV version of ‘The Veiled Lady’, Mrs Godber notes that there’s been more crime in Wimbledon since ‘they started the tennis up the road’, and that it’s ‘been beyond all since that Fred Perry won again this year’. I assume her comments about the tennis starting ‘up the road’ refers to when the All England Club venue moved to Church Road in 1922 (Mrs Godber definitely looks old enough to make this comparison), but her mention of Fred Perry sets the story in 1935 – Perry won Wimbledon in ’34, ’35 and ’36, and Mrs Godber seems to be referring to his second victory. It makes sense, then, that Exton dropped the ‘defeats at Wimbledon’ line from his version of ‘Peril at End House’, as this wouldn’t make sense given that the series is set at the peak of Perry’s success. What I like here is the subtle intertextuality that only makes sense if you’ve read Christie’s texts: not only does Exton remove the now-anachronistic Wimbledon line in ‘Peril at End House’, he cheekily explains why he took it out in the next episode. Quite clever, really.

The episode ends with Poirot, Hastings and Japp back at the boating lake – only this time Hastings has a giant model boat to play with. As Poirot and Japp condescendingly watch their friend compete with the children’s boats, they share a beautiful little exchange that gives an insight into Japp’s more romantic side (which Christie hinted at the ‘The Market Basing Mystery’):

‘Did you ever think to go to sea, Poirot?’
‘No, no, my friend. This is as close as I like to get.’ [Fibber!]
‘I used to dream about the sea.’

Awww… Japp!

Next up… ‘The Lost Mine’.


* Much as I love the Sherlock Holmes stories – and have an abiding love of the Granada adaptations starring Jeremy Brett (not as deep as my love for Suchet’s Poirot, of course) – ‘The Speckled Band’ always makes me angry. There are three reasons for this: (1) You can’t train a snake. (2) Julia Stoner lived surrounded by exotic animals – she would’ve recognized a snake when she saw it. (3) You can’t train a snake.

Poirot Project: Peril at End House (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 Dream’.

Beware: Here be Spoilers

Now we reach Series 2 – and a couple of changes. Firstly, this has now become ‘our’ project, rather than just ‘my’ project. My husband Rob was a bit reluctant to watch along with me at the start, because he said he didn’t like the series. As it turns out, this was because of a lingering negative association from his teens: the early episodes were always broadcast on a Sunday night, and so became associated with the end of the weekend and the start of another week at school. Once I persuaded him that he wouldn’t have to go back to school after each episode, he decided to give it a go. After a couple of episodes of Series 1, he was hooked and is now even planning to read some of Christie’s novels in preparation for later episodes.

Which brings me to the next change: Series 2 of Agatha Christie’s Poirot included the first adaptation of a Poirot novel, as well as more of the short stories. The series began on 7th January 1990 with a double-episode adaptation of Peril at End House. (The four series of short story adaptations were all broadcast in January-March, each beginning shortly after Christmas – perhaps another reason why Rob associated the first series with going back to school. I’m a little younger, so had not long started secondary school when ‘Peril at End House’ aired – I hadn’t yet come to loathe going to school. But that would come.) Future adaptations of novels would be feature-length standalone episodes, but ‘Peril at End House’ is very much part of the second series – the story ran across two one-hour slots, each one bookended by the opening and closing credits. There were eight other episodes in the series, making this run of stories the same size as Series 1.

Now, I am aware that my posts for this pet project have been getting longer and longer. Given that I’m now going to be delving back into Christie’s novels as well as her short stories, this is probably not going to change. Peril at End House is one of my favourite Poirot novels (one of my many favourites), and I’ve read it numerous times – the last time was last August, when I was recovering from a serious infection (comfort reading), but I still reread it before watching the episode(s) again – so there’s a lot I want to say about this one!

The academic side of me needs to note which edition I’m referring to. I’m using The Complete Battles of Hastings, Vol. 1 (HarperCollins, 2003), which was a Christmas present from my little brother (along with The Complete Short Stories that I’ve been referring to in other posts).

Peril at End House was first published in 1932. It was Christie’s sixth Poirot novel, following The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920), The Murder on the Links (1923), The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926), The Big Four (1927) and The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928) as well as numerous short stories and the play Black Coffee (1930). I don’t know for sure why Peril at End House was chosen as the first novel to adapt, but I can make a guess. Given the style of the early series, it makes sense that the programme-makers decided to go with one of the early Poirot novels, as these are perhaps closer in overall ‘feel’ to the short stories. The Big Four is a bit anomalous and was widely held to be unadaptable (until 2013, but more on that much later); The Mystery of the Blue Train has a bit more of a ‘thriller’ feel (again, more on that in a bit). The Mysterious Affair at Styles would have to be told in flashback, so I can understand the decision to save it until the characters are more well-established. And I don’t think I need to say anything on why it took a while longer for anyone to work out how on earth to adapt The Murder of Roger Ackroyd! I’ll say a bit more about The Murder on the Links in a moment…

As I’ve said, Peril at End House feels closer to the short stories of the 1920s than many of the later novels, not least because it is narrated by the good Captain Hastings. The story begins with Hastings and his illustrious associate on holiday in St Loo, Cornwall (a fictional seaside town – which I’ll return to when I get to Evil Under the Sun). They’re on holiday, and Poirot is absolutely insistent that he has retired. They meet a young woman, Nick Buckley, and Poirot quickly becomes convinced that someone is trying to kill their new friend – and, naturally, he is compelled to investigate. When an attempt on Nick’s life appears to go wrong, and her cousin Maggie dies, Poirot (assisted by Hastings and Japp) steps up his game and solves the case.

What do I love about Peril at End House? Firstly, it’s narrated by Hastings, and I have a real soft spot for his narration. Like the early short stories, Hastings’s narration is differentiated from Watson’s narration of the Sherlock Holmes stories by a (mostly) light-hearted to-and-fro between detective and sidekick. Hastings is far less reverential than Watson, and his critique of his friend’s methods and demeanour is always enjoyable. In the novels, however, there seems to be more space for Poirot to get his own back (though he does do this in the short stories, especially ‘Problem at Sea’). This is evident from the first page: Poirot reminisces about his last case (more on this shortly) and tells Hastings that his friend’s involvement would have been ‘invaluable’. Hastings reflects on this: ‘As a result of long habit, I distrust his compliments, but he appeared perfectly serious.’ Poirot then explains that George, his valet (who accompanied him on that last case) has ‘no imagination whatever’, and he would have been glad of Hastings for ‘a certain amount of light relief’. This line is particularly amusing in light of the first series of the TV show, where ‘light relief’ was exactly the role in which Hastings was cast.

