Agatha Christie's Poirot Episode Guide - inaf iasf bologna

Agatha Christie’s Poirot Episode Guide
of death), the pistol she was shot with and a silk handkerchief used to wipe the prints from the
gun and which is named ”John Fraser”. Poirot is suspicious — why would the murderer wipe his
prints and yet leave his own handkerchief as evidence behind?
The police leave but the Inspector gives Poirot permission
to inspect the flat himself. He goes down there
with Donovan and Jimmy. He immediately starts to
search in the kitchen bin and soon finds a small bottle.
He sniffs the corked top carefully but says that he has
a cold and Donovan impetuously pulls the stopper out
and sniffs the contents for him. The results are almost
immediate — Donovan drops in a faint. Jimmy fetches
his friend a drink and Donovan recovers and decides to
go home.
Jimmy remains and Poirot tells him the case is
solved. There is no such person as John Fraser as the
letter and handkerchief were put there in purpose to
hide the murderer’s identity. The bottle in the bin was
a ruse which Donovan fell for — it contained ethyl chloride
and Poirot placed it there when he was apparently
searching the bin. When Jimmy was getting the drink
for his friend, Poirot searched Donovan’s pockets and
found two things — Pat’s missing flat key which Donovan
had abstracted earlier in the evening and a letter
sent to Mrs Grant which arrived by the late evening
post. Poirot had been struck by the fact that the light
switch in the kitchen supposedly didn’t work when later
on there seemed nothing wrong with it. Donovan needed
to get Jimmy out of the kitchen into the other room
whilst he found the letter he was so desperately searching for and if he switched the light on
in the kitchen as soon as they arrived in the coal lift he wouldn’t have had the opportunity as
their ”mistake” in counting the floors would instantly have been noticed.
The letter is from a firm of solicitors agreeing that the marriage between Donovan Bailey and
Ernestine Grant some eight years before in Switzerland was entirely lawful. Donovan wanted to
marry Pat but his previous marriage was stopping him. By chance his first wife moved into the
same block as his proposed future wife and was threatening to tell Patricia about their marriage.
To stop her, Donovan killed her earlier in the evening but had to return for the solicitor’s letter
which he knew was on the way but which had not yet arrived.
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