Agatha Christie's Poirot Episode Guide - inaf iasf bologna

Agatha Christie’s Poirot Episode Guide
Hickory Dickory Dock
Season 6
Episode Number: 48
Season Episode: 2
Originally aired: Sunday February 12, 1995
Writer:
Anthony Horowitz, Agatha Christie
Director: Andrew Grieve
Show Stars: Philip Jackson (Chief Inspector James Japp), Pauline Moran (Miss Felicity
Lemon), David Suchet (Hercule Poirot)
Guest Stars: Brian McDermott (Chief Inspector), Elinor Morriston (Valerie Hobhouse),
Andy Linden (Giorgios), Mark Denny (Passport Officer),
Terry Francis (Journalist), Bernard Lloyd (Endicott), Terry Duggan
(Butcher), Peter Glancy (Customs Officer), Mark Denny (Manager),
John Webb (Vicar), Mark Webb (Journalist), Paris Jefferson (Sally
Finch), Jessica Lloyd (Celia Austin), Damian Lewis (Leonard Bateson),
David Burke (I) (Sir Arthur Stanley), Jonathan Firth (Nigel Chapman),
Granville Saxton (Casteman), Gilbert Martin (Colin McNabb),
Polly Kemp (Patricia Lane), Sarah Badel (Mrs Hubbard), Rachel Bell
(Mrs Nicholetis), Alec Linstead (Pharmacist)
Summary: A string of thefts at a student hostel run by Miss Lemon’s sister ends
in death, and Poirot has a number of plots and sub-plots to untangle,
including smuggling and political manipulations. A certain mouse is
the only witness to a string of murders and it also features at the
climax. Meanwhile, Poirot invites Japp to stay with him while Mrs Japp
is away. Hastings is also off on his travels, and the dim police inspector
vies with Poirot over the cooking.
Poirot’s solution of the petty thefts is unsubtle but effective: once he has threatened to call
in the police, Celia Austin quickly confesses to the pettier amongst the incidents. She denies
specifically: stealing Nigel Chapman’s green ink and using it to deface Elizabeth Johnston’s work;
taking the stethoscope, the light bulbs and boracic powder; and cutting up and concealing a
rucksack.
Celia appears to have committed the lesser thefts in order to attract the attention of Colin
McNabb, a psychology student who at first regards her as an interesting case study, and then
— almost immediately — becomes engaged to her. Celia makes restitution for the crimes and is
seemingly reconciled with her victims, but when she is discovered the following morning dead
from an overdose of morphine it does not take the investigators long to see through attempts to
make her death seem like suicide.
Several of the original incidents have not been solved by Celia’s confession. Inspector Sharpe
quickly solves the mystery of the stolen stethoscope during his interviews with the inhabitants of
the hostel. Nigel Chapman admits to having stolen the stethoscope in order to pose as a doctor
and steal some morphine tartrate from the hospital dispensary as part of a bet to acquire three
deadly poisons. He claims that these poisons were then carefully disposed of, but cannot be sure
that the morphine was not stolen from him while it was in his possession.
Poirot turns his attention to the reappearance of the diamond ring, and confronts Valerie
Hobhouse, in whose soup the ring was found. It seems that the diamond had been replaced with
a zircon and, given the fact that it was difficult for anyone but Valerie to have put the ring into
the soup, Poirot accuses her of having stolen the diamond. She admits to having done so, saying
that she needed the money to pay off gambling debts. She also admits to having planted in Celia’s
mind the entire idea of the thefts.
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