- Poirot investigates a murder that hits close to home after the new occupant of a flat two floors below his is found shot.
- Hercule Poirot is bored to tears and with three weeks since his last case, is worried that his little gray cells will stop working. Captain Hastings suggest a evening at the theater to see the latest murder mystery but even that doesn't help when Poirot finds the plot to be absurd. On their return home to Whitehaven Mansions, they learn that the new occupant of the flat two floors below Poirot's has been found shot. She had only moved in that very same day and was an unknown. Poirot puts his little gray cells to good use and assists Inspector Japp of Scotland Yard in identifying the murderer.—garykmcd
- Hercule is bored - no cases for the little grey cells. Furthermore he is sick with a cold, and this is making him cranky. He becomes even more cranky after watching a murder-mystery play, and finding the plot sub-par. On returning from the play, however, he discovers that his newly-arrived upstairs neighbour has been murdered. Poirot quickly sets to work in solving who did it.—grantss
- Four young people, two women and two men, are returning after a night out to the home of one of the women - Patricia Garnett (Suzanne Burden). She is annoyed as she cannot find the key to her flat on the fourth floor of her apartment block in her handbag. The porter doesn't have a spare key, nor is there a fire escape, but the suggestion is made that the two men, Donovan Bailey (Nicholas Pritchard) and Jimmy Faulkner (Robert Hines), make their way up through the coal lift and let the women in.
They go to the basement and make their way up. Exiting the lift, they find the kitchen in darkness and Donovan instructs Jimmy to remain where he is while he locates the light switch. He does so but the light fails to work, and Donovan makes his way through the dark to the sitting room. He switches on that room's light, and they suddenly realize that they have miscounted the floors and that they are in the flat below which, according to a pile of letters, seems to belong to a Mrs Ernestine Grant (Josie Lawrence). They make their way up to the next floor again via the coal lift and let Pat and the second lady, Mildred Hope (Amanda Elwes), into the former's flat. It is then that they notice that Donovan has cut himself as there is blood on his hand. He washes it off but cannot find a cut to explain the blood and voices his fears to Jimmy. Again, using the coal lift, they return to Mrs Grant's flat below and soon spot a foot sticking out from under a curtain - it is the dead body of Mrs Grant. Back on the landing with the girls, they are discussing calling the police when a voice interrupts them, agreeing with their plan of action. It is the occupant of the fifth-floor flat who introduces himself as Hercule Poirot, the famous detective that the four people have heard of. Going into Mrs Grant's flat, Poirot finds it curious that the light switch in the kitchen now works. He also sees that the red tablecloth disguises a patch of blood - it is this that Donovan touched to get the blood on his hand. The body was moved after death. Poirot also finds Grant's maid sleeping soundly in her bedroom.
The police arrive and Poirot and the four people go back to Pat's flat where she makes them a much-appreciated omelet. Inspector Rice questions them and tells them that Mrs Grant was shot with an automatic pistol some five hours earlier in the kitchen. They have found a note from someone signed "J.F." saying that he would be there at half-past-seven (the approximate time of death), the pistol she was shot with, and a silk handkerchief used to wipe the prints from the gun and which is named "John Fraser". Poirot is suspicious - why would the murderer wipe his prints and yet leave his own handkerchief as evidence behind?
Poirot speaks to the maid, who had the afternoon off, came back around 9 30 PM & put the evening posts on the table, without turning on any lights & went straight to bed. The police leave but the Inspector gives Poirot permission to inspect the flat himself. He goes down there with Donovan and Jimmy. He immediately starts to search in the kitchen bin and soon finds a small bottle. He sniffs the corked top carefully but says that he has a cold and Donovan impetuously pulls the stopper out and sniffs the contents for him. The results are almost immediate - Donovan drops in a faint. Jimmy fetches his friend a drink and Donovan recovers and decides to go home.
Jimmy remains and Poirot tells him the case is solved. There is no such person as John Fraser as the letter and handkerchief were put there in purpose to hide the murderer's identity. The bottle in the bin was a ruse which Donovan fell for - it contained ethyl chloride and Poirot placed it there when he was apparently searching the bin. When Jimmy was getting the drink for his friend, Poirot searched Donovan's pockets and found two things - Pat's missing flat key which Donovan had abstracted earlier in the evening and a letter sent to Mrs Grant which arrived by the late evening post. Poirot had been struck by the fact that the light switch in the kitchen supposedly didn't work when later there seemed nothing wrong with it. Donovan needed to get Jimmy out of the kitchen into the other room whilst he found the letter he was so desperately searching for and if he switched the light on in the kitchen as soon as they arrived in the coal lift, he wouldn't have had the opportunity as their "mistake" in counting the floors would instantly have been noticed.
The letter is from a firm of solicitors agreeing that the marriage between Donovan Bailey and Ernestine Grant some eight years before in Switzerland was entirely lawful. Donovan wanted to marry Pat, but his previous marriage was stopping him. By chance his first wife moved into the same block as his proposed future wife and was threatening to tell Patricia about their marriage. She also said that while Donovan believed that the marriage was not valid as it took place abroad, she had sent a copy their marriage certificate to her lawyer who had told her that it was in order, & he had written to her confirming the same. She was expecting his reply in the evening post. To stop her, Donovan killed her earlier in the evening but had to return for the solicitor's letter which he knew was on the way, but which had not yet arrived when Donovan shot her in the afternoon.
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