Elsewhere, we have Poirot claiming that, for a married man, Hastings has ‘very little appreciation of feminine psychology’, and mocking his friend’s ‘out of date’ shock at the details of a divorce case. Hastings comments a couple of times on Poirot’s arrogance, and in return Poirot teases his friend about his staid ‘Victorian’ ways.

Unlike in the short stories, though, this snarkiness occasionally tips over into bickering. At one point, Poirot’s highhanded criticism of his friend threatens to become almost hurtful:

‘You are the type of man who invests in doubtful oil fields, and non-existent gold mines. From hundreds like you, the swindler makes his daily bread.’

To which Hastings makes an impassioned defence:

‘Do you suppose I’d have made a success of my ranch out in the Argentine if I were the kind of credulous fool you make out?’

As this little example shows, there’s a big difference in the men’s relationship here to that in the original run of short stories – Hastings is now a married man, living overseas, and this distance has slightly altered the dynamic of their friendship. Nevertheless, this is redeemed in the novel’s denouement, which subtly relies on the close working relationship the two men have built over the years. Poirot doesn’t inform Hastings of his plans, but assembles the suspects and announces to the room that his friend Hastings has ‘pronounced mediumistic powers’. ‘Why fix on me,’ Hastings thinks to himself, but then seamlessly (and convincingly) enters into the role. I really like this bit, as it shows how well Hastings knows and trusts the methods of his strange little companion.

The other thing I love about Peril at End House is the mystery itself. As with all the classic Christie novels, the clues are presented from the very start – you just don’t always know what you’re looking at. In the second chapter, Freddie Rice actually says the solution outright and unequivocally – but, like Poirot and Hastings, the reader glosses over this and goes back to trying to solve what they think is the puzzle. I do like it when Christie sticks the solution right under your nose, and Freddie’s statement is a brilliant example of just how audacious this can be.

I need to get on to the TV episode, so just a couple of other highlights briefly… although his role is not as significant as in the adaptation, the novel features a welcome appearance from Japp. Poirot involves his ‘good friend Inspector Japp of Scotland Yard’ after the murder has occurred. Poirot and Hastings travel to London and meet Japp for dinner at the ‘Cheshire Cheese’ (presumably Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese on Fleet Street). There are some nice Japp moments here, including his awkward explanation of ‘nerve doctors’ (‘talk to you about your libido, whatever that is’) and his casual description of Poirot’s moustache as ‘face fungus’. I like the social scenes with Japp, Hastings and Poirot, though there are fewer of them in the source stories than in the TV show (‘The Market Basing Mystery’ is a good example).

There are also a few other nice bits of characterization that will crop up in the TV show – though not necessarily in the ‘Peril at End House’ episode(s). I’ve mentioned the earlier series’ ‘car porn’ in previous posts, but Peril at End House has a nice example too. On spotting Jim Lazarus’s car, Hastings notes:

‘It seemed longer and redder than any car could be. It had a long gleaming bonnet of polished metal. A super car!’

(This car will appear – as a Chevrolet Phantom – in the adaptation, with Hastings’s narration represented in Hugh Fraser’s lingering appreciative gaze.)

Later on, Hastings will comment on Poirot’s loathing of the full English breakfast, his habit of building card houses to soothe his nerves, and his insistence on square toast – details which all feed into the presentation of the character on screen (although… Suchet’s Poirot does eat a full English in ‘The Adventure of Johnnie Waverly’). Some details will also be incorporated quite neatly into the episode – rather than pointing out Poirot’s ‘objection to golf’, the episode simply shows him dismissing Hastings’s desire to play ‘a quick nine holes’ with ‘Stiffy Bentham’ (it’s not clear whether this dismissal is because they are in the middle of a case, or if it’s because of the game itself – after all, Suchet’s Poirot has already showed himself to be quite proficient at golf). Similarly, rather than have his friend point out Poirot’s insistence on eggs that are the same size, the TV episode takes a ‘show, don’t tell’ approach and adds a little breakfast scene (complete with gorgeous egg cups) to illustrate.

Before moving on, I should really mention the lowlights of the book. Like many of Agatha Christie’s books, Peril at End House includes a couple of comments that reveal the less pleasant side of contemporary mores. In this case, it’s insidious anti-Semitism and classism. The character of Jim Lazarus is first described by Nick Buckley thus: ‘He’s a Jew, of course, but a frightfully decent one.’ And there are several other comments of this sort throughout the book, including Poirot’s casual mention of ‘the long-nosed M. Lazarus’. Poirot’s working notes on the mystery also contain a less-than-flattering characterization of the working class, as he notes the housekeeper Ellen’s apparent enjoyment of the murder: ‘But that might be due to natural pleasurable excitement of her class over deaths.’ However, as is also the case in many of Christie’s novels, these derogatory suspicions turn out to be misguided: Lazarus is revealed to be one of the only ‘decent’ characters in the book, and Ellen’s ‘satisfaction’ turns out to be relief at the vindication of her own suspicions about Nick. While it’s possible to interpret this as Christie attacking contemporary racist and classist views, I’m afraid I believe that it’s quite the opposite. Having Lazarus and Ellen turn out to be ‘goodies’ is meant to be a twist – suggesting that the Jewish man and the servant in Peril at End House are actually going against type (I’ll come back to this idea in my review of ‘The Lost Mine’).

Right, that said, I need to move on the TV adaptation!

The episode was written by Clive Exton and directed by Renny Rye. As I’ve said, it was first broadcast on 7th January 1990, and it’s a two-part story (the first half ends after Nick’s ‘engagement’ to Michael Seton is revealed and Poirot explains that there is now a more significant motive for her murder). The episode is, like all of Exton’s adaptations, fairly faithful to Christie’s novel, though there are some interesting alterations made.

