Agatha Christie's Poirot Episode Guide - inaf iasf bologna

Agatha Christie’s Poirot Episode Guide
the dig may, in fact, be William Bosner, the younger brother of the late Frederick Bosner. Then,
Dr. Leidner’s longtime female colleague, Miss Johnson, is killed - poisoned by hydrochloric acid
substituted in the glass of water on her nightstand. She manages to choke out the words, ”The
window! The window!” before she dies, thereby providing Poirot the vital piece of information he
needs to solve the case.
It transpires that Mrs. Leidner and Miss Johnson were killed by Dr. Leidner - who is, in fact,
Frederick Bosner. He managed to survive the train crash, too; but a young Swedish archaeologist
named Erich Leidner had not and was disfigured beyond all recognition. Bosner traded identities
with the dead man. Fifteen years later, he re-married his wife, who did not recognize him.
Dr. Leidner was the one sending the letters to discourage Louise from her other relationships.
When he finally managed to marry her again he stopped writing them, but it became apparent
that Mrs Leidner was falling in love with Richard Carey, Dr. Leidners friend who is also present
at the dig. Dr. Leidner could not stand to lose her again and hurt by the betrayal he murdered
his wife.
At first glance it seemed impossible that Dr. Leidner could have murdered his wife because he
was on the roof during the period that the murder was committed. It seemed that whoever killed
Louise Leidner must have come through her door since it was clear that one could not squeeze
through the barred window. However, there were witnesses in the courtyard to swear that no one
entered her room prior to the discovery of her murder. In addition, these witnesses also stated
that Dr. Leidner never came down from the roof, until he discovered his wife’s body.
However, Dr. Leidner committed the crime without ever leaving the roof. Louise Leidner was
in bed asleep when she was awakened by a familiar noise. Several nights earlier, she had been
frightened by the sight of a figure at the window. But now she realized that what she had been
seeing was just a mask. Determined to find out who has been tormenting her, she opened the
window and stuck her head out, looking up only to be bludgeoned with a heavy stone quern
dropped by her husband, who was on the roof. Then, using a rope threaded through a hole in
the quern, Dr. Leidner retrieved the murder weapon. Mrs. Leidner cried out briefly before being
struck down; it was this that was heard by Miss Johnson only because the window facing the
exterior of the window was open. However, it was still essential that all physical evidence be
removed that could possibly suggest the significance that window played in the crime. Therefore,
it was necessary for Dr. Leidner to alter the scene of the crime before the police were called in to
investigate. When he climbed down from the roof, he moved his wife’s body to another part of the
room away from the window, along with a blood-stained rug. Lastly he shut the window before
bursting out into the courtyard announcing his wife’s death to the rest of the expedition camp.
When planning the murder, Dr. Leidner figured that suspicion might be directed toward him,
because one might assume that he would have enough time to kill his wife when he entered
her room from the courtyard only to re-emerge a few moments later with the news of his wife’s
murder. This is why Dr. Leidner insisted that Nurse Leatheran accompany him to the expedition.
The nurse would be his perfect alibi, stating that upon entering the room of his wife, Dr. Leidner
could not have possibly committed the murder. Leidner hoped that the testimony of Nurse
Leatheran would assure suspicion would be directed elsewhere.
While standing on the roof and looking out over the countryside, Miss Johnson realises how
Dr. Leidner could have killed his wife, tying in with her previous discovery of the threatening
letters in his office. Retaining her loyalty for the man she loves, she doesn’t tell anybody, and fobs
off Nurse Leatheran when she enquires about her obvious distress. However, Leidner realises that
she will eventually crack, so that night he plants the blood-stained quern with which he killed
his wife under her bed while she sleeps, and replaces a glass of water on her bedside table with
hydrochloric acid, so once she dies everyone will think she murdered Louise so she could seduce
her husband and, overcome by remorse, killed herself. But in her dying moments Miss Johnson
tries imparting her discovery of Leidner’s guilt when she croaks out ’the window’, a seemingly
obscure comment which puts Poirot on the right track.
Meanwhile, the man Louise saw looking through the antika room window turns out to be Ali
Yusuf, who had been helping the expedition epigraphist Father Lavigny - actually Raoul Menier,
a French thief masquerading as a monk - steal precious artifacts from the dig and replace them
with near perfect copies.
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