Air date: 18/02/1990
Published: Third story in "Poirot Investigates" (1924)
American organised crime, the FBI and guns all creep into this latest adventure for Hercule Poirot and his friends.
For that reason the TV adaptation opens with Poirot, Hastings and Japp all watching a James Cagney crime caper at the cinema. Poirot is suitably squeamish at the American propensity to solve everything with guns!
That typical TV opener aside, the adaptation is again very faithful to the basic outline of the original story. The mystery revolves around why a young couple, the Robinsons, should have been offered the rental on a plush flat at such a cheap price.
The reason, it turns out, is their name. An American, Elsa Hart (or Hardt in the original Agatha Christie story: why the TV producers should have omitted the 'd' I'm not sure) managed to pursuade a young Italian-American, Luigi Valdarno, to steal some naval plans from an American government department. Valdarno is later shot dead.
It transpires that Hart then fled to the UK and, having rented out a flat in the name of Robinson, then sub-lets it to a couple (with the same name) - to cover her tracks, should an American organised crime outfit send an assassin to avenge the killing of Valdarno.
There are, as ever, a few cosmetic changes to the TV adaptation. In the original the finale takes place at another home, where Elsa Har(d)t is now living; in the adaptation she is confronted in her dressing room at the slightly sleezy nightclub she is performing at.
In the original Japp is consulted early on, and appears at the end to arrest Hart. In the adaptation he is central to the investigations, hosting a somewhat overbearing FBI agent, Burt. Predictably, Burt initially has no time for Poirot - a "gumshoe" - but is a thankful admirer by the end. In the original Burt is introduced in the final two paragraphs! Miss Lemon - absent in the original - features again, pretending to be a women's magazine writer in order to find out a bit more about Ms Hart the singer. In the original Poirot and Hastings apprehend the assassin at the Robinson's flat and take him to the house where Hardt is living. This is somewhat clumsy. In the adaptation he has been watching the flat for some time, and - having eluded Poirot and Hastings at the flat - turns up at the dressing room in the finale.
Both versions have Poirot renting a flat above the Robinsons, to observe comings and goings, and then breaking into the flat by a service entrance (a coal lift in the original; a rubbish bin back stairs in the TV version).
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