The famous actress Jane Wilkinson keeps telling anyone who will listen that she'd like nothing better than to take a taxi to the house of her estranged husband, Lord Edgware, and murder him. She also pleads with Poirot to convince Lord Edgware to divorce her, only for Poirot to find that Edgware had already agreed to divorce. Soon after that Edgware is found murdered and many witnesses claim to have seen Jane Wilkinson actually taking a taxi to Edgware's house and meeting him. Poirot, unable to accept a straightforward solution to this case, starts looking for another explanation.
Poirot finds out that it was a young actress Carlotta Adams who took the taxi to Edgware's house and she was doing so to win a bet. But before he can ask her who challenged her for the bet, she's found dead. Another man, tries to speak to Poirot about his suspicions, but he too is murdered before Poirot can speak to him. Poirot has a nice cast of suspects here -- the wife who's declared that she wants to kill her husband, the nephew who inherits the uncle's property, the daughter who hated the father. And every single one of them has an excellent alibi.
I always try to guess the identity of the criminal when I'm reading an Agatha Christie mystery novel, but this time I was totally baffled. Every time I suspected someone, that person either died or disappeared. The murderer nearly got away, but luckily for Poirot, a remark made by a passer-by to his friend as they walk past Poirot on the road put him on the right track.
My Rating: 7/10
0 comments:
Post a Comment