Lord Edgware Dies

[WARNING: This contains MAJOR spoilers]

Hello Friend, I’m back! This time, I’m going to write about Lord Edgware Dies, a work of detective fiction by the Queen of Crime, Dame Agatha Christie [it features everyone’s favourite detective, Hercule Poirot, his close friend Captain Arthur Hastings, and Chief Inspector Japp]. All of Christie’s books are refreshing and unusual, but Lord Edgware Dies struck me particularly hard because it meddles with the readers’ minds so much, leaving us quite unable to reach a decisive conclusion till Poirot solves the case for us—and it seems so simple when he lays out the facts and his [frighteningly accurate] deductions before us; one cannot help but marvel at the complexity of this particular case [I said it seems simple, I never said that it was a simple case]. Poirot’s “little grey cells” are furiously at work! An alternative title was “Thirteen at Dinner”, arising from a superstition that sitting down thirteen to dinner means bad luck to the person wo first leaves the table. [Creepily, a young actor named Donald Ross rises first, and is killed shortly after].  The book was published in 1933, and was well received at publication, with reviews calling it “ingenious”, “clever”, and “unusual”. Let’s dive right into it, shall we?

Poirot and Hastings attend a performance by genius impressionist Carlotta Adams [ who is based on the American dramatist Ruth Draper], where Poirot is approached by a famous American actress, Jane Wilkinson, also known as Lady Edgware. She requests his assistance in asking her tyrannical and queer husband, Lord Edgware, to divorce her [she has her eyes on a young man, the Duke of Merton, and wishes to be free so she can marry him]. She is shockingly self-centred and displays little regard for human life, stating that she’d like to “come around in a taxi and bump him [Edgware] off” [the nerve of her. Saying such things in front of a detective—and not just any detective!]; out of curiosity, Poirot accepts her request [he finds her to be strange, extremely shrewd and manipulative, and quite compelling]. However, when he meets with Lord Edgware, the latter coldly informs him that he has already agreed to a divorce and has sent a letter to his wife confirming this; Wilkinson insists that she never received it. The following morning, Inspector Japp informs Poirot and Hastings that Lord Edgware was  killed at his home in Regent Gates the previous evening—he was stabbed in the neck. The crime has been carried out with extreme methodical efficiency, and the perpetrator must needs be a very clear-headed, cool person.  Edgware’s butler and secretary, Miss Carrol, bear witness to the fact that Wilkinson visited him that night; however, unfortunately for them, she has an alibi—a morning newspaper reveals that she attended a dinner party that evening. Several people saw her, and they vouch for her. She is still the prime suspect, though, given the butler and secretary’s accounts, and her own boasting of what she’d do to Edgware [though he had several other enemies, including his own daughter, Geraldine, and his nephew, Ronald]. Poirot recalls that Miss Adams could impersonate Jane Wilkinson and becomes concerned for the former’s safety; his concerns are definitely not unfounded—she is found dead that same morning, from an overdose of Veronal [though her maid confirms that she was not an addict]. I wasn’t upset about Edgware’s death, but I liked Adams and wanted to see more of her. She didn’t deserve to die like this. [… Why am I digressing…?].

Poirot is somewhat puzzled by these two rapid deaths [they are obviously linked, but he needs answers]; he makes note of some things that are extremely significant: an angsty actor, Bryan Martin, who is also Jane’s former lover, declares her to be a completely amoral person who only cares about herself; Donald Ross, one of the thirteen guests at the party, witnessed her taking a phone call from someone that night; a pair of pince-nez and a gold case containing the drug are found in Adams’ possession, though the maid states that neither she nor her mistress wore glasses. Besides, another potential suspect crops up—Edgware’s nephew, Ronald Marsh, who had been disowned by his uncle three months earlier. The butler is also suspected of having killed his master, as he has disappeared along with a sum of francs in the nobleman’s possession [this butler has also previously been involved in a number of disreputable activities. However, as Poirot states, that doesn’t make him a murderer]. It is soon revealed that Adams sent a letter to her younger sister in America shortly before her death; Poirot believes this letter will put the missing pieces together. Accordingly, he makes a request for it. A copy is sent via telegram, from which it comes to light that Adams was offered ten thousand dollars to participate in a little hoax and impersonate someone; though the letter makes it seem as if the person was a man, Poirot notes some oddities and suspects Adams was hired to impersonate Wilkinson.

Japp believes that Marsh was the one who roped Adams into that hoax, and arrests him. Marsh vehemently denies killing Adams or his uncle, but admits that he and his cousin, Geraldine, went to Regent Gates that fateful night, where he spotted Martin leaving the house while Geraldine was returning with some pearls for him. Poirot is sure that Marsh is not guilty of murder; however, he is simply biding his time. Hastings attends a luncheon party along with Wilkinson and Ross, during which the guests discuss Paris of Troy; Wilkinson, believing the discussion to be about France’s capital, gaily exclaims, “Paris has no relevance anymore! London and New York are the rage these days.” Ross is quite puzzled by this, and confides to Hastings that he has some information on Wilkinson, but it may be insignificant [it’s not insignificant at all though]; he telephones Poirot, but is fatally stabbed before he can explain in detail. That’s the third death in a row. This even baffles the One and Only Poirot [only momentarily, of course]; he overhears a chance remark from a crowd leaving a theatre, which leads him to talk to Wilkinson’s maid Ellis, a small and precise woman with a tight, disapproving face. This “chance remark of a stranger” has garnered particular critical acclaim.

Poirot gathers the suspects together and reveals the killer in all three murders is Jane Wilkinson; she killed Lord Edgware because the Duke of Merton is a devout Roman Catholic and could not marry a divorced woman. She recruited Adams to impersonate her at the dinner party, while she killed her husband, then finished Adams off with a fatal dose of Veronal. The two women exchanged clothes before and after the party; while waiting for Adams to return from the party, Wilkinson noticed a letter among Adams’ belongings, and tore off a corner of a page, as the letter would have been evidence against her. As for Ross, he was killed because he realised that Wilkinson wasn’t there that night; she was so completely and utterly ignorant about Greek mythology, whereas Adams had been knowledgeable on the subject and had made quite a few intellectual remarks while impersonating her.

What led Poirot to this theory? Wilkinson lied about not receiving her husband’s letter. She was planning to kill Lord Edgware , and used Poirot to prove she had no motive for his murder; the telephone call to Adams was to confirm if their deception had yet to be exposed [she said, “Is this Lady Edgware?” and Adams answered, “Yes, this is,” at which point Wilkinson laughed and hung up]; the pince-nez indeed belonged to Adams [she used them to disguise herself when she and Wilkinson met in secret]; the gold case containing the incriminating Veronal was created a week prior to the murder, not nine months ago as its inscription implied; a corner of a page [as previously mentioned] was torn off by Wilkinson, changing the pronoun from “she” to “he”. The missing money was stolen by the butler, who closely resembles Martin. Well, of course, Wilkinson is arrested, and sentenced to be hanged; unsurprisingly, she displays no remorse for the three murders she has committed. She does, however, express surprise at Poirot’s intelligence and deductive skills: “I didn’t know you were so frightfully clever. You didn’t look clever.” [This is what she wrote to him from prison]. Furthermore, she writes that she wishes to have an audience for her hanging—an attention-seeking actress to the last, huh?

My sister once said, “Once someone takes a life, they can’t stop. To cover up the first crime, they commit another, then another… it’s a cycle.” Well, she’s completely right. That’s what happened in Jane Wilkinson’s case.

Isn’t this just a marvelous book?!

Thank you! I hope you liked my article!