Dead Man's Folly
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| First edition cover | |
| Author | Agatha Christie |
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| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Series | Hercule Poirot |
| Genre(s) | Mystery, Detective novel |
| Publisher | Collins Crime Club |
| Released | 1956 |
| Media Type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 256 pp (first edition, hardback) |
| ISBN | NA |
| Preceded by | Hickory Dickory Dock |
| Followed by | Cat Among the Pigeons |
Dead Man's Folly (published in 1956) is a detective novel by Agatha Christie. It features Hercule Poirot, her famous Belgian detective, and Ariadne Oliver. This is one of the shortest of the Poirot novels.
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[edit] Plot introduction
When Ariadne Oliver, the mystery novelist, summons Poirot to join her at a country house in Devon, he is respectful enough of her “intuition” to do so immediately. When she tells him, however, that she is at Nasse House to stage a Murder Hunt at a fête, he is at first concerned that she is wasting his time. But it is not long before he realises that Mrs. Oliver’s fears are fully justified.
[edit] Plot summary
En route to Nasse House Poirot gives a lift to female two hitch-hikers – one Dutch and one Italian – who are staying at the youth hostel adjoining the Nasse House grounds. When he arrives, Mrs. Oliver explains that she feels that her plans for the Murder Hunt have been, almost imperceptibly, influenced by the advice that she has been given by people in the house, until it is almost as though she is being pushed into staging a real murder.
The owner of Nasse House is George Stubbs, a wealthy man who has seemingly adopted the false title of “Sir” in order to confirm his position in the local community. His much younger wife is the seemingly simple and impressionable Hattie, a young woman who has apparently been introduced to him by Amy Folliat, the surviving member of the family that once owned the house. Now that her sons have been supposedly killed during the War, she is living out her days in the Lodge House. Other visitors at Nasse House include an architect, Michael Weyman, who criticises the siting some years earlier of a folly in an inappropriate area of the grounds.
On the day of the fête, Hattie learns that a cousin, Etienne de Sousa, is about to visit, and she seems upset by this, referring to him as a killer. At the fete, a local Girl Guide, Marlene Tucker, is to play the part of the victim, and she waits in the boathouse to play her role when anyone approaches her. Poirot observes the movements of some of the visitors to the house. Later, in the company of Mrs. Oliver, he discovers the corpse of Marlene in the boathouse. Moreover, Hattie is discovered to have gone missing. Both the police and Poirot himself are initially baffled.
The investigation focuses on Etienne de Sousa, a wealthy young man who shows no apparent concern at Hattie’s disappearance and has arrived in perfect time to have committed the murder. Another suspect is Amanda Brewis, George’s secretary, who appears to be in love with Sir George and claims to have been sent down to the boathouse by Hattie with refreshments for Marlene at around the time that the girl was killed. This sounds very out of character for Hattie. Further confusion is added by the behaviour of the Legges, who appear to have some sort of shady connection with a young man in a turtle shirt who has been seen in the grounds. (It later comes to light that this red herring is connected with Legge’s career as a nuclear physicist.)
Poirot’s attention is directed to Amy Folliat, who seems to know more than she is saying. After the boatman, Merdell dies, Poirot discovers that he was Marlene’s grandfather. Now he puts together several stray clues: Marlene had said that her grandfather had seen someone burying a woman in the woods; Marlene was the type to blackmail, and had in fact received small sums of money prior to her murder; Merdell had commented significantly to Poirot that there would "always be Folliats at Nasse House".
In the denouement Poirot reveals that George Stubbs is none other than Amy Folliat’s younger son, James, who had gone missing but had not died during the War. Instead, Amy had paired him with the impressionable, but very wealthy, Hattie, enabling him to fleece her of her money and establish his new identity, buying the family house and ensuring the continuity of Folliat possession. Unbeknownst to Amy, however, George/James was already married, and as soon as he had possession of Nasse he killed Hattie, and substituted his first wife, a young Italian, in her place. She was buried in the ground that was later secured by building the folly.
Marlene had guessed the secret from hints dropped by her grandfather, and George and his real wife decided it would be safer to kill her than continue giving her hush money. The day before the day of the murder, "Hattie" began to establish another identity as an Italian hitch-hiker. On the day of the murder, she switched between the two roles, killing Marlene and escaping the grounds as the hitch-hiker, with Hattie’s clothes in her rucksack. The day of the murder had been selected to cast suspicion upon Etienne, who had actually notified them some weeks earlier of his visit.
George/James is not seen at the end of the novel, which instead focuses on the despair of his mother.
[edit] Characters in "Dead Man's Folly"
- Hercule Poirot, the Belgian private detective
- Ariadne Oliver, the celebrated author
- Inspector Bland, the investigating officer
- Sergeant Frank Cottrell, a policeman in the case
- Constable Bob Hoskins, a policeman in the case
- Sir George Stubbs, owner of Nasse House
- Hattie, Lady Stubbs, George’s wife
- Etienne de Sousa, Lady Stubbs’s cousin
- Amanda Brewis, George’s secretary
- Amy Folliat, whose family previously owned Nasse House
- Mr. Masterton, member of Parliament
- Mrs. Masterton, his wife
- Captain Jim Warburton, agent for Mr. Masterton
- Michael Weyman, an architect
- Alec Legge, an atomic physicist
- Sally Legge, his wife
- Marlene Tucker, a Girl Guide
- Marilyn Tucker, Marlene’s younger sister
- Mrs. Tucker, Marlene’s mother
- Merdell, the boatman
- Henden, the butler
- A female Italian hitch-hiker
- A female Dutch hitch-hiker
- A young man in a shirt with turtles on it
[edit] Trivia
The house where the story is set was based on one of the houses Christie owned. She did this in more than one book.
[edit] Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
First adapted to film with Peter Ustinov and Jean Stapleton starring as Poirot and Oliver in a 1986 adaptation.
David Suchet will star as Poirot in an upcoming adaptation as part of the Agatha Christie's Poirot television series. Scheduled for production during 2007.
