Agatha Christie's Poirot Episode Guide - inaf iasf bologna

Agatha Christie’s Poirot Episode Guide
cannot see how or why Rich would calmly have gone to bed with a bleeding corpse in the chest.
He is able to start investigating the case when a mutual friend recommends him to Mrs Clayton.
Meeting the widow, he is struck by her beautiful innocence and realises quickly that she
is attracted to Major Rich although she denies having an affair with him. She does admit that
she wasn’t in love with her closed and emotionless husband. He then sees each of the people
involved in the party in turn who each agree about the charms of Mrs Clayton and the lack of
emotion in her husband. Poirot has some suspicions of Burgess and goes to Rich’s flat where
the manservant shows him the scene of the crime. Inspecting the chest, Poirot finds some holes
in the back and side and asks Burgess if anything in the room is noticeably different from the
night of the party. He is told that a screen in the room was almost in front of the chest on the
night. Remembering a reference to Othello used by Mrs Spence, Poirot realises the truth. Mr
Clayton is Othello and his wife is Desdemona and the missing character of Iago is in fact Commander
McLaren. He is in love with Mrs Clayton and, jealous of her attraction to Major Rich,
planned the perfect crime whereby Clayton would die and Rich be accused of the murder. He
made numerous subtle suggestions to Clayton about his wife’s infidelity to the point where the
man himself hatched a plan to fake a summons to Scotland and then found a reason to get into
Rich’s flat where he hid in the chest to observe what happened in his absence during the party.
McLaren, playing records for the people to dance to, nipped behind the screen, opened the chest
and stabbed his friend. Poirot feels certain that if the theory is put to McLaren he will confess.
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