Agatha Christie’s 1925 short 23-page story was written perfectly, just to the point, without an unnecessary word. It takes under half an hour to read it. She adapted her story as a play in 1953 and changed the ending in a dramatic manner.
Later, when people recognized how wonderful and surprising the story was and wanted to make a film of it, they had to expand the tale well-beyond what the master wrote to fill the time needed for a film. They did so in the 1949, 1953, and 1982 TV versions, the 1957 movie version, the 2016 two part BBC series of the tale, and in the 2017 film which combined the two BBC parts into a single movie.
The story was originally published as “Traitor Hands.” The solicitor to 33-year-old impoverished Leonard Vole, who is accused of the murder of the rich elderly Emily French, is convinced that Vale is innocent. Vale tells him that he first met French, who was some 40 years his senior, when he helped pick up some packages she dropped, and he left her immediately after helping her. He happened to meet her again at a party she attended, when he visited a friend who told him that she was very rich. She liked him and requested that he visit her, told him she is lonely, requested he come again, and on the 3rd or 4th visit she requested he handle her finances, but he never derived any benefit by doing so and did not know that she had made him her primary beneficiary.
His account is disputed by the old lady’s maid who insists she heard the lady talking to a man at 9:30 PM, although she does not know what man, Emely French hoped to marry Vole because he never told her he was already married, and that French told her Vole knew about the will. Vole tells his solicitor that this testimony proves his innocence since his wife can confirm that he came home at 9:20.
The solicitor visits the wife who states she is not really married to Vole because she is already married to a man who is insane, her husband came home at 10:30 and admitted killing the old lady.
The solicitor then receives a letter from an elderly woman proving that the supposed wife is lying. What happens next is surprising.
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Top reviews from other countries
MIHIR K MOITRA
MAKES ONE FEEL THE PULSE OF EVENTS
Reviewed in India on December 11, 2023Christelle B
What a final twist!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 19, 2023Cliente Amazon
Agatha Christie sempre fantástica
Reviewed in Brazil on June 14, 2019
