25. The Tragedy at Marsdon Manor

Air date: 03/02/1991
Published: Second story in "Poirot Investigates" (1924)

Several significant sub-plots were added to bring the next story, The Tragedy at Marsdon Manor, to the small screen.

The original begins with Poirot being called in by the Northern Union Insurance Company to investigate the recent death of one Mr Maltravers, at his country home in Essex.

Poirot is told by the local GP, Dr Bernard, that Maltravers almost certainly died of an internal haemorrhage, probably as a result of a gastric ulcer. He had not treated Mr Maltravers as the latter was a member of the Christian Science sect. He was found in his grounds, a rook rifle by his side.

Poirot and Hastings visit the grieving Mrs Maltravers and later meet a Captain Black, a traveller from East Africa. Through a word-association game Poirot discovers that at a recent dinner party Captain Black had recounted the amazing story of how a man in Africa had committed suicide by shooting himself in the mouth with a rook rifle, and how it had initially confounded medics (as the lightweight bullet had lodged in the brain).

In the end Poirot deduces Mrs Maltravers had persuaded her husband to show her how a person would hold a rook rifle to shoot themselves - and had then pulled the trigger herself! Maltravers, who was in financial difficulties, had recently insured his life for a large sum. For reasons we are not told, Poirot, at the denouement, declares Mrs Maltravers to be "mediumistic" and plays on her emotions by having an actor friend suddenly appear in the hallway dressed as her dead husband, to force a confession out of her.

Once again, as we have noted before, flashback accounts of death don't work so well on television, so the adaptation opens with Poirot arriving in Marsdon Leigh on what he believes is a murder enquiry - only to find that the landlord who hired him, Samuel Naughton, actually wants his help in writing the conclusion to a murder mystery novel! Maltravers' death occurs as part of the story, with Poirot already in the locality.

The detail of the Christian Science link (which, of course, Mrs Maltravers had made up) is omitted. Perhaps it was considered too obscure for modern TV audiences to understand! Instead, Maltravers is recovering from an operation and is under the care of Dr Bernard.

A whole new sub-plot revolves around Mrs Maltravers' claim to see a ghost in the trees (some years ago, we are told, a young woman committed suicide by jumping from a tree in the garden). It transpires that she was trying to frighten her husband, hoping - in his fragile, post-op state - that it would "drive him to his grave".

Captain Black appears rather more shady and is, we are told, madly in love with Mrs Maltravers. The rook rifle suicide story is not told by Black; rather, it appears on a newspaper he has used to wrap an African wooden statue he has brought with him as a present for Mrs Maltravers (presumably she read it while unwrapping the present and conceived the idea at that point).

At one point Mrs Maltravers fakes an attempt on her own life at a civil defence meeting (presumably to deflect attention). It is Japp who turns up with the insurance policy.

At the denouement Poirot uses Mr Naughton to do the 'ghostly' Mr Maltravers walk. In a further example of the way the one-hour episodes often open and close on the same light note, Naughton was wearing a wax cast of Maltravers' face: and early in the episode Poirot and Hastings had visited a local wax museum! Predictably there is a Hercule Poirot character there - which the ever-proud Poirot is keen for Hasting and Japp to see at the end!