Julia Carrington

In the short story The Incredible Theft, Lady Julia Carrington was the wife of Air Marshal Sir George Carrington. Together with her husband and her son Reggie Carrington, Lady Julia was a member of the house party at the residence of Lord Charles Mayfield on the weekend when the plans of a revolutionary bomber were stolen.

Lady Julia was described as a woman of about forty, tall, dark and vivacious, very thin but still beautiful. Her hands and feet in particular were exquisite. But her manner was "abrupt and restless, that of a woman who lived on her nerves." According to her husband, this was because she gambled excessively at card games such as bridge, often risking sum higher than she could afford. As a result, she had run up high debts.

Lady Julia was also very protective of her son. Soon after the theft of the papers, she surmised that her son might have been involved. She considered her son Reggie to be naive and gullible, infatuated and easily swayed by the compliments paid to him by Mrs Vanderlyn. As such, Reggie could have been persuaded to help Mrs Vanderlyn steal the papers. They were worth a lot of money and she knew Reggie had also run up large debts.

Lady Julia had gone to Reggie's room some time during the night and had found him absent and concluded he must have stolen the papers. The next morning, she approached Poirot and offered to ensure the return of the papers if there would be no further attempt to find the thief. Poirot agreed. Presumably Lady Julia intended to get her son to return the papers. In this she was mistaken as, in reality, Reggie could not have stolen the papers as he was at that time philandering with Leonie, the French maid of Mrs Vandelyn.

Portrayals
Lady Carrington also appears in the film adaptation of the story as episode 8 of Series 1 of ITV's Agatha Christie's Poirot drama series. In the film, the character is played by Phyllida Law. She is much as described in the original story but the entire incident of Reggie and Leonie has been omitted and hence her offer to Poirot to return the papers is not featured. At one point Lady Carrington was addressed as "Isabelle" and not Julia. Her poor bridge playing skills was the source of some humour in the episode. Poirot tells Hastings he would rather share a room with Chief Inspector Japp than be Lady Carrington's bridge partner.