Hercules Poirot & the Scarlet Pimpernel Part 2

In the TV adaptation of Agatha Christie's novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles, soldiers charge through the trees, dive onto the ground, and aim at faraway targets with their rifles. Then someone shouts, "Hold your fire," and an elegantly attired foot alights on the fallen leaves beside one soldier. As he looks on, the feet mince past him, and the tip of a walking stick points to a particular plant. 

Then a cultured voice lectures, "Another example of the English bucolic beliefs." After stating the Latin name of the plant, which he translates into common English as the Scarlet Pimpernel, he says, "It is believed that when this flower is opened it is a sign of a prolonged spell of fine weather." The camera travels up to Hercule Poirot's face, and he smiles regretfully. "It is seldom open in this country."

As I said in Part 1, this scene does not appear in the novel. It therefore begs the question why Clive Exton, who dramatized it for TV, inserted it. Is it simply about Poirot instructing his fellow Belgian refugees that, as "guests in this country," they must learn the English language, beliefs, and culture, so that they can gain "the confidence of the natives?" Is it intended to demonstrate how Poirot often looks silly to other, as he blithely galavants through a muddy forest, in his formal clothes and delicate shoes, totally oblivious to the war games and the gunfire going on around him?

Or did Exton write it to introduce Poirot into the story far earlier than in Christie's novel?

What do you think?

Hercule Poirot & the Scarlet Pimpernel Part 1

In the TV adaptation of The Mysterious Affair At Styles by Agatha Christie, we first meet Hercule Poirot in the woods. This seems an odd place for him, as he later professes to dislike the countryside, where all of nature is sprawling about in a disordered fashion. Stranger yet, he walks past a man in an Army uniform sprawled on the ground, staring down his rifle at a faraway target. Yet Poirot ignores the soldier, and points out a scarlet pimpernel on the ground.

A moment later, we see he is lecturing to his fellow Belgians, who are refugees now living in England. When one of the group speaks to another in Belgian, he insists that the man speak in English. They are guests in this country, he reminds them, so they must learn to live like the English do. This scene is a creation of the production team, not present in the novel. To me, it seems an odd insertion into Christie's story, and prompts a number of questions, such as:

1) Why would Poirot be oblivious to Army exercises?
2) Why would Poirot insist that his friends speak English?
3) Why would Poirot point out a particular flower, when he's not interested in nature?

Intriguing questions no, Mon'ami?

A Storm Brewing At Styles Court

In Agatha Christie's novel The Mysterious Affair At Styles, Arthur Hastings has spent several months convalescing from injuries suffered while fighting at the Front during World War I. After receiving a further one-month medical leave, he meets an old friend, John Cavendish, who invites him to spend it at his country house of Styles Court. Having visited the house often in his youth, he yearns to see the old place again. Staffed with servants, this old English manor house abounds in luxury and elegance. Who wouldn't prefer to take a respite from the fighting in WWI to catch up with an old friend in such genteel surroundings? Especially a house with so many happy associations from his childhood.

What Hastings doesn't realize, until he visits, is that a storm is brewing at Styles Court. John's stepmother Emily has recently married Alfred Inglethorp, a much younger man. Aside from his new wife, everyone at the house views Alfred as a scoundrel. Interestingly, few of the people living in the manor house really like Emily either. She may be a grand old dame, actively involved in her community, but one night she awakens in agony. When Hastings and John break through her locked bedroom door, her body is seized with violent convulsions, and she dies soon afterward. Although everyone seems shocked by her murder, when Hercule Poirot is called in to investigate her death, he discovers that everyone (except Hastings) has a motive for murder. 

Suspicion especially falls on her new husband Alfred, as well as on Hasting's friend John, who stands to inherit the mansion and surroundings lands. He could benefit from his stepmother's death, depending on which version of her will is considered legally valid. He could certainly use additional funds, as keeping up a country manor requires a great deal of money.

Francois Riviere's book, In the Footsteps of Agatha Christie, offers a pictorial history of the Christie's life. I'd like to say that Christie based the fictional manor house of Styles Court on a hotel she had stayed in, but I can't with certainty, as I didn't take extensive notes before returning the coffee table book to the library. But Christie did stay at the Moorland Hotel in Dartmoor while writing her first novel, so its interiors and furnishings may have informed her depiction of Styles Court. The house is certainly a character in its own right, which Christie fleshes out with sketches of furniture placement and doorways in key rooms. I thought this a unique feature of the novel, and sets it apart from many of her other books.

She even sketches a small fragment of paper that Poirot retrieves from the fireplace, so we can read it along with Hastings and Poirot. Is that cool, or what?

John's desire to keep the country house in the family is laudable, but inevitably, due to property taxes and death duties, such large estates are destined to be sold. Many of these grand old houses no longer belong to their original families, and have been converted into apartments, schools, or office buildings. Some also operate as hotels, such as the manor house that formed our home for a week in 2011. Thankfully, no murder took place there during our visit, but if one had, I'd rather have someone like Hercule Poirot investigating my culpability--a person dedicated to determining the truth of the situation--rather than an inspector who was working under a deadline (and public pressure) to close the case.

Related Internet Link
Locations Used For Styles Court

A Desk, A Candle, & Poirot's Cocoa

In The Mysterious Affair At Styles, Emily Inglethorp dies in her bedroom. Yet her bedroom was locked, and she was killed with strychnine, a fast acting poison. So who could have murdered her, and how? With the aid of his friend Arthur Hastings, Hercule Poirot sets to work, investigating all the clues at hand. There's a locked box securing her legal papers, a container of sleeping powder, and a curious drop of wax on the floor. A small container holds rolled-up used papers, a tiny scrap of green fabric in a doorway, and ashes in the fireplace, one of which is large and unburned enough to suggest that she made a new will before she died. There's so many clues that Poirot's little gray cells have difficulty sorting them all out.

I like how Agatha Christie throws in so many potential clues: they kept me guessing as to the identity of the villain, and how he or she had perpetrated the murder. I guess other readers must have liked that too. The Mysterious Affair At Styles might have been her first novel, but it wowed readers and reviewers alike, and served as the cornerstone on which Agatha Christie would launch her astonishing career. People love a book with a premise that will carry them through a book. Emily Inglethorp's impossible murder, and the relevance of all those clues, kept me turning the pages. As I read, I kept guessing at the identity of the murderer, and how he or she had perpetrated the crime. Given so many clues, I couldn't have sorted out the crime. Nor could Arthur Hastings have inferred the meaning of one crucial piece of evidence. Thankfully, if anyone could discover the murderer of Emily Inglethorp, it's the diminutive Belgian detective Hercule Poirot!

Welcome To My New Blog

I started watching "Agatha Christie's Poirot" because I enjoyed the Sherlock Holmes TV shows starring Jeremy Brett, and wanted more English period mysteries. It took me a little time to get used to Hercule Poirot, but over time, David Suchet's portrayal of the diminutive Belgian sleuth won me over. Now, I've seen most every story that he has appeared in, and I'm still hungry for more. So it's time to delve into the books, and Agatha Christie's original stories, to experience Hercule Poirot in an entirely new way. I hope you enjoy my musings, and that you'll share some of your affection for these classic stories with me. 

First up will be The Mysterious Affair At Styles, Agatha Christie's first novel, and also the book with which Hercule Poirot made his entrance to the world.