The first of these is a fairly obvious choice. Christie’s novel makes a number of passing references to other stories – including The Mysterious Affair at Styles, The Mystery of the Blue Train, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and ‘The Chocolate Box’ (though Christie avoids giving any spoilers… an etiquette she notoriously dispenses with in Cards on the Table) – which hadn’t yet been adapted for the series. All these references are, naturally, dropped – though they could’ve kept the cryptic mention of ‘the famous case which Poirot solved by his habit of straightening ornaments on the mantelpiece’, in my opinion). More significantly though, Peril at End House follows on from the earlier novels in terms of the development of Poirot’s career and of Hastings’s personal life. So, Poirot has already retired to King’s Abbott to grow vegetable marrows (The Murder of Roger Ackroyd) and travelled on the Blue Train with his valet George (The Mystery of the Blue Train), before he arrives in St Loo. More importantly, the events of The Murder on the Links have already taken place and Hastings is now married (though he appears to have forgotten his wife’s real name and refers to her as ‘Bella’ in Peril at End House… oops) and running a ranch in Argentina. While we will get to this in the ITV series, we’re not there yet, and so ‘Peril at End House’ is altered to situate it more neatly into the early series. There is no sense of reunion with Hastings or Japp – Poirot is still working (and living) alongside his associates.

The episode begins, then, with Poirot and Hastings simply taking a holiday in Cornwall (St Looe, now, rather than St Loo). They arrive – inexplicably – by plane, and settle into the Majestic Hotel. This Poirot is more crochetty than his literary counterpart, unhappy with both the flight and the accommodation. One of the more light-hearted lines from the book’s first chapter – when Hastings reads a newspaper report on Michael Seton, Poirot mischievously asks, ‘The Solomon islanders are still cannibals, are they not?’ – turns into a grumpy bark of ‘Cannibals!’ to signal his lack of interest. The detective’s interest in Nick’s hat – the first indication of any wrongdoing – is also a lot more abrupt than in the novel.

Nevertheless, Poirot’s interest in Nick is the same as in the novel. Polly Walker’s portrayal of Nick is very close to the character from the book, and she charmingly leads Poirot up the garden path. The plot also remains the same, though the red herring subplot featuring Freddie’s husband is dropped, and many of the clues are also retained (though, as elsewhere some of the subtlety – particularly regarding the wristwatches – is diminished). The solution to the mystery – and to the side mystery of the missing will – is the same as in the novel.

As a little side note, there are a couple of things that are played down in the episode. For instance, while the Crofts appear as over-the-top Australians, just as they are in the novel, Mr Croft (Jeremy Young) doesn’t describe Poirot as a ‘bonza detective’ – perhaps Exton thought modern viewers would think this word was an anachronism more suited to Neighbours than the 1930s setting of the show? As in ‘Triangle at Rhodes’, there’s also evidence of a certain coyness in the adaptation. In the novel, when Hastings objects to Poirot going through Nick’s underwear, the detective exclaims:

‘The camisole, the camiknicker, it is no longer a shameful secret. Every day, on the beach, all these garments will be discarded within a few feet of you. And why not?’

In the episode, Poirot calls Hastings ‘Victorian’ but doesn’t follow this up with more comment. I think this change is completely justified – it’s really weird to imagine Suchet’s Poirot talking about knickers.

Other changes… as with most of the early series, Miss Lemon has been added to the story. This is done quite neatly, as Miss Lemon takes on some of the background work that Japp carries out in the novel (investigating Dr MacAllister, for instance). The episode also rewrites Hastings’s casual comment on the number of nicknames for ‘Margaret’ into a comical conversation between Hastings and Miss Lemon, in which they not only drop the ‘Margaret’ clue, but also consider the nicknames ‘Herc’ and ‘Jimmy’ for Poirot and Japp. Finally, Miss Lemon switches roles with Hastings in the denouement – it is now Miss Lemon who must play the role of the medium (without warning), with Hastings jovially egging her on (just as the literary Poirot did to his counterpart). Reading the novel’s séance immediately before watching the TV version actually adds a really nice extra layer of humour to this scene.

As I’ve said, Japp does appear in the novel, but his role is expanded in the TV episode. He’s called in at the death of Maggie Buckley, and assists with the rest of the case. This means that we get to see Japp having a stick of rock at the seaside – which is an absolute pleasure – as well as the first of many ‘social’ scenes between the three men (joined here by Miss Lemon), which will recur throughout Series 2.

The episode does have a bigger deviation from the source material, which I’m a bit less enthusiastic about. I love the character of Freddie Rice in Christie’s novel, but I’m less enamoured with her TV counterpart.

In the novel, an uncharacteristically poetic Hastings describes Freddie as a ‘weary Madonna’: ‘She impressed me, I think, as the most tired person I had ever met.’ This doesn’t really fit with Alison Sterling’s portrayal of the character.

Sterling’s Freddie is quite vibrant – first seen dancing around Nick’s sitting-room, singing along to ‘Red Sails in the Sunset’. We do get to see a more run-down Freddie, after she believes Nick has died, but I still don’t think ‘weary Madonna’ quite captures it.

Christie’s Freddie is a misleading character, and Hastings’s initial assessment is revealed to be a hint of the sympathy the reader will eventually feel towards her. Freddie has been dragged into drug abuse by her no-good ex-husband. She’s desperate to be free of this negative influence, and has been growing apart from Nick (a girl who, it’s revealed, loves a good ‘dope party’) as a result. The ‘pukka sahib’ Commander Challenger is revealed to be Nick and Freddie’s dealer – thus, another negative influence in Freddie’s life – and the suspicious Jim Lazarus is actually a good guy, trying (and succeeding) to help his friend shake her addiction. At the end of the novel, Freddie admits to Poirot that she’s almost clean and ready to move on with her life.

Much of this is removed from the TV episode. Freddie’s husband is mentioned, but not in any detail, making it appear almost as though she is the guilty party, running around with Jim (Paul Geoffrey) after abandoning her husband. She isn’t attempting to kick her habit, but enjoys partying (and snorting coke) with her friends. The TV Freddie is revealed not to be a murderer, but she’s still an unrepentant drug user at the end. I much prefer the version in the novel, to be honest.

This review has turned into an essay, I’m afraid. Not surprising, really, as this is the first of the novel adaptations and it’s based on one of my favourite books. I should try and wrap things up… even though there are so many more things I could say (I haven’t even mentioned all the references to conjuring and stage performance in the book, or the fact that Hastings has a fever dream in which Poirot appears as ‘a kind of fantastic clown, making a periodic appearance in a circus’.)

