30. The Mystery of the Hunter's Lodge

Air date: 10/03/1991
Published: Fourth story in "Poirot Investigates" (1924)

Series three of Agatha Christie's Poirot ended with a story that was considerably embellished to bring it  to the small screen.

It concerns the murder of one Harrington Pace, at the remote hunter's lodge of the title. Additional characters, red herrings and plot details have been added to Agatha Christie's original.

Poirot is in bed with 'flu when his flat is visited by Roger Havering, seeking the detective's help following the murder of his uncle. Hastings goes off to rural Derbyshire to do the leg-work, and is met at the scene by Japp; Poirot - in the original - never actually leaves home!

It transpires that a man had arrived at the lodge the previous night to see Pace. He is described as having a beard, overcoat and having spoken with an American accent. Havering had left earlier in the evening to catch the train to London, where he had spent the night.

Havering's wife, having heard the gunshot, had sent the recently recruited housekeeper, Mrs Middleton, to fetch the police. Mrs Middleton subsequently disappears. The gun that was used to kill Pace is found, rather randomly, by a "city gentleman" in Ealing.

Hastings does some investigating and updates Poirot who deduces that Mrs Havering and Mrs Middleton were one and the same! Mrs Havering had shot Pace, and reported the killing disguised as Mrs Middleton. The gun found in Ealing - planted by Havering - was not the one used to kill Pace, but the second in a matching pair that had been kept at the lodge. The motive was to inherit Pace's fortune. Curiously, Havering and his wife are not arrested; the story ending rather tamely with Hastings (narrating) recounting how they were both killed shortly after in a plane crash.

In the adaptation Hastings and Poirot arrive, along with a number of other guests, at the shooting party. It is cold, and there are traces of snow on the moors. Two significant 'red herring' characters are added: Stoddard the gamekeeper (who we later discover is Pace's half-brother) and Archie, the schoolteacher brother of Havering, who looks after the lodge for most of the year.

As we have had frequent occasion to point out with the short story adaptations, a murder originally reported as having happened at the start actually takes place after Poirot arrives. With additional guests at the lodge two other cooks are on the scene, allowing the clue of Mrs Havering and Mrs Middleton never being in the room at the same time, to be played out rather more obviously.

Mrs Middleton is seen to catch a lift with Havering to the train station. It is later revealed that she then got off at the next station (now disguised as the man with the beard), and stole the stationmaster's bike in order to return to the lodge and commit the foul deed.

The discovery of the bike and the beard, buried in a field, provides both the means of unveiling the culprits (with the aid of Stoddard's sniffer dog) and some customary humour at the end when Poirot, Hastings and Japp return the bike to the stationmaster.