The Hollow

Poirot stumbles on the body before the mystery has even begun. Dr John Christow lies dying at the pool at the Hollow, the country estate hosting a weekend house party, and his wife Gerda stands nearby with a revolver in her hand. It is a perfect tableau, which is exactly why Poirot distrusts it. A scene this tidy has usually been arranged. The weekend has barely started when the party stops being a party.

But the house is full of people who knew the philandering doctor rather too well. Henrietta Savernake loved him, Lucy Angkatell owns the house, Sir Henry presides, Midge Hardcastle keeps the peace, Veronica Cray is an old flame with a new grudge, Gudgeon the butler sees everything and says little, and Gerda herself holds the gun without any apparent sense of her own danger. Grief and relief wear very similar faces in this house, and Poirot reads both. Inspector Grange arrives to make the official arrests, but the case keeps sliding away from the obvious.

Jonathan Cake plays John Christow, with Megan Dodds as Henrietta Savernake, Sarah Miles as Lucy Angkatell, Edward Fox as Gudgeon, Claire Price as Gerda Christow, Lysette Anthony as Veronica Cray, Tom Georgeson as Inspector Grange, Edward Hardwicke as Sir Henry Angkatell and Caroline Martin as Midge Hardcastle. Agatha Christie wrote it with Nick Dear, and Simon Langton directed. David Suchet is Poirot.

Christie admitted she wrote the book with no plans for Poirot at all and had to bring him in anyway, and the episode shares that sense of a puzzle that matters less than the people. The setting is a country house at its most English, which is precisely why the blood looks so out of place. The house party is the mystery, and the mystery is the house party; that is the whole trick. For once the detective feels like a guest at the party rather than the reason for it, and that is rather refreshing.