The forgetful murderess
The forgetful murderess (original title Third Girl ) is the 57th detective novel by Agatha Christie . It first appeared in the UK in November 1966 at the Collins Crime Club and the following year in the US at Dodd, Mead and Company . The German first edition was published in 1968 by Scherz Verlag (Bern / Munich / Vienna) in the translation by Edda Janus, which is still used today.
It is determined by Hercule Poirot in his 30th novel and Ariadne Oliver in her fifth novel.
The novel is remarkable in that Poirot is factually involved from the first to the last page and that no clear crime is investigated until shortly before the end.
introduction
When a young woman goes to Poirot to ask him for help in investigating a murder she believes she has committed herself, she is appalled at how old Poirot is. She leaves him again without telling her story. Poirot accompanies them downstairs. But who is she and what, if anything, has she done?
action
Ariadne Oliver, who serves as Deus ex machina in this novel , guides Poirot through the novel with a number of key trails. It starts with her identifying the girl as Norma Restarick, who she met at a party. When the two want to start the investigation, Norma has apparently disappeared. Mrs. Oliver meets with Norma's roommates, with whom she shares apartment 67 in the Borodene Mansions: Claudia Reece-Holland (who turns out to be Norma's father's secretary) and Frances Cary, a beautiful girl with long dark hair, who ins Face falls. Neither of them have seen Norma lately. Her father and stepmother who visits Poirot in Long Basing also have no idea where she might be. Poirot meets Norma's boyfriend, David Baker, at the Long Basing house and finds that Norma's stepmother is very upset that David ran into Poirot. He also meets the owner of the house, Norma's paternal great-uncle, Sir Roderick Horsefield, who is old and has poor eyesight. Norma's father has lived with his uncle since his return from Africa, where he made a huge fortune.
Mrs. Oliver provides the next clue when she meets David and Norma in a coffee shop. She calls Poirot, who meets Norma while she is tailing David to his studio, but is exposed. There she finds Frances, who is a model for another painter. When Mrs. Oliver leaves the studio, she is dejected.
Meanwhile, Norma wakes up in the care of Dr. Stillingfleet from an unconsciousness that she is said to have suffered when she tried to throw herself in front of a car. But that's a Red Herring , because one should think that the doctor, whom the reader already knows, kidnapped Norma. In reality, Poirot hid them to get them out of harm's way.
Andrew Restarick hires Poirot to find his daughter, but doesn't want to call in the police. Sir Roderick also asks Poirot for help. He misses letters from the Second World War that, if made public, would put him in great distress. Poirot's attention is drawn to Sir Roderick's secretary. She apparently disclosed secrets to a representative of the Herzegovinian embassy. But these are all feint, because in the end she will marry Sir Roderick.
Mrs. Oliver informs Poirot about a woman, Louise Charpentier, who lived in apartment 76 of the Borodene Mansions and who has committed suicide. This must be the murder Norma thinks she committed. Poriot finds out her real name: Louise Carpenter, Andrew Restarick's former lover. Suddenly, the letter that Mrs. Oliver found on her second visit to the Borodene Mansions, when the movers cleared Louise Charpentier's apartment, also makes sense: a letter in which Louise asked Andrew to reconnect.
Stillingfleet informs Poirot that Norma has left. She had read an advertisement in the newspaper that she should come to her apartment. There Frances Cary finds her with a knife in her hand standing next to the body of David Baker. Norma claims to have committed the murder against the neighbor Miss Jacobs.
In the end, it turns out that Andrew Restarick is actually a con named Robert Orwell, who assumed the identity of Andrew Restarick after his death in Africa. He had David painted a portrait as he had looked fifteen years ago, in the style of a painting by Andrew. Mary Restarick led a double life in the meantime - as blonde Mary and dark-haired Frances Cary, which she realized with the help of different wigs. Only two people were now in danger: David, who blackmailed Orwell, and Louise Carpenter, who knew Restarick too well to not see through the exchange. The plan was to murder both of them and blame Norma for the murders. She was drugged for this and could therefore no longer remember different periods of time.
At the end of the novel, Norma marries Dr. Stillingfleet, who had believed in her innocence the whole time and Mrs. Oliver realizes that Poirot had planned this happy ending long in advance.
people
- Hercule Poirot, the Belgian detective
- Ariadne Oliver, the famous crime writer
- Chief Inspector Neele, Poirot's source in the police force
- Sergeant Connolly, a cop
- Miss Felicity Lemon, Poirot's secretary
- George, Poirot's servant
- Dr. John Stillingfleet, a doctor
- Mr. Goby, a private investigator
- Norma Restarick, a modern young woman
- Mary Restarick, Norma's stepmother
- Andrew Restarick, Norma's father
- Sir Roderick Horsefield, a retired politician
- Sonia, Sir Roderick's personal assistant
- David Baker, an artist
- Claudia Reece-Holland, Norma's roommate
- Frances Cary, Norma's roommate
- Miss Jacobs, a neighbor at Borodene Mansions
References to other works
In this novel, Dr. Stillingfleet makes another appearance that the reader already knows from the short story The Dream . It appeared in German in the anthology The Accident and Other Cases . Mr. Goby is known from the wax bouquet .
Film adaptations
The novel was filmed in 2008 for the English television series Agatha Christie's Poirot with David Suchet as Poirot. The plot has been moved from the 1960s to the 1930s because the entire series is set in this time.
Major expenses
- 1966 Collins Crime Club (London), November 1966
- 1967 Dodd Mead and Company (New York)
- 1968 German first edition Scherz Verlag in the translation by Edda Janus
Audio books
This novel is one of the few by the author who has not published a German audio book.
Web links
- Third Girl on the official Agatha Christie website
- Third Girl (2008) at the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Chris Peers, Ralph Spurrier, Jamie Sturgeon: Collins Crime Club - A checklist of First Editions . Dragonby Press (Second Edition) March 1999 (Page 15)
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^ John Cooper, BA Pyke: Detective Fiction - the collector's guide : Second Edition (Pages 82 and 87) Scholar Press. 1994. ISBN 0-85967-991-8
American Tribute to Agatha Christie - ↑ a b German first edition in the catalog of the German National Library
- ↑ The Accident and Other Cases (1964)