The story: Marple (Julia McKenzie) helps a young woman (Louisa=Kimberley Nixon) and her son. She lets them stay one night at her house, then she takes them to her old friend Catherine Greenshaw (Fiona Shaw), at Greenshaw's Folly. Louisa is running away from her husband Philip, a sadist that used to burn both her and Archie's arms, he liked hurting them. Louisa tells only Alfred about her husband. Well, Marple knows and probably Catherine too, but nobody else does.
The butler is found dead, killed says Miss Marple, who is staying for a while to help with the knitting for the Church's orphanage and also to look after Archie.
Mr Bindler keeps sneaking around; the gardener Alfred (Martin Compston) is nice, but mistreated by 'the nephew', always offensive. Father Brophy seems to be always in search for money, he goes to Catherine too asking for some, but she knows at last that he'll use it for his gambling and his drinking, not for the children.
A Funny moment was when Miss Marple went to the police station to talk to the inspector, and it would seem that they were having bets on 'how long before she comes here', it seems like they all know her there. What I don't understand is: if they do know about her, why is it that inspector Welch (John Gordon Sinclair) keeps treating her as an annoyance, as a stupid, annoying old lady?
Marple asks for a postmortem and he says "but you're still alive Miss Marple" :lol:
She wants a postmortem conducted on the butler's body, because she's sure that something's not right about it. They say he was drunk and fell, but she doesn't believe it to be that simple. Anyway, her request is denied :-/
Alfred spends some time with Archie, when the obnoxious nephew is not around, and when Louisa says that sooner or later they will go away to have a proper home somewhere, Archie complaints:"I don't want to go to another Country, I want to stay here with Alfred" :-) Good boy :-)
Up to this moment there is no case, but Marple keeps investigating, trying to see the records, but they are missing, and trying to understand Bindler's notes, since he has disappeared.
When Catherine sees Alfred with some silver things she thinks he is trying to steal from her. Alfred has been in prison for three months for theft, so it's an easy assumption, I guess.
One day Louisa sees through her window that Catherine has been shot with an arrow, but she can't do anything. Archie's father comes looking for the boy, but he runs away to Alfred, who helps him by knocking the man down. I like Alfred, it's a pity that I only understood half of what he said.
The police come to investigate a clear murder now, and Mrs Cresswell (Julia Sawalha) tells the police "I saw him stealing. Do you think he did this to keep her quiet?"
Since Alfred has a "criminal record" the police is quite happy to suspect him, not caring that one single theft when you're young and stabbing a woman through the neck are two very different things.
Cicely (Judy Parfit), Marple's old friend, talks to Marple about the old professor's experiment, back when she was a child and her brother died, then Miss Marple finds Mr Bindler's body.
Trying to take advantage of the dark and the confusion, Philip tries again to take away Archie, but Alfred stops him hitting him on the head.
Marple explains a few first things while the inspector is still completely lost: Bindler was actually a reporter, sneaking around trying to find proof for his scoop on the experiments that were conducted by the old professor (Catherine's father I think). The professor had used the children of the orphanage for his experiments, injecting them with the polio virus to develop a vaccine. Some of them were left paralyzed, many of them died, and Cicely was there and that nightmare still haunts her. At this point the dumb inspector suspects Cicely of the murder, over 70-year-old Cicely... :-/
Bindler must have found out something else, that got him killed... Only at this point the inspector will grant her request for an autopsy, but only on the butler, not on Catherine.
The nephew reveals to be the only heir, faking big surprise "do you think it is a joke?" :-/ and the priest is very disappointed to hear that his 'orphanage' will get no money at all.
The inspector is ready to arrest Alfred, "a clear cut suspect" he says, but Marple stops him promising new evidence that will prove his innocence. She actually starts a long speech. The butler and Catherine were both poisoned before they were killed. The priest stole the silverware to repay his debts, and loyal Alfred was trying to put everything back without betraying him. Cresswell dressed up as Catherine and faked the arrow wound that Louisa saw from her window. Cresswell locked both Archie and Louisa, then 'the nephew' locked her and killed the sedated Catherine (not clear to me which one of them killed Catherine, but it doesn't matter, as she killed the butler and he killed Bindler, so they are both murderers anyway). He then rushed back for the curtain call at the theatre.
He had said previously that his mother died in childbirth. Truth is: that Greenshaw woman died indeed in childbirth, but the baby died too; her husband remarried and had a son. So, Cresswell is his mother, but he is not 'a nephew', he isn't related to Catherine at all.
Cracken the butler died because he had found out that they were mother and son, and Bindler because he had discovered that Catherine had a son of her own, someone that would inherit everything.
It turns out that Alfred is Catherine's own son, although he didn't know. He had sent him away to keep him safe because she was afraid of her father, something like that.
Alfred owns everything now; he'll help the orphanage and he asks Louisa to stay, as the secretary he says of course, it's quite too early to talk about feelings :-)
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