Instead, here are two final thoughts on the TV episode(s)…

This story sees the first appearance of Carol MacReady in the series (she’ll be back in Cat Among the Pigeons), playing Mrs Croft. While the character is pretty much the same as in the novel, the bit where Japp recognizes her as the forger Milly Merton (‘Hello-ello-ello…’) has been dropped. Perhaps this is because overcomplicating the Crofts’ backstory would weigh down the episode’s denouement, but I’ve often wondered if it’s not because Japp will make a similar pronouncement in the next episode (‘The Veiled Lady’). Given that Japp’s recognition of Gertie is completely integral to the plot of that story, it makes sense that Exton decided to drop the similar (but less important) scene in ‘Peril at End House’.

And finally, a comment should be made on Elizabeth Downes’s portrayal of Maggie Buckley. The point of Maggie’s character is that the reader/viewer shouldn’t pay much attention to her – she has to be near enough invisible or the jig is up. In the novel, just before the fireworks, the characters have dinner and conversation turns to the fate of Michael Seton. As is necessary (and, at that point in the story, appropriate), everyone’s attention is focused on Nick, and Maggie’s only involvement is to politely ask Hastings if he’s ever done any flying. Now… rewatch that scene in the TV episode, ignoring all other characters and just watching Maggie’s face. It’s wonderfully done.

Time to bring this very long review to an end. Peril at End House remains one of my favourite Poirot novels, and the TV episode(s) is an excellent and (mostly) faithful adaptation. Exton’s small alterations allow the programme-makers to slot ‘Peril at End House’ neatly into the early series, drawing out its similarities to the early short stories but saving the big changes for later. For now, at least, the gang are still together.

Time to press on with the second series… the next episode is ‘The Veiled Lady’.

Baking Cakes and Puddings – 1833 Style

For the past few months, I’ve been doing some research into the history of the Chorlton-on-Medlock area of South Manchester for a couple of organizations. I’m sure I’ll be writing up more about this research at a later date, but this post is about a little bit of fun my mum and I had with some of the stuff I’ve found.

Last month, we decided to follow some of the recipes in Betsy Westhead’s household book (from 1833).

Background

Betsy Westhead was born in 1805, the daughter of George Royle Chappell, fustian manufacturer. At the turn of the 19th century, Chappell owned land in Chorlton Row (later Chorlton-on-Medlock), on the newly created ‘Nelson Street’. The family lived in Nelson House (now the site of Grafton Street car park), and also owned a pair of semi-detached villas next door (now the Pankhurst Centre). Chappell had six daughters, and each of them married into neighbouring families – who, like them, were influential in local politics, the industrial explosion of Manchester, and the Methodist church.

In 1828, Betsy Chappell married Joshua Proctor Westhead, and the two of them lived in Chorlton-on-Medlock for a time. Joshua adopted the surname ‘Brown-Westhead’ and inherited Lea Castle in 1848. He was elected Liberal MP for Knaresborough in 1847, and was later MP for the City of York (1857-65, 1868-71). Betsy and Joshua has a daughter, Adelaide, who married John Constantine de Courcy, 22nd Lord Kingsale in 1855.

My own research has focused so far on George Royle Chappell and the property he owned in Chorlton-on-Medlock – but this has involved finding out more about Chappell’s ‘fine family of daughters’ (as they were described in one source). During the course of this research, I discovered that the University of Manchester has a small notebook belonging to Betsy Westhead (née Chappell) in its archives. Described as ‘Betsy Westhead’s Receipt Book’, this is a handwritten household book, started in 1833 and recording various household tips and recipes collected from other women of her acquaintance.

Betsy appears to have started this receipt book with the best of intentions, neatly writing out recipes and patterns and adding little comments (‘very nice cake’, ‘a cake made this way with dripping is beautiful for children’). But this only goes on for a few pages, sadly. Most of the notebook is blank. I don’t know if Betsy got bored or lost the notebook (it’s also possible that her daughter was born around this time, and so her attention was elsewhere). What remains is a brief little glimpse into a few months in the life of a woman from nineteenth-century Manchester.

Obviously, I couldn’t resist this… so my mum and I decided we’d try out some of the recipes. After ruling out the intriguingly name ‘Mrs Tootal’s Calves Foot Jelly’ (not the best recipe for a vegetarian), preserved cucumbers (not sure we’d have much need of these) and Rhubarb Wine (rhubarb… urgh), we settled on Almond Pudding and Corporation Cakes. And here’s how we got on…

Almond Pudding

This recipe looked pretty tasty, so we started here. First up, we mixed grated bread, suet and brown sugar together.

And… almost immediately, we realized that historical baking isn’t as straightforward as finding a recipe in an old book. I know nothing about what sort of bread, suet or sugar Betsy would have used, but since we just wanted to get a ‘flavour’ of these 1833 recipes, we decided to accept that there would be some anachronisms. So we used supermarket-bought soft brown sugar and grated up a stale white loaf. And we used shredded vegetable suet (because I’m vegetarian).

The next problem was the bitter almonds. I was tempted to try these, but I would’ve had to order them online (and they’re quite expensive). I also got a bit squeamish about all the warnings bitter almonds carry – they contain cyanide in raw form and as few as 10 nuts might be enough to kill an adult, and as a result they’re illegal in the US. As far as I can tell, cooking bitter almonds destroys the poison, but I chickened out (because I've read too much Agatha Christie) and decided to substitute sweet almonds instead.

We used ground almonds, mixed with a little rosewater. (Side note: I thought it’d be good if we pounded the almonds ourselves, but it turns out my mum hasn’t got a mortar and pestle. She used to have one – but apparently she got rid of it years ago, so we had to use pre-ground nuts instead.)

Betsy’s recipe didn’t give any instructions about the sweet almonds, so we decided to roughly chop them.

Next, we beat together 5 eggs and a glass of brandy. I don’t know whether we used the right size of glass (we used a small wine glass), but the mixture smelt right so that was good enough for us.

Then we mixed the wet and dry ingredients together, spooned the mixture into a pudding basin, and tied it up ready for boiling.

The pudding needed to be steamed for six hours (give or take), so into the pan it went.

After just over six hours, the pudding was cooked through (slightly springy to the touch) and ready to be turned out of the basin…

… strewed with white sugar…

… and served (we didn’t make the wine sauce, as Betsy didn’t provide a recipe for that.)

