Hello everyone!
I've been doing all kinds of fantasy and sci-fi jumping about, but haven't done a good ole murder mystery in what feels like forever.
So here we go!
I think I actually have Death on the Nile on here somewhere, book version, though I may do a more updated review in the style I use nowadays when writing them. It seems fair given that the movie is releasing soon enough - not that I'm expecting much, but it should at least be SOMEWHAT entertaining, maybe.
We'll have to wait and see.
In the meantime, we delve into another rather fabulous case of Hercule Poirot - and one in which ALL FOUR SUSPECTS could have done it!
But the question is, which one DID? Cards on the Table answers that, and more.
You'll find other Christie-related links down at the bottom of the page.
Cards on the Table finds Poirot at an exhibition when he's invited by an eccentric man, Mr. Shaitana, to attend a soiree-slash-dinner at his place next week. It'll be a bit of an exhibition, too, because Shaitana is a collector, but he collects something much more interesting than items: people.
Poirot warns him this could end badly, but he goes anyway because, well.
He's Poirot.
It turns out there are four representatives of the law present, in some shape or form (an inspector, a Secret Service agent, a private detective, and a murder mystery novelist), and four laymen, in a way, though it quickly becomes clear that it's these other four we're meant to keep an eye on.
Because you see, after dinner, they play bridge.
And after they're done playing bridge, they discover that Shaitana was stabbed to death in the armchair he was sitting in, watching them all play.
The only people in the apartment that night were the eight present, and of the eight, our four sleuths are obviously excluded, therefore the focus shifts to the four "laymen":
Dr. Roberts, a well-respected doctor who only really knew Shaitana vaguely;
Mrs. Lorrimer, a passionate bridge player through which she knew Shaitana;
Major Despard, an army man more at home on a safari, who wanted to kick Shaitana;
Anne Meredith, a young companion woman, who knew Shaitana through a trip to Switzerland.
All four of them seem to have been UNABLE to do the murder, because they were either all playing bridge, or if one was dummy they still interacted with Shaitana and he was alive.
Or so it seems at the time.
It turns out that Dr. Roberts is a very high-risk bridge player who has a keen eye for observation, while Mrs. Lorrimer sees nothing but the game in front of her when she's playing. Major Despard is an average player and only notices what interests him, and Anne Meredith notices what paid companions are trained to notice, aka if flowers need water, etc.
And inevitably, as Poirot and the other three sleuths investigate, it turns out that all four of them had both the chance and the motive to commit the murder that night.
However, only one person would fit the crime PSYCHOLOGICALLY, and so psychology becomes their major source. Along with discrepancies in the stories, of course.
First, they slowly start to uncover past cases of Roberts that seem to be clean, but interestingly enough the people who used to be his patients ended up dying for some natural/obscure reason or another afterwards.
Major Despard, apparently, was madly in love with a woman and shot her husband somewhere in Africa to be with her, not that it helped because the man's death then stood between them.
Anne Meredith may have poisoned her previous employer by switching the bottle of syrup with a bottle of spray paint that had been placed in a syrup bottle.
And Mrs Lorrimer seems to be the cleanest of the lot ... too clean.
Which turns things upside down when she calls Poirot to her to confess to Shaitana's murder, something he emphatically does not believe.
He believes it even less because Anne Meredith goes to visit the woman that same evening, and the next morning Mrs. Lorrimer is apparently dead by suicide, discovered by Roberts after receiving her letter in the post.
However, Poirot has been conducting his own experiments in the background, you see, asking about the games of bridge and determining who he was dealing with; he also set up a clever trap for Anne Meredith, who they discovered had lied about a few months of placement in a household that she didn't mention to the police (the one where the employer died, conveniently, after discovering that Anne was a little thief). Poirot's trap included silk stockings - which were also stolen.
After Mrs. Lorrimer's death Poirot hastens to the home of Anne and the girl she lives with, just in time to witness Anne push her into the river where they're boating, though both go in, and Major Despard only saves the other girl, but is too late to rescue Anne, who drowns.
By the way, no, he wasn't madly in love with any woman until this particular girl he rescues, the other woman just made it all up and hounded him INCESSANTLY, he tried rescuing her husband that night but she threw herself onto him which caused him to actually kill the man instead.
ANYWAY, Poirot then calls them all together and explains, yes, all four COULD have killed Shaitana.
Mrs. Lorrimer had killed her husband in the past.
Anne Meredith had actually killed her previous employer.
Major Despard had killed the man by accident.
And Dr. Roberts had killed a few of his patience through clever poisoning.
He was also the one to kill Shaitana.
Or at least, that's the version Christie gives us. The psyche needed for the murder that evening is one of great daring, quick action, and high risk, which fits Roberts to a T. Afraid Shaitana would expose him, he struck, but that doesn't mean the other three WOULDN'T have killed him if given half the chance.
And with a little help from an actor friend of Poirot's, they get Roberts to confess to Mrs. Lorrimer's murder as well, something Anne thought they were going to pin on her (and while she was at it she wanted her "friend" out of the way so she could have Despard to herself), so all's well that ends well! Despard even jokes they should stab Poirot and then see if his ghost can figure out who did it.
It's a masterfully written story, however, because it really emphasizes how just about ANYONE can turn into a murderer REAL quick if the motivation and push are just right. Christie does a fantastic job in telling us that every individual is different and has different lines they won't cross - and ones they will, if need be.
And that, in the end, is the scariest thing of all.
10/10 recommend for a psychological minefield!
xx
*image not mine
After the funeral 1 - After the funeral 2 - Hercule Poirot's Christmas - The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding
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