Agatha Christie's Poirot Episode Guide - inaf iasf bologna

Agatha Christie’s Poirot Episode Guide
recently. While she is visiting, an art critic called Alexander Guthrie arrives to look through Cora’s
recent purchases, but there is nothing of any value there. Immediately afterwards, Miss Gilchrist
is nearly killed by arsenic poison in a slice of wedding cake that has been apparently sent to her
through the post. The only reason that she is not killed is that, following a superstition, she has
saved the greater part of the slice of cake under her pillow.
Poirot focuses on the Abernethie family, and a number of red herrings come to light. Rosamund
Shane, one of the heiresses, is an inflexible and determined woman who seems to have something
to hide (which turns out to be her husband’s infidelity and her own pregnancy). Susan’s
husband, Gregory, is a dispensing chemist who had apparently been responsible for deliberately
administering an overdose to an awkward customer. He even confesses to the murder of Richard
Abenerthie near the close of the novel, but is discovered to have a pathological compulsion to
be punished for crimes of which he is innocent. Timothy Abernethie, an unpleasant invalid who
seems to be feigning illness in order to gain attention, might have been able to commit the murder
of Cora, as might his suspiciously strong-armed wife, Maude. Perhaps identifying the murderer
may depend on finding a nun whom Miss Gilchrist claims to have noticed... But what can all this
have to do with a bouquet of wax flowers to which Poirot pays attention?
After playing games in mirrors, Helen Abernethie telephones Entwhistle with the news that
she has realized something about the murderer. Before she can say what it is she is savagely
struck on the head.
Poirot’s explanation in the denouement is a startling one. Cora had never come to the funeral
at all; it was Miss Gilchrist, who disguised herself as Cora in order to plant the idea that Richard’s
death had been murder. Therefore when Cora herself was murdered, it would seem that the alleged
murderer had struck again. Since no one had seen Cora for many years, and Miss Gilchrist
had been able to copy many of her mannerisms, it was unlikely that the ruse would be spotted,
except for the fact that she had rehearsed a characteristic turn of the head in a mirror, where the
reflection is reversed. When she came to do it at the funeral, she turned her head to the wrong
side. Helen had had the feeling that something was wrong when Cora had made her statement,
but not realized at the time that it was this incorrectly reproduced gesture. Miss Gilchrist had
further given herself away by referring to the wax flowers; these were present on the day of the
reading of the will but had been put away by the time Miss Gilchrist (as herself) met the family.
She had deliberately poisoned herself with the arsenic-laced wedding cake to avoid suspicion;
ironically this only aroused Poirot’s misgivings.
The ’murder’ of Richard needed to be established so that Miss Gilchrist’s own motive for killing
Cora would be obfuscated when she killed her. Miss Gilchrist desperately wanted a painting that
Cora had bought at a sale and which she had recognized as a Vermeer, but Cora had no idea just
how valuable the artwork was. Miss Gilchrist loathed Cora and was plotting to sell the Vermeer
in order to escape her dreary life and rebuild her beloved teashop, which she had lost during the
war. Miss Gilchrist had subsequently hidden the Vermeer behind her own painting depicting the
destroyed pier copied from the postcard in order to disguise the painting amongst others left to
her in Cora’s will.
At the end of the novel, Miss Gilchrist is understandably found to be completely insane. She
was arrested and later put in a sanitarium.
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