The Cornish Mystery

Hercule Poirot tries to unravel "The Cornish Mystery" in this 1990 episode.

Mrs. Pengelly visits Poirot at his office and confesses that she thinks her husband is trying to kill her. She's very sick to her stomach when he's at home, but when he's out of town, she feels fine. Her doctor insists she has gastritis. There's weed killer missing. Add to this, her husband is a dentist with a new va-va-va voom blond assistant.

Her niece was living with them, but recently moved out. She has no other relatives in town, just a close friend, Jacob Radnor. Poirot and Hastings go to her home in Cornwall the next day, but they're too late. She's already dead.

The husband, Edward, is the obvious suspect, and Hastings' eyes bug out when he sees his assistant! Jacob Radnor, who has just become engaged to Mrs. Pengelly's niece, thinks it would be better if the entire thing were left alone. Poirot says that six months from then, he and Hastings would be back, because there's no way to cover it up, due to "the vox populi." Sure enough, within six months, the husband is arrested. Poirot returns -- because he's sure there's more to the case than Inspector Japp has uncovered.

Really good mystery, with Poirot and Hastings in fine form, as well as Miss Lemon. Poirot is quite funny with Japp, especially at the end.

Very enjoyable and entertaining.

For me this episode stands out for being considerably less light-hearted than its predecessors. From the first shot of Poirot staring out the window at the rain, through the initial interview with the client conducted outside on the rainy sidewalk, through the scenes of the funeral and subsequent exhumation, the grim states of death and grief hang over the story like a fog. There are a few glimmers of a subplot, involving Hastings' temporary obsession with all things "Oriental" (which in 1930s Britain evidently included everything from Rabindranath Tagore to the I Ching)but they do little to relieve the overall sense of gray foreboding.

The plot can be summarized briefly. Mrs. Pengelley travels from a small town in Cornwall to consult Poirot. She is worried that her husband is poisoning her because he is in love with his young blonde assistant in his dentistry practice. Poirot and Hastings take the train to Cornwall the next day, only to discover that their client is already dead. Outraged and disappointed in himself that he had not taken the woman's concerns seriously (the first time we have seen Poirot truly angry with himself), Poirot goes to interview the woman's niece and discovers that there were multiple reasons for her husband to have considered murdering her. And yet, by the time he is back on the train to London, he is predicting that he will be returning to Cornwall to save the husband from the gallows.

It will not surprise any Poirot fan to discover that the case is not as open-and-shut as Chief Inspector Japp would like to believe. And the way Poirot and Hastings elicit a confession from the real killer requires really an extraordinary suspension of disbelief. Overall, an average, but not remarkable episode.

I felt that this was a rather odd and low key episode. The episode is certainly less lighthearted and more darker of the early Poirot episodes.

Mrs Pengelley is a reluctant visitor to Poirot. She thinks that her husband, a dentist is trying to kill her and carrying on with his dental assistant. Poirot and Hastings go to Cornwall the next day but alas are too late. Mrs Pengelly is dead, the husband has gossip surrounded him and Hastings can certainly attest to the gorgeousness of the dental assistant.

However Poirot is disappointed that he let Mrs Pengelley down but some months later returns to save her husband from the gallows when he becomes the main suspect, however Poirot needs to use all his cunning to trap the real killer.

It was worth it just to see Hasting's face when he claps eyes on the dental assistant. Hastings is also in this episode enamoured with all things eastern mystical.

Hercule Poirot is approached by Mrs Pengelley from Cornwall. She is worried that someone, probably her husband, is trying to poison her. She returns to Cornwall and Poirot promises to follow her a day later. When he and Hastings arrive, Mrs Pengelley is dead. The local doctor rules that the cause of death was gastritis but Poirot knows better. Eventually he manages to get the police to exhume the body and they find that she was indeed poisoned. Mr Pengelley is arrested and the evidence all points to him doing it. Poirot is not convinced, however.

Reasonably good mystery. Not obvious who the murderer is and there's a red herring or two along the way.

Some nice sub-plots too involving Hastings (as they tend to).

Idiot dr weak00did not NEED to sign hastings smart for once.

"The Cornish Mystery" is an important episode of "Poirot" because it represents a first...Captain Hastings is actually quite clever in this episode! Normally, he seems incredibly slow at the uptake (in other words, he's a bit dim), but here he shows amazing thinking skills.

The story begins with a woman very reluctantly talking to Poirot about her suspicions. She thinks her husband is poisoning her and she wants Poirot to investigate. However, when he arrives at her home the next day, the woman is dead. Her family doctor is a close-minded idiot and insists she died of gastritis...and won't even listen to Poirot when he tries to tell him that the dead woman thought she was being poisoned. But when Inspector Japp hears about it, he investigates and soon arrests the dead lady's husband. However, Poirot has reason to think some other person might be behind the death.

As I mentioned above, the show features Hastings being very bright and helpful! Amazing?! Yup. On the other hand, I also thought the getting the killer to confess was ridiculous and they really had no proof he'd done it...a HUGE weakness in the show. But overall, it's STILL "Poirot" and that's reason to see it!