Agatha Christie's Poirot Episode Guide - inaf iasf bologna
Agatha Christie's Poirot Episode Guide - inaf iasf bologna
Agatha Christie's Poirot Episode Guide - inaf iasf bologna
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<strong>Agatha</strong> Christie’s <strong>Poirot</strong> <strong>Episode</strong> <strong>Guide</strong><br />
Once the preliminary police work has been done, <strong>Poirot</strong> reveals Shaitana’s strange mention of<br />
a ”collection” to the other three with whom he played bridge. They quickly realize that they are<br />
four ”sleuths” meant to be pitted against the four in the next room whom Shaitana suspected<br />
of murder. The four agree to work together to solve the crime, and interview the four suspects.<br />
<strong>Poirot</strong> takes interest in the way each member plays bridge, which he discerns through asking<br />
each suspect to grade the play of the others. As there seems to be no conventional way to prove<br />
which of them has committed Shaitana’s murder, <strong>Poirot</strong> suggests that the group of sleuths delve<br />
into the past and uncover the murders that the dead man thought he knew about.<br />
Battle is put on the trail of the death of a Mrs. Craddock, whom Dr. Roberts once attended.<br />
Her husband died of anthrax poisoning from an infected shaving brush (and readers at the time<br />
of the novel’s publication in the 1930s might well have remembered anthrax deaths from infected<br />
shaving brushes during and in the years after World War I); Mrs. Craddock herself had died not<br />
long afterward, of a tropical infection, in Egypt. Race seeks out information on Despard, and<br />
discovers a case in which a botanist named Luxmore and his wife travelled with him to South<br />
America; Luxmore officially died of a fever, but it is rumoured that he was shot. Mrs. Oliver visits<br />
Anne Meredith and her housemate, Rhoda Dawes. Rhoda later visits Oliver and explains Anne’s<br />
bad manners: Anne, after her father’s death and before old friend Rhoda came to her rescue,<br />
worked as a live-in companion; one employer, a Mrs. Benson, had taken hat paint — poison —<br />
from a medicine bottle and died. Fellow suspect Despard takes an interest in Anne’s welfare,<br />
recommending that she retain an attorney.<br />
In the meantime, the four sleuths gather and compare notes. Meanwhile, <strong>Poirot</strong> sets a trap for<br />
Anne Meredith. When she pays him a call at his request, he shows her to a table on which many<br />
packets of the finest silk stockings are piled up, apparently carelessly. After Anne makes her gift<br />
suggestions and leaves, <strong>Poirot</strong> discovers that two pairs of the stockings are missing, confirming<br />
his suspicion that Anne is a thief, and seemingly giving weight to his suspicion that she stole<br />
from Mrs. Benson and killed her when she feared she had been discovered.<br />
At this point, Mrs. Lorrimer contacts <strong>Poirot</strong> with surprising news. She confesses to Shaitana’s<br />
murder, and explains that she took the stiletto impulsively after he mentioned poison as<br />
a woman’s weapon. Shaitana was right about her, she says; twenty years earlier, she had, she<br />
confesses, killed her husband. <strong>Poirot</strong> objects that Lorrimer’s explanation of Shaitana’s killing<br />
does not match her unflappable personality. Lorrimer thus believes that Meredith is Shaitana’s<br />
killer, and decided to lie to save the younger woman. She begs <strong>Poirot</strong> to let her take the blame<br />
for the crime: she will die soon anyway, and Anne will be free to live her young life.<br />
<strong>Poirot</strong> is confused by this confession, and fears that there may be more trouble to come. His<br />
guess proves correct when Mrs. Lorrimer is found dead the next morning, having apparently<br />
committed suicide. Roberts arrived before she was quite dead and attended to her, but she could<br />
not be saved. <strong>Poirot</strong> and Battle race to Anne Meredith’s cottage, fearing that she might strike<br />
again. Despard, who has been visiting Anne and Rhoda, both of whom fancy him, is a few steps<br />
ahead of <strong>Poirot</strong> and Battle. At Anne’s suggestion, Anne and Rhoda are on a boat in a nearby<br />
river. <strong>Poirot</strong> and Battle see Anne suddenly push her friend into the water. Alas for Anne, when<br />
she knocks Rhoda into the water, she also falls in herself. Despard rescues Rhoda; Anne drowns.<br />
<strong>Poirot</strong> gathers Oliver, Battle, Despard, Rhoda, and Roberts at his home, where he makes a<br />
surprising announcement: the true murderer of both Shaitana and Mrs. Lorrimer is not Anne,<br />
but Dr. Roberts. <strong>Poirot</strong> brings in a window cleaner who happened to be working outside Mrs.<br />
Lorrimer’s flat earlier that morning. He testifies that he saw Roberts inject Lorrimer with a syringe;<br />
a syringe, <strong>Poirot</strong> reveals, full of a lethal anaesthetic. Battle chimes in that they can bolster<br />
any prosecution with the true story of the deaths of the Craddocks, who died of infections, true,<br />
but infections deliberately inflicted on each of them by Roberts. Roberts confesses.<br />
<strong>Poirot</strong> points out that in the third rubber of bridge on the night of Shaitana’s murder, a grand<br />
slam occurred. This intense play would keep the others focused on the game — Roberts was<br />
dummy at that point — while Roberts used the opportunity to stab Shaitana. It is also revealed<br />
that the ”window cleaner” was actually an actor in <strong>Poirot</strong>’s employ, though <strong>Poirot</strong> brags that<br />
he did ”witness” Roberts kill Mrs. Lorrimer in his mind’s eye. Despard suggests that one of the<br />
gathered party murder <strong>Poirot</strong>, and then watch his ghost come back to solve the crime.<br />
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