Violet Marsh

In the short story The Case of the Missing Will, Violet Marsh is a young woman and the main protagonis of the story. She is the daughter of a poor yeoman farmer Roger Marsh. Violet's father and mother died leaving her an orphan at the age of fourteen. Her uncle Andrew Marsh, Roger's elder brother took her to live with him and raised her almost like his own daughter.

As Violet grew older, she and her uncle had sharp differences about education for woman. Andrew had little formal education and placed little value on book knowledge and he considered education for woman to be unnecessary. Violet on the other hand knew her own abilities and was determined to pursue a university degree. Violet thus left her uncle and pursued her own way. She obtained a scholarship and went on to Girton at Cambridge where she subsequently obtained a B.Sc. Andrew and Violet thus parted ways. Andrew told Violet that he had always planned for Violet to be his sole heiress but if she persisted in what he called her "new-fangled notions" then she would get nothing from him. Violet accepted this but they continued to maintain a cordial relationship.

When Andrew died, he left Violet a strange will which stated that she could live at his house Crabtree Manor in Devonshire for a year, during which time she could "prove her wits" and if she failed to do so after a year, all the fortune would pass on to various charitable institutions. This seemed to imply that there was a sum of money in the house or a second will which Violet was meant to discover. Violet accepted the challenge and asked Hercule Poirot to help. In the end, Poirot solved the puzzle and found a second will which left everything to Violet. In Poirot's opinion (though not the opinion of Hastings), Violet had decisively proven her intelligence because she had chosen to come to him for help. Always engage the expert, he reminded Hastings.

Portrayals
Violet is portrayed by Beth Goddard in the film adaptation of The Case of the Missing Will in Series 5 of ITV's Agatha Christie's Poirot. Her backstory is changed drastically. Here her surname is Wilson. She is first introduced as the ward of Andrew Marsh, the daughter of Andrew's business partner. There is some portrayal of Andrew Marsh's chauvinistic attitude with regards to education for women, but in this adaptation, Andrew is himself a Cambridge graduate and he tells Poirot he is intensely proud that Violet is herself about to graduate from Cambridge. In contrast to cutting her out of his will, he wants to change his will to leave everything to Violet and asks Poirot to be executor. However Andrew dies before the will can be written. The challenge for Poirot is how to ensure that Violet gets her inheritance given the circumstances.

Poirot achieves his goal at the end of the episode when he proves that Violet is actually the illegitimate daughter of Andrew, the offspring of a union with Phyllida Campion.