It was delicious. The texture was close, but not stodgy, and you could really taste the almonds and brandy. The only change I would make in future would be to reduce the amount of rosewater, as there was just a little too much rose in it. The rosewater is really only intended to take the edge off the bitterness of the almonds, so if you’re using sweet almonds you only need a drop or two. (I’m also wondering about substituting the brandy for amaretto, for the ultimate almond pudding.)

Corporation Cakes

The next recipe was a bit of a mystery. I’d never heard of corporation cakes before, and an internet search revealed very little. All I found was another recipe, in The Young Ladies’ Guide in the Art of Cookery (1777) by Elizabeth Marshall, but no information about the history or popularity of this type of cake. (As you can see, Elizabeth’s recipe differs from Betsy’s, as it has no yeast and the ratio of flour to sugar is different.)

Curious about corporation cakes, I asked people on Twitter if they could shed any light on the matter. I got some nice responses (and some advice) from food historians, but no one had actually heard of the cake before. Fortunately, I know a baker! The mum of one of the kids I tutor works for Park Cakes in Oldham, and I had a vague memory of her being knowledgeable about the history of baking. Sure enough, Ann-Marie turned out to have heard of corporation cakes – in fact, she recognized the name as soon as I said it – and she advised me that they’re a bit like rock cakes. (Sadly, she didn’t know anything about the history of the name – so I’m yet to discover why they’re called ‘corporation’ cakes.)

At least I now knew what the end product should look like… but there was a new problem. One of the historians I spoke to on Twitter, David Fouser, warned me that I’d have to think carefully about the type of yeast being used. Modern baker’s yeast didn’t exist in 1833, so I’d have to work out what sort of yeast Betsy was using before I could calculate the measurements for a modern substitute. With a bit of reading around the subject, I came to the conclusion that Betsy’s household would probably have used a homemade yeast (along the lines of a modern sourdough starter) or leftovers bought from a local brewer. My mum and I quickly decided that making a homemade yeast was out of the question (not least because we were both doing this on our only day off!) and it was unlikely that we’d find a local brewer willing to sell us some leftovers. Instead, I found a website to convert measurements of brewer’s yeast into modern baker’s yeast (dried) – though I had no idea how big Betsy’s ‘spoonsful’ were – and, working on the basis that we were making something along the lines of a rock cake, decided on using two teaspoons of dried yeast for 1lb of flour.

To this, we added the currants, sugar (anachronistic caster sugar, I’m afraid) and nutmeg.

We melted the butter over the fire – well, okay, in a pan on the cooker – and stirred in the egg white (without the homemade yeast, of course, as we’d added our dried yeast directly to the flour). Then we put the butter and egg to the flour mixture.

The mix was a little dry, and we couldn’t work it into a dough. This might have been because the yeast should’ve added some extra liquid to the mixture, so we compensated for this as best we could with a little warm milk. Eventually, the mix bound together into a dough.

Of course, I don’t know if this dough was right, as Betsy only told us to ‘lightly make it into little cakes’. Perhaps it was meant to be a sloppier than this… but without any evidence of what corporation cakes are supposed to look like, we just went with what we had. We made the mixture into small buns, and then ‘threw’ some powdered sugar onto them.

Betsy just told us to bake them in a ‘slow oven’, so, again, we had to just go with what seemed right. We decided to bake them at Gas Mark 4 ‘until they look right’ (in my mum’s very scientific language).

Ta da…

I was a bit disappointed, after all the research I did, to discover that the yeast was near enough pointless. The cakes didn’t rise at all, and we’re fairly convinced that we could have achieved the same result without the yeast. Maybe we should’ve added more, or maybe we should’ve avoided the preactivated dried stuff – or, given the fact that Elizabeth Marshall’s recipe didn’t include it, maybe the yeast was always pointless. I don’t know enough about the history of baking to say for sure. But never mind… onto the taste test…

The conclusion we reached (and which was agreed by my dad and my husband) is that Betsy Westhead’s Corporation Cakes (or, at least, our version of them) are amazing. They’re like the sweetest, butteriest rock cake you’ll ever taste. I think you could probably die from eating more than two of them in one sitting though, which is a problem because they’re really morish. The taste of nutmeg came through nicely as well. All in all, I think Betsy’s recipe might be a bit more decadent than Elizabeth Marshall’s, but that’s no bad thing.

(If you can shed any light on the history of ‘corporation cakes’, please do leave a comment!)

So that was our little foray into baking 1833-style. What have I learnt? That Mrs Tootal made a mean calves foot jelly, the people of Chorlton-on-Medlock had a sweet tooth, and puddings in the nineteenth century were a bit more cyanidey than modern ones.

My Social Media

I've been told this week that all my social media aliases are a bit difficult to keep track of. (Tell me about it.) So here's a little list of all my social media profiles and what they do.

Personal/Professional

For my academic, personal, political and personal-is-politcal posts, I have this blog, a Twitter account and an Academia.edu page. I don't have a personal Facebook profile, so if you think you've found me on there... it's just an illusion.

My husband Rob and I have an occasionally-updated travel blog called About Our Isles, and a (very quiet) Twitter account to go with it.

Creative

I write creatively as Hannah Kate, and I have a blog and Twitter devoted to my creative stuff.

Radio

My radio show, Hannah's Bookshelf, is on North Manchester FM on Saturdays. I blog about it here and tweet about it from my Hannah Kate Twitter. The show has a Facebook page, and a Mixcloud page.

Medieval Studies

I'm treasurer and webmaster for the Manchester Medieval Society, and run the society's blog and Twitter account.

Publishing

Rob and I run Hic Dragones, a dark fiction micropress. We have a website and an oft-neglected Tumblr. Hic Dragones is also on Facebook and Twitter.

We also publish a line of digitized Victorian penny dreadfuls, and these can be found on the Hic Dragones website. DigiDreadfuls has its own Facebook page and Twitter account.

Freelance

For all our freelance work (editing, indexing, web design and eBook conversion), we call ourselves Creative Cats and have a website, blog, Facebook and Twitter.

Avon

If you're in Manchester and would like to buy Avon cosmetics from me, you can find my online store here.

Community

I'm currently running the Twitter accounts for a couple of local community projects - the Friends of Crumpsall Park and the (new) Keep Crumpsall Clean campaign.

And that's it. If you find any other accounts that you think might be me, do let me know. Every so often one of my aliases goes feral and I have to track it down.

