56. After the Funeral

Air date: 26/03/2006
Published: 1953

After the disappointing Cards on the Table, After the Funeral provides, in many respects, a return to a more classic murder mystery setting and plot.

There's a family; there's a large country house; and there are issues of inheritance. However, the novel doesn't stem from the classic era of whodunnits (between the wars). It was published in 1953 and much of the post-war austerity and, above all, changing of social orders is evident in the book. Enderby Hall, the great Abernethie country pile, is on its last legs, and will now be sold off.

The book opens with the faithful butler Lanscombe and, through his musings, introduces us very quickly to all the key members of the family, gathering after the funeral of Richard Abernethie, eldest son in the family.

Keeping up with all the names is quite a challenge. The novel actually prints a family tree at the beginning, which is not surprising. Basically there are two generations, fragmented by death. Richard had outlived his only son Mortimer; Helen is the widow of brother Leo; the invalid brother Timothy is married to Maude; and the youngest sister, Cora, is herself a widow. In the next generation we have solicitor George; Susan and her husband Gregory; and the theatrical Rosamund and her ambitious husband Michael. None of the cousins' parents are still alive.

Not surprisingly, the TV adaptation simplifies this. For the small screen George is now the son of Helen (so his deceased parents in the book don't, or, rather, didn't exist, as it were!). Susan (who becomes Susannah) is not married (so the mentally unstable Gregory is cropped) - and she is now the sister of Rosamund (removing another set of deceased parents from the family tree).

Post-funeral the family gather with their solicitor Entwhistle. Richard had originally left his estate to Mortimer; but as he is now dead it is to be shared between Timothy, George, Susan and Rosamund, with incomes provided for Helen and Cora. At this point Cora, something of a simpleton, it seems, declares that Richard was murdered.

Shortly after Cora is murdered in her cottage, apparently by an opportunist burglar. She was found by her companion, a Miss Gilchrist. Entwhistle begins investigating each member of the family, before eventually contacting Hercule Poirot for help. However, as with a number of the later Poirot novels, our Belgian sleuth then disappears into the background somewhat.

Susan visits Miss Gilchrist, and they discuss Cora's hobby of painting. A box of wedding cake mysteriously turns up for Miss Gilchrist. She is later ill during the night and is rushed to hospital with what proves to be arsenic poisoning! The assumption being that an attempt was made on her life for what she knew about Cora - or what she knew about what Cora knew...

At this point Poirot steps in. He employs Mr Goby, a rather odd private detective with a reputation for finding out information, to research each member of the family. Goby first appeared in Mystery of the Blue Train, where he was employed not by Poirot, but by Rufus Van Aldin. In addition to After the Funeral, Poirot would turn to his services in Third Girl and Elephants can Remember. He doesn't appear in any of the TV adaptations. The upshot of this section of the novel is all that all of the family are being somewhat economical with the truth and so are all real suspects!

For some reason Poirot then appears to the family in the guise of a Mr Pontalier, supposedly representing an organisation relocating refugees. A big clue comes in Susan's reference to one of Cora's paintings, of Polflexon harbour. The pier, we are told, was blown up in the war (so Cora must have copied a print).

Helen, who has felt for a while there was something wrong on the day of Richard's funeral, realises what it is while looking in the mirror. The following morning she rings Entwhistle, but is violently attacked before she can reveal what she has worked out. Although she suffers severe concussion, she survives.

Poirot meets with the remaining family members and declares that Richard died of natural causes, and dispatches Entwhistle on a mysterious task in London (we later learn it was to do with a painting). He then waits for people to come and see him.

The solution to it all is fascinating. Miss Gilchrist had drugged Cora before taking her place at the funeral. The key here is that no-one had seen her for years as the family had disapproved of her marriage to a French painter. She had introduced the idea that Richard may have been murdered as a smokescreen, before returning home and murdering Cora. She had attempted to kill Helen because Helen had realised the person at the funeral wasn't Cora. She was tilting her head the way Cora used to - but on the wrong side (reason: because Miss Gilchrist had been practising in the mirror!) Motive? Cora had left Miss Gilchrist a collection of apparently worthless paintings she had bought over the years. Miss Gilchrist had realised one of them was a valuable Vermeer, and had covered it up with a picture she had painted of Polflexon harbour from a postcard. She wanted to sell it to fund her one desire: to have a tea-shop.

There are a number of changes in the TV adaptation. I've already mentioned the simplifying of the family tree and the omission of Mr Goby's snooping. Poirot is, not surprisingly, called in by Entwhistle much sooner. The whole Mr Pontalier cover is dropped.

Interestingly, the first part of the story - up to the murder of Cora - is told to Poirot in flashback. This is in marked contrast to the handling of some of the short stories, where an original report to Poirot is replaced by Poirot being around when the action happens.

The detail of Richard's will is substantially changed and becomes a significant issue in its own right. With no deceased son in the plot we learn that Richard had originally left everything to George (who is not, it seems, a solicitor, but a general layabout, who drinks a lot). However, on the day of the funeral Entwhistle reveals the estate is to be shared among Timothy, Cora, Rosamund, Susan and Helen, with George cut out! Did they argue? Actually, it's all a red herring. We later learn that George forged the will, cutting himself out to spite Richard, after the latter had revealed that he was in fact his father (having had a fling with his sister-in-law Helen!). The real will is found, bizarrely, in the old family dolls' house where George had hidden it.

Cora was married to an Italian, not a Frenchman, and was divorced, not widowed. Her ex, an art expert, is called in by Poirot to assist in the revealing of the expensive painting (enabling the culling of another book character, the art expert Alexander Guthrie). The painting is now by Rembrandt, rather than Vermeer.

The most incongruous changes concern Susan. Now Susannah, and single (as mentioned above) she is now a zealous mission supporter, raising funds to build a school in Bechuanaland. Her visit to see Cora is complicated by a guilty fling at a local hotel with cousin George! This is not revealed until Poirot's summing up scene.

In a powerful and dramatic twist to Poirot's summing up there are strong signs that Miss Gilchrist is deranged, and is likely to be committed to an institution.