RATING: SUPERB
SPOILERS!!!
This was one of the great Poirot cases, and the resolution of the murder is really clever.
Poirot and the police question everybody, and they are not close to finding out who killed Arlena. Poirot is curious about things that others think are not important: a glass bottle that almost hit Miss Brewster, someone having taken a bath around the time of the murder or the remains of a fire found in Linda Marhsall's room. Poirot is also curious to know if there have been more strangled victims in the area. There are two unsolved cases. One is of Nellie Parsons, a maid who was found dead in a nearby village. The other case of Alice Corrigan, who was strangled when he was walking in the moors to meet her husband, but her husband had a watertight alibi as he was in a café when Alice was found by a hiker.
Poirot has the idea to take everybody on a picnic, and the only one who declines the invitation is Linda Marshall, who we know hides something. The group enjoy a wonderful time and Mr Blatt takes photographs. When they return, they discover that Linda has taken the sleeping pills that Mrs Christine Redfern had in her room, and she is very sick and the doctor thinks it's touch and go whether she will pull through.
It is then that Poirot has alll the information to reveal the resolution. He starts by saying that both Captain Kenneth Marshall and Rosamund Darnley lied. Rosamund claimed that the day of the murder she popped to the hotel and opened Kenneth's door to find him typing, but she decided to let him be, and Kenneth claimed to have seen her in the mirror. Poirot says that Kenneth couldn't have seen Rosamund in the mirror because the day of the murder the typewriter was placed in a different place and he couldn't have seen the reflection of Rosamund. And Rosamund didn't pop to the hotel because if that had been true, she would have come across Mr Gardener, who had gone to fetch his wife a skein of wool. Poirot says that she lied, fearing that he may be accused of killing his wife, and he simply supported her claim.
Poirot also says that Linda Marshall also lied because she had disliked Arlena, and the day of the murder she bought candles, and after reading a book about witchcraft she made a figure out of wax and stuck pins into the figure. When Arlena was killed, she really believed that she had killed her.
Poirot then reveals that the murderers are the Redferns, and all they had made people believe was a lie. Arlena was naive and Patrick Redfern seduced her, and he got a large amount of money out of her. It wasn't blackmail. From the photographs taken during the picnic Poirot and the police confirmed that Patrick Redfern was Alice Corrigan's husband, and the hiker who testified is Christine Redfern. Poirot explains that Patrick did kill Arlena Marshall. She wasn't dead when Patrick and Emily Brewster reached the cove. The truth is that Patrick arranged to meet Arlena, telling her that nobody should see them together, and if someone appeared, she could hide in the cave. When Arlena saw Christine climbing down the steps towards the cove, she rushed to the cave. Christine had been with Linda, but to have an alibi, she changed Linda's watch at the hotel, and then once again when she left her swimming. Once in the cove Christine lay down, putting on a red wig like Arlena's hair, and she had already spread fake tan cream on her body, and she hid her head with a hat similar to the one Arlena had. Patrick and Emily arrived, and Patrick claimed that she was dead, and Emily, who is apprehensive, did not dare to approach her. Emily left to call for help, and then Christine also ran towards the hotel. Patrick called Arlena and then he killed her.
Everybody is impressed and aghast after hearing Poirot, and the Redferns are arrested. In the last chapter we discover that Linda has recovered, and she tells Poirot that she felt guilty even though she didn't like Arlena, and Christine hinted that there was an exit for that guilt. And her father and Rosamund seem to want to marry.
I really enjoy the book. The only thing is that the motive is a bit vague.
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