Count Foscatini

In the short story The Adventure of the Italian Nobleman, Count Foscatini was the nobleman in question. While dining with Poirot and Captain Hastings, Dr Hawker received an urgent message that Foscatini had called asking for help and that he was dying. Hawker, Poirot and Hastings rushed to the Count's flat at No. 11 Regent's Court and found that he was already dead, hit on the head with a heavy object.

Based on the testimony of Graves, Foscatini's valet, suspicion for the crime fall at first on Paolo Ascanio who have visited Count earlier that morning and had then come back for dinner. However Poirot discovered that the Count was in fact not really a Count as he was not listed in the Almanach de Gotha. He was in fact a blackmailer who had received a payoff from Ascanio. Graves had murdered him for the money.

Portrayals
Count Foscatini is played by Sidney Kean in the film adaptation of the original story in Series 5 of ITV's Agatha Christie's Poirot. He maintained a boat, the Fantasia Felice at Chichester, which Graves attempted to use to escape England after the crime.