"Old sins cast long shadows, Madame."
Hello everyone!
I think the only thing that could be more on-point would be the Addams Family.
As it happens, however, I have quite the fondness for a certain Belgian detective.
Yes, he's BELGIAN people, he's NOT French!
And of course Agatha Christie was more than kind to focus one of her books right around the time of Halloween and the festive period.
Then it got adapted and the marvelous David Suchet portrayed the detective in question, so what more could you ask for at this time of year?
Let's dig our teeth right into Poirot's Hallowe'en Party!
I've done certain reviews which include the famous Hercule Poirot, and I'll be linking the lot down below, because you haven't lived properly if you haven't picked up at least one of Christie's books. And I'm pretty sure you might have read at least Murder on the Orient Express because of the movie which came out last year (which I also, alas, watched and reviewed, not that I liked it).
This one is a little bit different because it's got the carved pumpkins and witches, but it's not so different with its end result.
Because - of course - it features a murder. It was a dark and stormy night ...
The story begins with the fabled Hallowe'en Party thrown by one Rowena Drake for the children of her village, and she somehow managed to secure an invitation for mystery writer Ariadne Oliver, who has her own series of books which feature a Finnish detective Sven (why Finnish? Nobody knows, least of all Ariadne!). So she's there to help with the organisation and to hand out awards after the tasks and little competitions the kids go through.
What she doesn't yet know is that the Curse of Poirot has clamped onto her, because no sooner does the party start to wind down than someone discovers a body.
DUH of course there's a body!
Joyce Reynolds, a dumply sort of thirteen-year-old (I didn't make this description up, Christie did!) is found drowned in the apple bobbing bucket.
Miss Oliver is shocked into action - which is to say, she does the only sane thing one can do in this case scenario:
she makes sure there's going to be a REAL detective on the scene.
Enter Monsieur Poirot, who appears in all his mustached glory with his patent leather shoes and his mincing walk (it's in this episode that we actually get a bit of an explanation for the walk itself - those shoes PINCH).
The first thing he does is try and figure out what might have caused the murder of a teenaged girl, and he's astonished to find that, prior to her death, Joyce boasted up and down about having seen a murder, but that she hadn't known it WAS a murder at the time.
I know, you're probably thinking: the girl had to be daft.
Everyone else thinks the same thing, because apparently, little Joyce was a bit of a liar and liked to tell tall tales.
But after visiting with the local gossip (and resident "witch"), Poirot gets information on a few unsolved murders from the area, with some special notice about an elderly woman who APPARENTLY died of natural causes but whose will left a lot to be desired.
The vicar in the village had this program, you see, where he would bring young au pair girls over, and one of them was with the elderly, wealthy lady. And, as the story goes, SHE was the one who got left the fortune and the house - coincidentally, the same house where Rowena Drake and her children currently reside in, as they were the elderly woman's only living relatives.
The plot thickens because the will was obviously a forgery, but the man who forged it could have done a much better job, all things considered, because he'd had priors with that sort of thing.
What's this all got to do with Joyce's murder? Beats me at this point, and beats Poirot, but nothing, as he says, is insignificant until proven otherwise.
I just made that up, but you get the idea.
Mincing about in a lovely garden which comes with the house the murder was committed in, Poirot starts gathering his little ideas together while speaking to head gardener Michael Garfield, who can't seem to leave well enough alone and always putters about, regardless that Rowena Drake hates seeing him there.
Add into this mixture Miss Oliver's host, Judith and her daughter Miranda, and I'm sitting here pretty baffled as to why anyone would want to live in any small village (Midsomer Murders should have been prime example for a loud, fat NOPE), but Poirot is starting to see the light.
Comments made here and there by people about the Drakes, about Joyce, about the past and how it should stay buried and hidden, and of course how Poirot should really head back into the city, all start weaving a web together.
Get it? Spiderweb?
And then there's murder number two, of Joyce's brother RIGHT after Poirot discovers that Rowena Drake apparently saw the boy peek out of the library around the time of his sister's death.
So with two kids now dead, it's time for Poirot to speed up his game.
Especially because he's worried Miranda may be next.
See, the story is as convoluted as it is brilliant:
Michael Garfield lures Miranda out to murder her, to preserve her beauty forever (or something of the sort), but thankfully Poirot is quite quick when he wants to be and his walking stick is a handy cane when needed. This is the story he tells:
Miranda is actually Michael's daughter, but Michael is a nutty artist (I added the nutty bit, not Poirot) and he wanted her gone because it was MIRANDA who saw a murder, not Joyce. And it was him and Rowena Drake who committed the rest of the murders happening before-hand.
Why?
Well.
The au pair girl, who had a soft spot for the forger and he on her, actually DID inherit the house and gardens. Unfortunately, she had to die because of that, and was buried in the garden itself, in the spot Garfield could never leave alone. The forger was killed afterwards to make sure nobody would know about this whole shebang and which will was which. The murder Miranda saw (and Joyce boasted about) was actually the murder of a school teacher whom everyone thought had drowned in the nearby pond, but she didn't realize it WAS murder until she was a little older. But Rowena and Michael didn't know Joyce was lying, so Joyce had to die. However, the girl's brother saw that Rowena Drake was completely soaked through (and didn't buy the whole I broke a big vase of flowers to get this wet story) and they initially bribed him to be quiet, but then he had to be killed as well. And THEN they figured out it was MIRANDA all along, so SHE would have to die.
At which point, thankfully, Poirot put the pieces together, and both Rowena and Michael (lovers, wouldn't you know, not that Michael REALLY loved her) were put away for a long, long time.
As for Judith and her daughter Miranda - Judith always introduced herself as a widow, but wasn't actually, because Miranda was an out-of-wedlock child. It was just easier for everyone this way, and Judith knew Michael was a bad seed so she hightailed it out of there as fast as possible.
Finally content, Poirot and Miss Oliver then go to pay their respects to the dead - and salute each other for another successful case.
FIN
I think I got the procedure right - but there's so many bodies and so many storylines that I'm not sure how Agatha Christie put it all together! My suggestion would be to make sure you either read the story or see the episode for yourself, and judge whether or not this makes any sense whatsoever.
In the meantime, I have a few more pumpkins to chase after.
xx
*images and video not mine
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