Call For Submissions: Into the Woods (anthology)

From magical places steeped in mysticism to evil foreboding places of unspeakable terror, the forest is a place of secrets, a place of knowledge, a place of death, and a place of life. But it is also a vulnerable place easily lost to the chainsaw and the drill. Our fascination with what may lie within the woods is an enduring one. Bewilder us, scare us, entertain us. Take us on a journey… into the woods.

What we want: Edgy, dark and weird fiction. Any interpretation of the theme is welcome – and we have no preconceptions about what ‘into the woods’ might mean. Any genre considered: dark fantasy, (sub)urban fantasy, Gothic, horror, sci fi, steampunk, cyberpunk, biopunk, dystopian, slipstream. We’re looking for original and fresh voices that challenge and unsettle. (And, please remember, we do not publish misogyny, misandry, homophobia, transphobia or racism.)

Editor: Hannah Kate

Publisher: Hic Dragones

Word Count: 3000-7000

Submission Guidelines: Electronic submissions as .doc, .docx or .rtf attachments only. 12pt font, 1.5 or double spaced. Please ensure name, story title and email address are included on the attachment. Email submissions to Hic Dragones. Submissions are welcome from anywhere, but must be in English.

Submission Deadline: Monday 13th June 2016

Payment: Contributor copy: 1 copy of paperback, eBook in ePub and/or mobi format; permanent 25% discount on paperback (resale permitted); 1 free eBook from our catalogue.

More information: email or visit the Hic Dragones website.

Poirot Project: The Dream (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 King of Clubs’.

Beware: Here be Spoilers

We’ve reached the end of the first series! I’m woefully behind schedule, so am seriously doubting that I’ll get to Curtain by Christmas – but it’s been so much fun revisiting Series 1 that I don’t mind that this project is probably going to take a lot longer than I envisaged. And I get to end this series with a great episode.

The tenth episode of the first series of Agatha Christie’s Poirot was first broadcast on 19th March 1989, and was based on the short story of the same name (first published in the Saturday Evening Post in 1937, then in The Strand in February of the following year).

The story begins with Poirot arriving at Northway House, the residence of Benedict Farley. Farley is an eccentric millionaire, who lives in a house that is a ‘relic of an earlier age – an age of space and leisure, when green fields had surrounded its well-bred arrogance’. The description of Northway House continues:

‘Now it was an anachronism, submerged and forgotten in the hectic sea of modern London, and not one man in fifty could have told you where it stood.’

This evocative description of the house prepares us for its reclusive inhabitant. Mr Farley is known for his odd habits and erratic behaviour, and his summons to Poirot is characteristically strange. When the detective is shown into Farley’s room (in fact, into his secretary’s room), he discovers that he has been called in to consult on a recurring nightmare – not the detective’s usual fare. Farley has been repeatedly dreaming about shooting himself – always at the same place and the same time. He has consulted three doctors, who have advised him (respectively) that the dream is caused by poor diet, childhood trauma and subconscious suicidal urges. Farley has dismissed all these explanations, and asks Poirot whether it is possible that a murder could be effected through such means. The detective is unable to do much more than rule out hypnotism, so Farley dismisses him.

Naturally, of course, Farley is soon found dead – apparently having committed suicide at the very place and time predicted in his dream. Poirot is called in by his old friend Dr Stillingfleet, as the police have discovered the letter Farley sent requesting a consultation with the detective. Stillingfleet explains that, without this letter, the death would have been recorded as a suicide, but Poirot’s involvement suggests the matter may be more complicated. Additionally, Mrs Farley is able to corroborate the story of the dream, and Farley’s secretary says that he wrote the letter to Poirot on his employer’s instruction.

Because Poirot (and Stillingfleet) are quick to rule out suicide, the reader does so too. This, then, is a murder, which took place in a locked room with no access via window, and which the victim apparently predicted in a series of recurring dreams. It’s a locked room mystery – and I do adore locked room mysteries. (Agatha Christie was no John Dickson Carr and used the ‘locked room’ conceit more sparingly in her stories – but I feel that her Poirot locked rooms do stand up against the acknowledged masters of the subgenre. ‘Problem at Sea’ has always been a favourite of mine, for instance.)

The clues to the trick (for locked room mysteries always rely on a ‘trick’) are to be found in Poirot’s odd meeting with Benedict Farley – the bright lighting of the room, the man’s inability to distinguish between his letter and a letter to Poirot’s laundress, his refusal to let Poirot see the room which is to be the scene of the crime. Some details of the crime scene also help – a pair of ‘lazy-tongs’, the blank wall that faces Farley’s window, the traffic noise from the street below. The detective puts these seemingly random details into a comprehensible order, and the solution is a satisfying one. It’s worth noting, by the way, that there is yet another reference to stage magic in the story: in response to Poirot denying any deception on his part, Benedict Farley chuckles, ‘That’s what the conjuror says before he takes the goldfish out of the hat! Saying that is part of the trick, you know!’

[Update: I wrote the above last night, but then I had a bit of a realization after I slept on it. I seem to remember that I worked out the solution of ‘The Dream’ when I first watched it. And I was only ten at the time. This possibly means that the ‘trick’ isn’t particularly sophisticated, or that it’s easy to spot its workings. However, ‘The Dream’ will always have a special place in my heart for this reason, as it’s the locked mystery I cut my teeth on.]

The TV adaptation was written by Clive Exton and directed by Edward Bennett. As is usual with Exton’s adaptations, it’s fairly faithful to Christie’s short story. Like many of the other earlier episodes, the ‘family’ are added to the story – Miss Lemon, Hastings and Japp aren’t in Christie’s story – but their inclusion is a little less clunky than in some other episodes. Miss Lemon has a little sub-storyline about a broken typewriter, and Japp neatly replaces Inspector Barnett, the ‘tame police inspector’ of the short story. The inclusion of Hastings necessarily downgrades Dr Stillingfleet (played by Paul Lacoux) from his role as the ‘Watson’ character, but I guess that’s a sacrifice that has to be made.

The TV version of Farley is fairly close to his literary counterpart. However, the eccentric is now the owner of a successful pie factory, rather than being something vaguely connected to transport. Unlike in Christie’s story, we get more of a sense of Farley at work – a Pathé Gazette newsreel introduces us to Farley’s Pies, and we see the owner addressing his workforce on the factory’s fiftieth anniversary. This Benedict Farley is a more straightforwardly obnoxious man. Christie’s short story mentions the millionaire’s ‘strange meanesses’, but also his ‘incredible generosities’; it is only the ‘meanesses’ (his attempts to block unionization, his dismissal of his daughter’s boyfriend) that are on show in the adaptation. But we still get no real sense of the man outside a few glimpses and reports from others, which is very much in-keeping with the original story.

