Agatha Christie's Poirot Episode Guide - inaf iasf bologna

Agatha Christie’s Poirot Episode Guide
Poirot claims to know more than he does, but he is almost pushed under a train. Poirot then
decides to show most of the suspects the photos at a party. Mrs. Upward claims to have seen the
photo of Lily Gamboll, but does not say where.
The following day, Poirot is contacted by a woman called Maude Williams, who had approached
him a few days earlier, telling him that she had got to know James Bentley when they
both worked together briefly for the same estate agents. She told Poirot that she liked Bentley
and did not believe he was guilty or even capable of murdering Mrs McGinty. She now offers to
help Poirot who takes up her offer by getting her to pose as a maid in the house of Mrs Wetherby,
a resident in the village who Mrs McGinty used to clean for, and whose daughter, Deirdre, Poirot
suspects may have some connection with the circumstances surrounding Mrs McGinty’s murder.
During the maid’s night off, Mrs. Upward’s son Robin, a theatre director and Mrs. Ariadne
Oliver, a famed mystery novelist who has been working on a theatre adaptation with Robin, leave
for an evening at the theatre, leaving Mrs. Upward alone at the house. When they return, they
find Mrs. Upward strangled to death. She has evidently had coffee with her murderer, and the
evidence of lipstick on a coffee cup and perfume in the air points to a woman having committed
the crime. Mrs. Upward had invited three people to her house that night: Eve Carpenter,
Deirdre Henderson and Shelagh Rendell. Any of the three women could be someone from the
photographs. Additionally, the postmistress’s assistant, Edna, sees someone with blonde hair
enter the house, which points to either Carpenter or Rendell, as Henderson is not blonde. Confusing
matters even further is the fact that a book is discovered in Mrs. Upward’s house with
Evelyn Hope’s signature written on the flyleaf, which suggests that Mrs. Upward is actually Eva
Kane. Poirot connects the final piece of the puzzle when he finds the photo Mrs. McGinty saw
at Maureen Summerhayes’ house. It is of Eva Kane and has the inscription ’my mother’ on the
back. Now, with the whole story complete, Poirot gathers all the suspects together and reveals to
them the murderer: Robin Upward.
Robin is Eva Kane’s son, Evelyn; the child was a boy, not a girl. Mrs. Upward had not known
who Robin’s mother was and he knew that any scandal would be to his detriment. Mrs. McGinty
saw the photo while working at the Upward house and assumed the photo was of Mrs. Upward
as a young woman. Robin killed her to prevent her from telling anyone who might recognize
the photo of Eva Kane. Mrs. Upward thought the photo of Eva Kane to be similar to a photo
Robin showed her of his mother, whose back story he made up. She wanted to confront Robin by
herself, so she pointed to the wrong photo to put Poirot off the scent. Robin, however, sensed the
truth and killed her before leaving for the play. Then he planted the evidence and made the three
calls to make it appear that a woman had committed the crime. At this point Robin still had the
photo, but rather than destroy it, he kept it and planted it at Mrs. Summerhayes’ house in order
to incriminate her. But Poirot had gone through the drawer earlier and did not see the photo, so
he knew it had been planted subsequently. Robin is then taken away and imprisoned.
Further revelations are also made. Eve Carpenter wanted to conceal her past for reasons of her
own, which was why she didn’t cooperate in the investigation. Poirot discovers that Dr. Rendell
may have killed his first wife, which led Mrs. Rendell to talk about anonymous letters she’d
received warning her of the fact. Also, Poirot now suspects that it was Dr. Rendell, convinced that
Poirot was actually in Broadhinny to investigate the potential murder (by him) of his first wife,
and not the murder of an unimportant charwoman, who tried to push him off the platform and
under a train. And Maude Williams turns out to be the daughter of Eva Kane’s lover. She came
to Mrs. Upward’s house, thinking Mrs. Upward was Eva Kane, with the intent to kill her, but left
once she found her dead. Poirot tells her he will not mention that fact to anyone. Finally, Poirot
reveals to Superintendent Spence his plan to pair off Deirdre Henderson with James Bentley.
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