1933, First edition cover.

The villainess of this piece is one of Christie’s most enigmatic and cruelly calculating femmes fatale, Lady Edgware a.k.a. Jane Wilkinson. She is an accomplished, and strikingly beautiful actress with no morals. She resorts to murder when her boorish husband (the Lord Edgware of the title) refuses to grant her a divorce that will enable her to marry a new, much richer, husband. Unusually for a Christie adventure, we have the sense that Lady Edgware is capable of murder, and she is characterised as such right from the start. Moreover her morally dubious nature is well known to Poirot, as she has previously attempted to engage his services in helping her to get rid of Lord Edgware.

1954, Crime Club cover.

The butt of this case lies in the details, and a centre piece lavish dinner party in which there are thirteen guests, of whom Lady Edgware is the most honoured. Having secured the services of an actress colleague (Carlotta Adams) to disguise herself as Jane for the dinner party, the real Lady Edgware enters her husband’s study on the night in question and brutally stabs him in the neck with a stiletto knife. The alibi proves to be almost faultless, especially as Lady Edgware is also careful to dispose of her actress friend back at her hotel via an overdose of the drug Veronal. Whilst planting evidence of Veronal addiction in Carlotta’s rooms, Lady Edgware comes across a letter that Adams was in the process of writing to a friend describing the dinner party deception. Rather than destroy the letter, Lady Edgware doctors it, to make it seem like Carlotta was involved with a man. At a follow up dinner party, Lady Edgware strikes up a conversation with the near sighted Donald Ross, and discovers that he had previously conversed with Carlotta (in the guise of Lady Edgware)  in great detail about ancient Greek myths, a subject that she herself knows nothing about. Realising that Ross might suspect the deception, Lady Edgware resolves to murder him, in the same fashion as her husband. Sneaking into his apartments dressed in a man’s overcoat and hat, she callously despatches him with a knife. But Poirot is already onto her, and the case is soon solved.

Three actresses have assayed the role of Jane Wilkinson on screen, in 1934 the murderous Lady Edgware was played by Jane Carr, in 1985 the role was played by Faye Dunaway (who also played Carlotta), but by far the most alluring and wicked interpretation of the character was that presented by Helen Grace in the 2000 TV film.

Murder the first.

Murder the first.

Murder the first.

Murder the first.

Murder the third.

Murder the third.

Murder the third.

Murder the third.

Fans have long been accustomed to the lavish 1930s set production design of the Suchet Poirots, but the gorgeous gowns and settings in this version of “Lord Edgware Dies” take some beating. The classically beautiful Helen Grace is a knockout as Lady Edgware/Jane Wilkinson, and fans of evil women will be rooting for her throughout. Particularly appealing in this context is the way in which the drama focuses on Lady Edgware’s crimes in the third act. The highly contemplative nature of the stabbing in Lord Edgware’s study, in which Lady Edgware is shown sneaking up on her husband, fully committed, dressed like the black widow of the 1954 book cover, complete with black suede gloves, is mesmerising, as is the sequence involving the poisoning of Carlotta; but by far the most memorable murder is that of Ross. lady Edgware is shown entering Ross’ apartment just as he is about to place the phone call to Poirot to advise him of his suspicions. Dressed in an immaculately cut trench coat and wide brimmed hat; and wearing killer black leather gloves, she plunges the knife deep into the neck of her victim with an unforgettable look of triumph etched upon her mask like face. That she is then shown twisting the knife like a corkscrew is even more astonishing. Indeed this sequence reads more like a scene from an Italian giallo and is all the more remarkable for it.

Madame Sorcha