Like ‘The Incredible Theft’ and ‘The King of Clubs’, the episode features some fantastic location shots. In this case, it’s the use of the Hoover Building in Perivale, which doubles as Farley’s factory. Like the other iconic buildings used in these early episodes, the art deco Hoover Building is both dramatically stylized and contemporary to the show’s setting (it was built in 1933). Unlike the other buildings, though, it’s now a branch of Tesco.

Weirdly, given that I really like both the episode and the short story, I find that I have a lot less to say about ‘The Dream’ than some other instalments. It’s just a neat little puzzle that was faithfully adapted for the screen. There are some nice interactions between Poirot and Miss Lemon (particularly the detective’s enthusiasm after Miss Lemon’s strange time-keeping leads him to his solution, and his final (misguided) thank you gift). And I like Poirot’s lamenting that his little grey cells have been ‘weakened by the old age and the fast living’ (which Hastings questions, but is informed that Poirot did indeed live fast in his youth). The episode sees the welcome (well, welcome to me) return of Dicker (played by George Little), the concierge of Whitehaven Mansions, who is the show’s most minor recurring character.



Since it’s the final episode of the series, it’s only fitting that we have one last chase scene as well. As I’ve mentioned in previous reviews, the (silly) chase scenes are a regular feature of the early series, taking place on foot, by car and by boat. In ‘The Dream’, we round off the series with a motorbike-and-sidecar heading in hot pursuit of the murderer – complete with a dramatic leap from the driving seat to apprehend the fugitive.

And that brings me to the end of the first series – making me ten episodes closer to finally watching Curtain. It seems sort of fitting to end this review with a quote from Christie’s ‘The Dream’, I think:

‘“I wonder if you’ll ever commit a crime, Poirot?” said Stillingfleet. “I bet you could get away with it all right. As a matter of fact, it would be too easy for you – I mean the thing would be off as definitely too unsporting.” “That,” said Poirot, “is a typical English idea.”’

Onwards, then, to Series 2…

POSTSCRIPT:

As I said, I adore locked room mysteries. To hear more about some of my favourite examples of the genre (including a couple of Agatha Christie’s mysteries), have a listen to the radio show I did on this subject last year:

Poirot Project: The King of Clubs (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 Incredible Theft’.

Beware: Here be Spoilers

The penultimate episode of Series 1 of Agatha Christie’s Poirot was first broadcast on 12th March 1989. It was based on the short story of the same name, first published as ‘The Adventure of the King of Clubs’ in The Sketch (March 1923).

Like all of the original Sketch stories, the story is narrated by Hastings, and it begins with the good captain attempting to interest his illustrious companion with an odd story in a daily newspaper. An ‘impresario’ by the name of Henry Reedburn has been murdered, and his death was announced in a strangely dramatic fashion. The previous night, as a ‘neat suburban’ family (the Oglanders) played bridge in their drawing-room, a woman in burst through their French windows and shouted, ‘Murder!’ The woman’s evening dress was stained with blood, and she fainted after her sinister proclamation.

At this point in the story, Poirot decides to put Hastings out of his misery and admits that he knows all about the Oglanders’ surprise visitor. The woman is Valerie Saintclair, ‘the famous dancer who has lately taken London by storm’, and Poirot has been contacted by Prince Paul of Maurania about the case – the prince, it seems, has recently become engaged to Valerie, and is keen to banish any trace of suspicion of the woman’s involvement in Reedburn’s murder. The prince explains that, while he knows that his family won’t officially sanction his marriage to a dancer (despite the fact that she is allegedly the daughter of ‘a Russian grand duchess’), he is free to enter into a morganatic marriage – provided the woman isn’t accused of murder, that is.

Poirot and Hastings take on the case and travel to Mon Désir, Reedburn’s ‘exceptionally fine villa’, and then to Daisymead, the ‘unpretentious little house’ of the murdered man’s neighbours, questioning the various characters as they go. Valerie Saintclair admits to being at Reedburn’s house at the time of the murder, but she insists that the impresario was attacked by ‘a dreadful-looking man, a sort of tramp’. Terrified, she escaped through the window and ran to the first house she saw. As the case proceeds, the detective discovers that Valerie has previously consulted a psychic, who warned her to beware ‘the King of Clubs’ – the assumption was that this referred to Reedburn, though the phrase takes on a different meaning as Poirot’s investigation progresses.

I like Christie’s short story. It’s not my favourite of the 1923 Sketch series, but it’s an enjoyable puzzle nonetheless. It’s got some nice subtle clues, especially when Poirot draws attention to seemingly irrelevant details (particularly an old photograph) that turn out to be vital. And the mildly incongruous aspects of the crime scene (and that of Valerie’s dramatic entrance) lead neatly to a satisfactory conclusion.

And now… the adaptation. The TV episode was directed by Renny Rye, and dramatized by Michael Baker (with Clive Exton as script consultant). Sadly, it’s not a high spot of the series. It’s not the loosest adaptation of the series (it’s positively faithful compared to some of the others), but some of the narrative changes that have been made here dilute the original mystery until the central puzzle is all but lost. In fact, despite having seen the episode a couple of times, it was only when I read the short story that I understood what the puzzle actually was.

In the adaptation, Valerie Saintclair is no longer a dancer, but is a famous film actress (played by Niamh Cusack, the first of the Cusack sisters to appear in the show). She is shooting a film at Parade Studios, which is owned by the arrogant and aggressive Henry Reedburn (David Swift). The episode opens with Valerie attempting to shoot a scene, as Reedburn boorishly hectors and demeans the cast and crew. Poirot and Hastings are witnesses to this scene, as they have been invited along by Hastings’s old friend, Bunny Saunders (played by Jonathan Coy), the film’s director. Also present is Prince Paul of Maurania (Jack Klaff), Valerie’s fiancé. As in the short story, Poirot is acquainted with the prince – His Highness thanks the detective for ‘all you have done for my family’.

