Poirot and Me (16 page)

It is only after that establishing scene that

the action shifts to Hastings’ convalescent

home, where he is watching the newsreel.

There too London Weekend took a risk. The

black and white footage he and his fellow

patients are watching was controversial at

the time because it showed their fellow

soldiers dying in the trenches, not something

a prime-time television programme would

normally air, as it would be deemed too

distressing for an audience before the nine

o’clock watershed, which could well include

children.

After the newsreel, Hastings encounters

his old friend John Cavendish, who invites

him down to Styles – located in Wiltshire,

rather

than

Essex,

in

Clive

Exton’s

screenplay, though I was never quite sure

why. When Hastings arrives, he meets John

Cavendish’s wife Mary and his younger

brother Lawrence; a girl called Cynthia, a

protégé of Mrs Inglethorp, who works in the

dispensary of the local hospital (another

parallel with Dame Agatha’s life); and Evelyn

Howard, a lady in her forties who works for

the mistress of the house as a general

assistant.

When Mrs Inglethorp suddenly dies an

agonising death in bed – another risk for

ITV, as her death is incredibly graphic in the

film – it is first thought that she has had a

heart attack, but the local doctor quickly

spots that it is murder by poisoning. The

police are called, and, inevitably, suspicion

falls on Mrs Inglethorp’s new husband,

Alfred, who is suspected by the family of

being a bounty hunter, only interested in Mrs

Inglethorp’s considerable fortune.

By the time of the murder, however, Poirot

has only appeared briefly. In my first scene

Poirot is encountered leading a string of his

fellow Belgian refugees through a local

wood, instructing them on the wonders of

the English countryside. The first glimpse of

Poirot is of his spats treading careful through

the leaves – and it is the very first time the

audience hears his theme music gently rising

in the background.

When Poirot first appears in full view, he is

telling his fellow Belgians about one local

plant, the ‘Scarlet Pimpernel’, which, he says,

only opens during a lengthy period of good

weather. Poirot then pauses, and gives a wry

smile. ‘It is seldom seen open in this

country.’

We then see Poirot leading his troop of

Belgians across a river bridge, while

attempting to sing the famous First World

War song ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’,

even though their voices are clearly not up

to it – and Poirot is patently tone deaf.

Nevertheless, it instantly conveys the group’s

attempt to show loyalty to their new

homeland. It is the only time that Poirot

sings in the entire canon of his stories, which

was a great relief, as I would not describe

myself as a singer.

Just two minutes later, Hastings meets

Poirot in the local post office, where the little

man is attempting to persuade the

postmistress to arrange the spices in the

shop to reflect their countries of origin –

those from India to the east, those from

Africa to the south, and so on – only for her

to tell him that she knows exactly where all

the spice jars are, and, besides, they all

come ‘from the wholesaler’.

The postmistress’s reaction pains Poirot

deeply, because not having the jars and tins

lined up in order of their size and placed in

relation to their country of origin offends his

sense of order and method, but there is

nothing he can do. The story reveals that

Hastings and Poirot have met before, when

Hastings worked for Lloyd’s of London, and

while Poirot was still serving with the Belgian

police. Now in his sixties, he has since

retired and is living in exile, because ‘the

Boche

have

rendered

my

homeland

uninhabitable’.

It is not long after their encounter in the

post office that Mrs Inglethorp dies and

Hastings suggests recruiting Poirot to help in

the investigation into her death. He goes to

the cottage where he and his countrymen

are staying and knocks on the door early in

the morning. Poirot is in bed, but gets up

and opens the window to talk to Hastings.

It is to my eternal regret that this is one

occasion when I totally let down the man I

had become so close to. In the film, I open

the window and look out without brushing

my hair before doing so. Now, Poirot, the

man I knew and loved, would never, ever,

have done that. He would have brushed his

hair carefully, no matter how urgent the

knocking on his front door. To this day, I

regret that I didn’t brush my hair before

opening the window. Every time I see that

scene, I feel I’ve let him down.

Not surprisingly, the film’s costume

designer was very anxious that I should look

younger for my introduction in the story –

after all, the action is taking place twenty

years before most of the stories that I had

already filmed – and so I wore a little less

padding, and a bowler hat rather than a

Homburg. I also wore a tie held in place by a

silver ring at the throat, rather than a bow

tie.

But I kept every one of the mannerisms I

had refined during the other films in the

series, including his mincing walk and his

tendency to keep his left hand firmly behind

his back when he moves. ‘That is him,’ I told

myself. ‘It is part of who he is, and has been

throughout his life’.

