40. Dead Man's Mirror

Air date: 28/02/1993
Published: Third story in "Murder in the Mews" (1937)

Dead Man's Mirror has the distinction of being the longest 'short story' adapted for Agatha Christie's Poirot. At 131 pages, the original is the longest of the four 'novellas' that made up the Murder in the Mews collection.

Poirot is summonsed by Gervaise Chevenix-Gore, a wealthy eccentric, who believes he is being defrauded.

The night that Poirot arrives at his country home Chevenix-Gore is found dead in his study, apparently having committed suicide by shooting himself.

As ever, Poirot is curious about some of the apparent details (including a mirror, shattered, it seems, by the gun-shot, but which appears in the wrong position).

Most of the original is taken up with Poirot and the Chief Constable, Major Riddle, interviewing the people present. This includes Chevenix-Gore's wife Vanda, his adopted daughter Ruth, his nephew Hugo, a friend Susan Cardswell, a Colonel Bury (an admirer of Mrs Chevenix-Gore), the family lawyer Mr Forbes, estate agent Captain Lake, Chevenix-Gore's secretary Burrows, and a Miss Lingard, who was helping him write a family history.

One key element is the dinner gong, traditionally banged once eight minutes before dinner, and then a second time. One of Chevenix-Gore's eccentricities was his desire for punctuality at dinner!

Poirot eventually deduces that it was not suicide. Chevenix-Gore's will left most of the estate to Ruth, but he was about to amend this with a stipulation that she had to marry Hugo. It is revealed late in the story that Ruth had secretly married Captain Lake a few weeks before! Poirot deduces that Miss Lingard was, in fact, Ruth's mother, and had killed Chevenix-Gore so that her daughter could inherit.

The adaptation opens with Chevenix (the "-Gore" is dropped for TV) beating Poirot in an auction bid for the mirror. It is at this point that he hires him. Hastings, who is not in the original, joins Poirot for the  trip to Chevenix's country mansion. We are shown, early on, the private wedding of Ruth and Lake.

The plot is largely faithful to the original, although, not for the first time in the TV series, some of the characters are omitted (Forbes, Colonel Bury and Burrows, to be precise). Japp replaces Major Riddle as the investigating officer. Chevenix and Miss Lingard are writing a book on art, not on the former's family history (his obsession with the family name being a significant element in the original). Lake is running a struggling business and is involved in an arson incident towards the end, which provides the moment for Ruth to reveal that they are married.