50. Five Little Pigs

Air date: 14/12/2003
Published: 1942

On more than one occasion through this journey we have observed (particularly in some of the short stories) how Agatha Christie has someone recount all the events of a crime to Poirot, who then investigates. We have then seen how the TV producers adjusted this, to have Poirot on, or near the scene, when the crime happens. This is an understandable device, as live action is better than simple conversation on the small screen.

However, it was impossible to follow this procedure with Five Little Pigs (without making huge changes to the plot) - as the murder occurred sixteen years earlier!

Poirot is approached by Carla Lemarchant, a young woman who is engaged to be married, and who has been brought up by relatives in Canada. She has recently learned that her mother, Caroline Crale, was convicted of murdering her own husband (Carla's father), the painter Amyas Crale. At the time her sentence was reduced to life imprisonment, but she died in prison the following year (although we are never told how). Caroline wrote a letter to her young daughter, which she has only recently seen, declaring her innocence.

Poirot is commissioned to discover the truth. This set-up makes for a story that is virtually all dialogue. The main body of evidence falls into three parts. First, Poirot interviews people who were involved in the trial - lawyers and the investigating police officer. This enables us, as readers, to hear the main storyline from 16 years ago. Crale was painting a young woman, Elsa Greer, and the two had apparently fallen in love. Although the flamboyant Crale had a notorious reputation for falling for women this time it seemed different - that he was really contemplating leaving his wife. The day before the murder the Crales and their house guests had visited the nearby home of Meredith Blake, a herbalist. The following morning Blake realised some coiinine (an extract of hemlock) had been stolen. Crale later dies of coiinine poisoning. Caroline admitted taking the poison, but said it was because she was contemplating suicide. Although it was argued that Amyas had committed suicide Caroline seemed to have put up little fight at the trial.

The second section sees Poirot interviewing the five people who were there at the time. Meredith and his brother Philip Blake, who was Amyas' best friend; Elsa (now Lady Dittisham), Miss Cecilia Williams, a tutor, and Angela Warren, Caroline's younger half-sister. We learn that Angela is blind in one eye: Caroline having thrown a paperweight at her in a fit of rage when they were children. In many ways this section is the most interesting, with Poirot employing different techniques with each character - as his real desire is for them each to write out an account of what they remember.

The third section comprises the said written accounts of the five individuals. Only Angela seems convinced that Caroline was innocent. Miss Williams reveals having seen Caroline clean a beer bottle (of fingerprints) and put it in the hand of her dead husband (presumably to reinforce the suggestion of suicide). Although Miss Williams hadn't revealed this at the original trial it appears to confirm the guilt of Caroline.

Poirot, however, deduces that it does, in fact, prove her innocence. The coiinine, as we are told earlier, was found in Amyas' glass, but not in the bottle of beer! Caroline couldn't have known this. Why did she try and create the impression that her husband had committed suicide? Because she thought that teenager Angela - who was always arguing with him - had spiked the beer! After years of trying to atone for the childhood incident that scarred Angela for life she now took the opportunity to take the blame - so she thought.

In fact, Poirot unravels, from the various testimonies of conversations overheard, that Amyas was not going to leave his wife. Rather, he agreed to send young Elsa packing. She had overheard this and, having observed Caroline take the coiinine, had taken it from her bedroom and spiked the first glass of beer Amyas had drunk on the fateful morning.

The TV adaptation follows all of this remarkably closely, although Carla is now Lucy, and the incident took place 14 years ago, for some reason. The written accounts are, not surprisingly, dropped, with Poirot getting all the information he needs from the interviews. The not uncommon technique of using grainy, hand-held photography to depict past events is used to intersperse his interviews with visual depictions of what happened in the past.

For TV Caroline is (or, rather, was) hanged which, in a way, makes more sense to the story. In one flashback incident Caroline was seen leaving the bedroom of Philip Blake. In Christie's original Blake is attracted to Caroline who maintains her commitment to her husband and leaves. For TV, quite gratuitously and regrettably, this scene is subtly changed to strongly imply that Blake had some sort of homosexual attraction for Amyas.

The finale is played out more or less along the lines of the book, with the added drama of Carla/Lucy pulling a gun on Elsa, the latter having declared to Poirot that by killing Amyas she in fact 'died' all those years ago. Poirot persuades Lucy not to shoot.

Not one of the better novels, I have to say, and not a particularly enjoyable adaptation.