A good book; some moments were boring because in the trial things that we already knew well were repeated over and over, but it's a good story and a honest one, as always. Yes, the clues were all there.
I'm glad I got it wrong because I suspected Roddy to be simply acting, to be actually evil and to hate Elinor... why? because he seemed too sensitive and simple to be true.
A bit of plot before I explain: Elinor is madly in love with Roddy, he simply likes her dearly. Their aunt is ill and they visit her. Young Mary Gerrard is much loved by their aunt Mrs Welman, and she's beautiful. As soon as Roddy sees her, he falls in love, passionately. When the old woman feels worse, she asks for her lawyer, to be sent for first thing in the morning, to make her will, but she never survived the night. Without a will, the only heir is Elinor. She was engaged to Rodney, but the engagement is broken because he admits his love for Mary and refuses every attempt from Elinor to give him part of the money.
You see? It seemed too honest to be true.
Elinor hates Mary because she thinks that without her Roddy would come back, and she thinks of killing her, but thoughts and actions are two different things. Truth is, and the big spoiler is about to come, that she did not kill her. She didn't know but Mary was actually Mrs Welman love child, the result of a great love she had for a man that died years ago, in the war I think. If known, she would have inherited, not Elinor. Nurse Hopkins had convinced Mary to make a will leaving all to Mary Riley, sister of Eliza Riley, the woman she thought was her mother. Hopkins was really that same Mary Riley, and she killed Mary planning to reveal the truth on her identity, so to inherit herself all of Mrs Welman's money. If you stop and think about it like Poirot does, you must see the truth because Mary was poisoned with something they ate or drank together. The three women ate the same thing, and only Hopkins and Mary drank the tea. Had the poison been on the food, only Elinor could be guilty, nothing else was possible. What about the tea? Two women drank it and after an hour one was dead, but the other? Shortly afterwards she drank it the nurse is seen as if she wasn't feeling well, but getting slowly better. She had a sign on her arm and she said she hurt herself with the roses' thorns, but later Poirot touches those roses and says nothing. He doesn't hurt himself nor he damages his always impeccable outfit. Why? Because that particular rose has no thorns. So the nurse lied. As you see, if you want to stop and think about it, all the clues are there for you to see as Poirot sees them. That's why I love Agatha's books, and she's my favourite crime-novels writer. She doesn't trick you like others do, like they don't tell you a lot of things and at the end the main character tells you that, I don't know, for example that 'he went there that night because his shoes were all muddy' when the writer never mentioned anything about any shoe, or stuff like that which can of course make a book a pleasant reading, can make a good story and everything, but it's not an honest one, not like Agatha has always been honest with her readers.
This book starts with Elinor already on trial, then there's the big flashback until Mary's death and also explaining Poirot's part in the story. Mrs Welman's doctor Peter Lord is in love with Elinor so he begs Poirot to find something to save her life or else she'll be hanged and Poirot accepts. Peter Lord knows Poirot's reputation because Stillingfleet has told him what Poirot did in the Farley case, when everybody thought it was suicide but he proved it to be murder.. now, I don't remember a Farley case, but wasn't Stillingfeet the doctor in the 'third girl' book? Maybe not, if it was it would be a first, really, that I actually remember something.
I'm glad Elinor was declared innocent, and at the end she wants to start a new life, and Dr Lord is so peaceful and reassuring which is exactly what she needs, and she was impressed when he lied for her in the trial, and yes, she won't love Lord like she loved Roddy, so desperately, but what she needs now in her new life is something different, less desperate :-) and as Poirot says, can't you accept it? She loved Roderick, but why does it matter now when only with you she'll be able to be happy?
I love match-making Poirot :-D
Ita: La parola alla difesa
Nessun commento:
Posta un commento