Privately, I was very glad I’d already

filmed so many Poirots, for they gave me the

confidence I needed to bring him alive in his

first story. Had I filmed Styles first, I wonder

if I would have had that same certainty

about his character and his mannerisms. But

my remaining true to the little man was

made all the easier by Ross Devenish’s

direction. He was a delight because he took

an enormous interest in Poirot. He would

come to my caravan on the set after we’d

finished filming and sit for hours, talking to

me about him.

‘Tell me who he is,’ Ross would say. ‘How

does he feel? How does he think? How can

we best bring him to life?’

Now, I fully accept that it was becoming

difficult for some of the directors who had

come to work on the second series to deal

with me. There is no denying it; I had

become an actor who was desperate to hang

on to what he believed was the only correct

view of his character. I felt, by then, that I

had become the custodian of Dame Agatha’s

creation, and I was not going to allow

anyone to dilute or alter anything that I felt

strongly about. That made it difficult for

some directors to deal with me – but that

wasn’t the case with Ross, who only ever

wanted to help me serve Poirot and his

creator.

I think that makes our version of The

Mysterious Affair at Styles very special, for

although it reveals Poirot’s eccentricity, his

egotism, his extraordinary knowledge and

his ironic sense of humour, it never once

allows him to topple over and become a

caricature. Ross and I wanted him to be as

human as we possibly could make him.

In the wake of Mrs Inglethorp’s death,

Poirot

accepts

Hastings’

invitation

to

participate in the investigation without a

moment’s pause, not least, he tells Hastings,

because ‘she had kindly extended hospitality

to seven of my country people, who, alas,

are refugees from their native land . . . We

Belgians will always remember her with

gratitude.’

It is at precisely this moment in the

original story that Dame Agatha first

describes Poirot, in some detail:

‘He was hardly more than five feet,

four inches, but carried himself with

great dignity. His head was exactly the

shape of an egg, and he always

perched it a little on one side. His

moustache was very stiff and military.

The neatness of his attire was almost

incredible; I believe a speck of dust

would have caused him more pain

than a bullet wound.’

It was a description that I knew almost by

heart, just as I remembered that when he

first goes to Styles Court to inspect Mrs

Inglethorp’s bedroom, the scene of her

death, Dame Agatha describes him as having

‘darted from one object to the other with the

agility of a grasshopper’. That phrase too

was forever in my mind.

Two other qualities that define him also

appear in Dame Agatha’s first novel – her

reference to Poirot’s ‘little grey cells’ and his

assertion to Hastings: ‘I am not keeping back

facts. Every fact that I know is in your

possession. You can draw your own

deductions from them.’

It is left to the then just Inspector Japp,

who appears from London to participate in

the investigation, to give us a little of

Poirot’s background by introducing him to a

local police superintendent by saying that

they

had

worked

together

on

the

‘Abercrombie forgery case’ (in the novel, that

is indentified as taking place in 1904) and

adding that ‘we nailed him in Antwerp –

thanks to Monsieur Poirot here’. The

superintendent looks distinctly unimpressed

by this odd-looking little man with a strange

accent and a rather peculiar walk.

Poirot is undeterred. He positively relishes

what is a complicated investigation, capable

of several different solutions, and which calls

on him to examine the exact nature of

strychnine poisoning. But it also contains

many of the elements that Dame Agatha

used time and again in her stories. There is

a large country house, with the servants

necessary to maintain it, complete with a

tennis lawn and stables to allow the guests

to ride in the mornings, while the grooms

look after the horses.

There is a sense in the story, and in our

film, that those days of British Edwardian

grandeur are fading as the impact of war

introduces a new and different world, one in

which old traditions and habits are ever

more difficult to maintain. Poirot catches this

when he describes one of the older female

servants, Dorcas, in the novel by saying: ‘I

thought what a fine specimen she was of the

old-fashioned servant that is so fast dying

out.’

There is also the hint – in the murder of

Mrs Inglethorp – that the time has suddenly

arrived when young men are becoming

increasingly impatient for their inheritance,

no longer prepared to wait their turn under

what they see as the ‘yoke’ of their elders.

Dame Agatha is quietly drawing attention to

the materialism that she sensed was

creeping into the world around her when she

wrote the novel in 1916.

Nevertheless, all the essential ingredients

of an Agatha Christie Poirot mystery are

there, including a typically expansive

denouement in which he seems to suggest

that almost every single resident of Styles

Court could have been guilty of poisoning

Mrs Inglethorp, before finally revealing the

killer. Yet the more he weaves his magical

spell and unravels the story’s many puzzles,

the more the story’s characters and the

audience comes to love him. As Cynthia, Mrs

Inglethorp’s protégé, puts it, ‘He is such a

dear little man!’ Poirot may leave the

fictional Cavendish family in tatters in the

novel and the film, but that does not detract

for a moment from his audience’s delight in

him.

It is a delight that remains to this day. I