After this opening, we are taken to Mon Désir, Reedburn’s grand residence – where the studio head is being confronted by two of his disgruntled stars. Although I don’t know a huge amount about the locations used in the series, I do know that the exteriors of Reedburn’s house were filmed at High and Over in Amersham, a Grade II* listed building designed in 1929 by Amyas Connell. Occasionally, particularly in the early series, locations are used that almost seem unreal. There’s something about ‘Mon Désir’ that seems too modernist, too stylized, too Poirot to be real – so it’s good to pause occasionally and look at the buildings. As Hastings says at the beginning of Christie’s short story: ‘Truth […] is stranger than fiction!’

Back to the episode, I have some serious reservations about the changes made to Valerie Saintclair’s character. Cusack performs her as a reserved and genteel actress, beloved by the dashing Prince Paul and popular with both viewers and colleagues. Gone is any trace of the ‘scandalous’ nature of Valerie’s profession in the short story, and there is no hint that the Mauranian royal family will be anything other than welcoming of their new daughter-in-law (there are definite echoes of Grace Kelly’s marriage to Prince Rainier of Monaco in the relationship). The only potential obstacle is that Valerie may be implicated in Reedburn’s death, which Paul is keen to avoid.

While there’s nothing wrong with these changes per se, making Valerie more respectable has the effect of lessening the social divide between her and the Oglanders. In the episode, Valerie’s appearance in the ‘neat suburban’ sitting room of the Oglanders lacks all the wild incongruity of Christie’s short story. This is what confused me the first couple of times I watched it – there’s just no sense that she shouldn’t be there. There’s no sense of discomfort between Valerie and Mrs Oglander (played by Avril Elgar), or any animosity between Valerie and Geraldine (Abigail Cruttenden). The Oglanders’ son Ronnie (played by Sean Pertwee, in his first of two appearances in the series – he’ll be back in Dead Man’s Folly, though who knows when I’ll finally get to that episode!) is nothing but solicitous towards Valerie, and there’s a sense of the family protecting the famous actress from the moment Poirot arrives at The Willows (the new name for Daisymead). I must confess that, until I read the short story, I always assumed Valerie was a friend of the family, possibly a relation. And so I could never understand why Poirot questioned why the actress has arrived at The Willows in the first place. It just seemed obvious that she’d gone to their house deliberately.

In Christie’s short story, the reveal that Valerie is the Oglanders’ daughter, and that the family is protecting their own (despite being estranged), is explained by Poirot with characteristic elegance:

‘The interesting thing is that Valerie is ashamed of her family, and her family is ashamed of her. Nevertheless, in a moment of peril, she turned to her brother for help, and when things went wrong, they all hung together in a remarkable way. Family strength is a marvellous thing.’

This is lost in the adaptation, as there’s no sense of estrangement in the Oglander family. Their secrecy turns out to be down to the fact that Oglander isn’t their real name – they are, in fact, the Hawtreys, and they’re living incognito (Valerie included) because the silent and disabled pater familias once committed a serious act of fraud. The problem is that this sense of a shared secret pervades all their interactions, which, again, removes any sense of Valerie’s outsider status.

The change in Valerie’s profession necessitates a change in Reedburn’s. The nightclub impresario now becomes a film studio executive: thus he is no longer the ‘king of clubs’. As such, Valerie’s reported trip to the clairvoyant is removed – the connection between the playing card and the man would be much harder to explain in this version of the story. While the mention of the psychic in Christie’s story seems fluffy and inconsequential, it serves the purpose of hinting at something premeditated or preordained about Reedburn’s death – and this is an important piece of misdirection, as the reader is being discouraged from seeing the impresario’s death as the spur-of-the-moment act of violence it is ultimately revealed to be.

The adaptation has no such misdirection, and so Reedburn’s death always appears as an accident committed in the heat of an argument. In order to create some sense of mystery, additional suspects in the form of Bunny Saunders and the recently sacked Ralph Walton (Gawn Grainger) are thrown into the mix. Valerie’s mysterious tramp from the short story is transformed into a gypsy and, as in the source, Poirot disdains the task of hunting for this phantom. As an aside, one of my favourite lines in the short story comes when Hastings suggests they look for the vagrant, and his friend formidably proclaims: ‘Hercule Poirot does not hunt down tramps’.

But someone has to hunt down tramps or vagrants, and the TV version knows just the man: Inspector Japp is on the case. ‘Dear oh dear… here we go again,’ the policeman says as he arrives at Daisymead and prepares to undertake a pointless search of the local gypsy camp. The little Belgian detective is more than happy to let his friend head off on a wild goose chase, and the episode ends with Japp still convinced he will find the shadowy Romany. (As is the case with Hastings, some Japp storylines feel a bit like they’ve just been added for the sake of it.)

There is one significant element of the original story that has been retained in the adaptation. The Oglanders have been playing bridge, but Poirot discovers that a single playing (the eponymous ‘King of Clubs’) is missing from the card table. Bridge has become something of a recurring motif in the second half of this series, featuring significantly in the previous two episodes. Here, however, the game isn’t simply used as a metaphor or for character development, but it’s an important clue to the mystery (this idea will be used again in Cards on the Table).

The missing playing card is still a good clue in the TV episode – in fact, it’s one of the only good clues – but the identity of the missing card has been divested of any (phony) significance. Yes – the missing card is still the king of clubs, but the clue would have worked with any card from the pack. (Naturally, this makes the title of the episode seem a little odd until you’ve read the short story.)

To conclude, then, this isn’t a favourite episode. Like ‘The Incredible Theft’ it lacks both the punch and the charm of other episodes in the series. Even the interactions between the ‘gang’ seem watered down – Miss Lemon is absent, and Japp is at a loose end – though I do enjoy Hastings’s attempt to explain modern art to Poirot when they arrive at Mon Désir.

One final comment… it’s always interesting to compare Suchet’s performance and appearance in these early episodes to that of the later series. Sometimes, the superficial details can be quite telling. For instance, when Prince Paul calls Poirot to tell him about Reedburn’s murder, we see our detective disturbed in his slumber. As in other early episodes, he’s wearing pyjamas, but no hair or moustache net. It’s worth keeping this image in mind when we get to later episodes (e.g. Murder on the Orient Express) – it seems the little Belgian is to get more fastidious with age… he almost looks like a man of action here.

Okay, so ‘The King of Clubs’ isn’t a huge favourite of mine, though the short story is enjoyable. On to the final episode of Series 1 – ‘The Dream’ – which is a very different kettle of fish.