Teresa Reviews “The Plymouth Express” (1991)

Fidelity to text: 3 knives

It took lots of changes to turn this slight story into an episode-length Poirot. Most importantly, the victim Flossie Carrington is alive at the beginning of the story and that radically alters the tone of the ending.

Quality of movie on its own: 5 knives

Sad, moving, emotionally dark, and a reminder that murder isn’t fun and games for the victim’s family, nor is it for the detective. Justice may be served but the victim’s still dead.

Read more of Teresa’s Agatha Christie movie reviews at Peschel Press.

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The short story opens with a naval officer discovering a body under his compartment seat while taking the train to Plymouth. After the discovery, the naval officer is never heard from again. What did he do next, I wonder, after finding the body of a knifed damsel? Knowing that he was too late to save her even if she was a complete stranger? But that’s a plot for some Agatha fanfiction because she doesn’t do anything with what could have become a thriller. Perhaps that’s why a few years later she rewrote The Plymouth Express; turning it into the novel The Mystery of the Blue Train. The naval officer turns up in this movie too and, as in the short story, he’s dispensed with as a mere witness despite his life being irrevocably divided into two sections: before and after.

A flaw in many mysteries is that they rarely spend time acknowledging grief. If you’ve had someone close to you die, you know what grief is. How much more grief, then, will someone feel when a death is violent and unnatural? You expect your elderly grandfather to die of pneumonia at 96. That’s normal. No one lives forever. You do not expect your vivacious, adored daughter to die, stabbed to death in a train compartment over some jewelry.

That’s what this episode addresses: grief and loss. It’s not a fun, cozy mystery where no one cares that the victim was knifed in a train compartment and shoved under the seat to bleed out.

Unlike the short story, we get to know Flossie Halliday Carrington. She’s young, she’s pretty, she’s rich, she’s got an adoring father, and her life is on an upswing. She’s divorcing her ne’er-do-well husband and a handsome, charming replacement is waiting in the wings, to her father’s dismay. He knows le Comte de la Rochefour isn’t going to be any better than the boozing gambler she’s dumping. Mr. Halliday can hope his daughter will enjoy a flirtation with an unsuitable but charming man, but having learned her lesson with Rupert Carrington, she won’t marry him.

Mr. Halliday arranges the divorce from Rupert to save his daughter. He asks Poirot and Hastings to observe le Comte and Flossie at tea at the Adelphi hotel in hopes of nipping that relationship in the bud.

But he can’t save her everywhere because she’s an independent spirit. She’s got a party to go to on the coast. England is a very safe country, so — despite carrying £100,000 in jewelry in small box — she doesn’t think she needs a bodyguard. To protect herself, Flossie is relying on her status and relative anonymity along with the British railway system. She’s wrong of course, but we wouldn’t have a mystery if she was right.

Published in 1923, “The Plymouth Express” is another example of how Agatha played with reader expectations. From the very beginning — at least to Chief Inspector Japp — it’s obvious who the murderer must be. Le Comte de la Rochefour is a known swindler, is wanted badly back in Paris by his bank employer, and is carrying £20,000 in bearer bonds for no discernable reason. He loathes Flossie’s father because Halliday knows what kind of a man he is. Jewelry worth £100,000 would make a nice addition to his £20,000 in bonds. He could disappear to Argentina and a very plush lifestyle.

Hastings, meanwhile, is backing Rupert Carrington. When the divorce is finalized, Rupert’s back to being a penniless ne’er-do-well, the black sheep of the family, and a disappointment to his ancestors going back to the Norman Conquest. To him, £100,000 in stolen jewelry would let him lose more money at the track than he already has and drink what’s left over. It certainly isn’t going to pay his club fees, his tailor’s bills, or reroof the ancestral mansion.

The scene of Japp and Hastings putting forth their arguments to be quashed by Poirot’s logic is amusing. Who does Poirot suspect? An unlikely suspect, one hiding in plain sight. One who had to have a special kind of accomplice who prefers to remain equally anonymous. Fortunately, given this kind of information, Miss Lemon is unable to unearth a likely candidate from her filing system. “Difficulties,” as she tells Poirot, “are made to be overcome.” Miss Lemon must have files as comprehensive as the London Times or Scotland Yard.

The suspect is a sterling example of why household staff should be thoroughly vetted. Think about it: you’ve got a poorly paid employee who works essentially every waking moment; who’s never noticed as a human being; who doesn’t get to be a fun, vivacious, high-spirited party girl; who’s expected to be reliable, trustworthy, and to never run off with £100,000 in jewelry. It’s surprising how many employees are trustworthy and loyal under trying circumstances.

But being overworked doesn’t give you the right to murder your employer, or even work with someone who does the knifing. The murder scene is shockingly graphic for the series. Usually, like grief, the violence done to one human being by another is soft-pedaled in the series. I prefer it this way, as I don’t care for the pornography of violence. I do prefer to see the ramifications of violence addressed and in this episode they are.

Mr. Halliday is devastated by his only daughter’s death. He has to go back to Australia and rebuild his life. His daughter is gone. Who will inherit his mining company? There’s no hope of grandchildren he can teach the trade to. Unless he remarries and fathers more children (not unheard of for sixtyish men) that part of his life is over.

Surprisingly, someone else is devastated as well. Rupert Carrington grieves. Watch his scene in the bar with Hastings and wonder why Hastings suspects him at all, except that Hastings can be relied upon to be wrong. Rupert is not that good an actor. He grieves. When Halliday tells Rupert that the jewelry has been recovered and that he’s Flossie’s heir, Rupert refuses to take the precious stones and gold. He’ll never be able to reconcile with his wife. That part of his life, that chance, that hope, is gone for good.

Le Comte de la Rochefour doesn’t care the same way about Flossie.

Poirot, on the other hand, does. He rarely meets the victim before the crime so he’s able to remain relatively detached. Not this time. This time, he knows exactly what Gordon Halliday and Rupert Carrington lost and feels a little bit of how they feel. You will too.