2. Murder in the Mews

Air date: 15/01/1989
Published: First story in "Murder in the Mews" (1937)

The four stories published as "Murder in the Mews" are, for me, what would be described as 'novellas'. What's a 'novella'? In common parlance, I think, it is a story that is shorter than a novel ... but longer than a short story! Be that as it may the TV producers of Agatha Christie's Poirot treated these four episodes in the same way as the rest of the Poirot short stories.

And so it was that the first of these, also called Murder in the Mews, became the second Poirot story to be aired, back in 1989.

The plot is quite 'novel' (if you will excuse the pun!), and is summed up by Inspector Japp at the denouement: "Not a murder disguised as suicide, but suicide made to look like murder!" (a line reproduced faithfully in the TV adaptation).

Inspector Japp has a prominent role in the original story, which may be one reason why it was chosen for the first TV series. I have a theory that developing the characters of Poirot's 'sidekicks' was an important element in making the TV productions such a hit from the off. Hastings is shoe-horned into the TV episode, although he doesn't appear in the original. The same goes for Miss Lemon.

Nevertheless, like The Adventure of the Clapham Cook the week before, this production was very faithful to the original story - something that, I am sure, quickly endeared the series to die-hard Agatha Christie fans.

There are a few minor changes here and there, of course. Perhaps the most intriguing is in the detail of the suicide. In the original Mrs Allen is found shot in the left temple, but the gun is nestled in her right hand - something that immediately leads the police to suspect 'foul play'. Although the clues are there for the reader little or nothing is made of this until the final scene, when Poirot mentions the fact that she was left-handed.

Did the producers think the gun detail was a bit clumsy? In the TV version, the gun is nestled in her left hand, but her friend, Miss Plenderleith, goes out of her way to imply that Mrs Allen was right-handed (It is the lack of fingerprints on the gun that arouses suspicion that it might be murder). This certainly makes more sense of her later hiding her friend's left-handed golf clubs, as she seeks to implicate the blackmailing Major Eustace. Rather like the arrest at the end of The Adventure of the Clapham Cook this is played out, rather than just being described by Poirot: I guess that makes for better television ... and provided further justification for including Hastings in the story.

Fans of the TV series would probably want me to mention the fact that the fiance, Charles Laverton-West, MP, is played by the actor David Yelland who, more than 15 years later, would appear in the re-styled Poirot as the valet, George. Ironically, in the original, it is George - not Miss Lemon - who lets Miss Plenderleith into the flat at the beginning of the concluding scene.

One final note on quaint language. At one point in the story Japp calls a boy a young "shaver". I can remember my parents' generation using that phrase! It is retained for the TV version. However, Miss Plenderleith's description of Major Eustace as "a bit hairy at the heel" (I think the phrase used to mean 'a bit untrustworthy') was obviously considered a tad too quaint for modern TV audiences!