Agatha Christie's Poirot Episode Guide - inaf iasf bologna

Agatha Christie’s Poirot Episode Guide
Sad Cypress
Season 9
Episode Number: 56
Season Episode: 2
Originally aired: Friday December 26, 2003
Writer:
Agatha Christie, David Pirie
Director: David Moore
Show Stars: Hugh Fraser (Captain Arthur Hastings), David Suchet (Hercule Poirot)
Guest Stars: Elisabeth Dermot-Walsh (Elinor Carlisle), Marion O’Dwyer (Nurse
O’Brien), Rupert Penry-Jones (Roddy Winter), Paul McGann (Dr Peter
Lord), Kelly Reilly (Mary Gerrard), Phyllis Logan (Nurse Hopkins),
Diana Quick (Mrs Welman), Stuart Laing (Ted Horlick), Linda Spurrier
(Mrs Bishop), Alistair Findlay (Prosecuting Counsel), Louise Callaghan
(Hunterbury Maid), Geoffrey Beevers (Seddon), Ian Taylor (Turner),
Jack Galloway (Marsden), Timothy Carlton (Judge)
Summary: Young Elinor Carlisle, engaged to marry the dashing Roddy Winter,
finds herself charged with the fatal poisoning of Mary Gerrard, her rival
in love. Poirot has the job of saving Elinor’s skin, but unfortunately,
the evidence against her is overwhelming. If Elinor has been framed,
someone has been fiendishly clever.
The novel is written in three parts: in the first place
an account, largely from the perspective of the subsequent
defendant, Elinor Carlisle, of the death of her
aunt, Laura Welman, and the subsequent death of the
victim, Mary Gerrard; secondly an account of Poirot’s
investigation; and, thirdly, a sequence in court, again
mainly from Elinor’s dazed perspective.
In the first part, distant cousins Elinor Carlisle and
Roddy Welman are happily engaged to be married when
they receive an anonymous letter claiming that someone
is ”sucking up” to their wealthy aunt, Laura Welman,
from whom Elinor and Roddy expect to inherit a sizeable
fortune. Elinor immediately suspects Mary Gerrard, the
lodgekeeper’s daughter, to whom their aunt has taken
a considerable liking. They go down to visit their aunt:
partly to see her and partly to protect their interests.
Mrs. Welman is helpless after a stroke and speaks of
a desire to die, most notably to Peter Lord, her physician.
After a second stroke, she asks Elinor to ask the
family solicitor to prepare a will under which it is clear
that Mary is to be a beneficiary. Roddy has fallen in
love with Mary, provoking Elinor’s jealousy. Mrs. Welman
dies intestate during the night and her estate goes
to Elinor outright as her only surviving blood relative.
Subsequently, Elinor releases Roddy from the engagement and makes moves to settle money
on him (which he refuses) and two thousand pounds on Mary (which Mary accepts). At an impromptu
tea party thrown by Elinor for Mary and Nurse Hopkins, Mary dies of poison that had
supposedly been put into a fish-paste sandwich. Elinor (who has been behaving suspiciously) is
put on trial. Worse, when the body of her aunt is exhumed it is discovered that both women died
of morphine poisoning. Elinor had easy access to morphine from a bottle that apparently went
missing from Nurse Hopkins’s bag.
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