Agatha Christie's Poirot Episode Guide - inaf iasf bologna

Agatha Christie’s Poirot Episode Guide
The Adventure of the Clapham Cook
Season 1
Episode Number: 1
Season Episode: 1
Originally aired: Sunday January 8, 1989
Writer:
Clive Exton, Agatha Christie
Director: Edward Bennett
Show Stars: Hugh Fraser (Captain Arthur Hastings), Philip Jackson (Chief Inspector
James Japp), Pauline Moran (Miss Felicity Lemon), David Suchet
(Hercule Poirot)
Recurring Role: Richard Bebb (Cameron)
Guest Stars: Antony Carrick (Todd), Nicholas Coppin (Police Constable), Dermot
Crowley (Arthur Simpson), Freda Dowie (Eliza Dunn), Brigit Forsyth
(Ernestine Todd), Jona Jones (Police Constable), Phillip Manikum (Police
Sergeant), Katy Murphy (Annie), Brian Poyser (Salvation Army
Speaker), Danny Webb (Porter), Frank Vincent (II) (Purser)
Summary: Mrs Ernestine Todd, from Clapham, asks Poirot to help her find her
cook, Eliza, who has vanished without trace. Poirot likes to take on
only big and important cases, so at first he feels slighted by being
called on to work on such a trivial matter. But he agrees to visit Mrs
Todd’s house, and after he has seen the contents of the missing cook’s
trunk, Poirot decides the case might prove to be worthy of his great
talents, after all.
Poirot is not interested in investigating some of the
cases which appear in the newspapers and which Hastings
tries to bring to his attention. These include a bank
clerk who disappears with fifty thousand pounds of securities,
a suicidal man and a missing typist. He is put
on the spot though when visited by a Mrs. Todd who is
determined that he investigate her missing cook. With
some humour, and to avoid an argument, he agrees
to take on the trivial case. Eliza Dunn, a middle-aged
woman, walked out of her job and the Todd’s house in
Clapham two days ago without working her notice and
has not communicated with her employer since, except
for sending for her trunk that day. Interviewing the maid
in the house, Poirot finds out that the trunk was already
packed, meaning that Eliza had planned to leave even
though her departure was swift. The other occupants
of the house are Mr. Todd, who works in the city, and
their lodger, Mr. Simpson, who works in the same bank
at which Mr. Davis worked. Struck by this coincidence
as he is, Poirot cannot see a connection between an absconding
bank clerk and a missing cook. Poirot places
advertisements in the newspaper enquiring as to the
whereabouts of Eliza and several days later he is successful
in locating her when she visits Poirot’s rooms.
She tells him a story of having come into a legacy of a
house in Carlisle and an income of three hundred pounds a year, dependent upon her taking up
the offer and immediately leaving domestic service. This legacy was communicated to her by a
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