Pourquoi pas Martin? (Les Petits Meurtres d'Agatha Christie)

Pourquoi pas Martin? (Why wasn't it Martin?) is the 4th episode of season 2 of the French TV series Les Petits Meurtres d'Agatha Christie. It was produced by Escazal Films and France Télévisions and directed by Marc Angelo and first aired on France 2 on 27 December 2013. The story was written by Sylvie Simon and Thierry Debroux. It is an adaptation of Christie's novel Why Didn't They Ask Evans?

Synopsis
Like the rest of the episodes of season 2 of the series, the original Christie detective characters have been replaced. The lead roles are taken by a French detective Commissaire Swan Laurence assisted by journalist Alice Avril and Laurence's secretary Marlène Leroy.

Alice comes to a dying man's rescue on a cliff. She hears his last words, "Why not Martin," but doesn't understand. She also sees a photo of a woman in his pocket. However when the police examine the body later, there is no photo. The mystery deepens when someone tries to kill Alice shortly thereafter.

Plot Summary
(may contain spoilers - click on expand to read) While taking photos along the coast, Alice hears a cry and spots a man who has fallen down the cliffs. She goes to him and with his dying breath blurts out: "Why not Martin?" Alice digs in his pockets for a handkerchief and finds a photo of a pretty young girl. Going back up the cliffs, Alice meets a man (Roland Delavallée) and asks him to stay with the dying man while she goes to fetch help.

A woman, Paulette Tourbier identifies the dead man as her brother Jean. She visits Alice and asks if her brother said anything before dying. Alice mentions "Why not Martin" and then describes the photo in his pocket. To Alice's surprise, Paulette reprimands her and tells her she should not have looked in his pocket.

While out a picnic, Alice leaves her water flash unattended for a while. She drinks from it a little later and promptly falls unconscious. She is admitted to hospital. Laurence tests the flask and finds the water contains morphine. Alice has been poisoned and that it was an attempt to murder her. Jourdeuil tells Laurence Alice had a visitor and from the description, it appears to be Paulette.

Alice regains consciousness and tells Laurence about what Paulette had asked and the phrase "Why not Martin". She also mentions Paulette's annoyance that she saw the photo of the girl. But Laurence is surprised. There was no photo in the dead man's pockets! Alice now remembers that she asked Roland to stay with the dead man. Roland seemed to appear out of nowhere. He might have taken the photo!

Police records reveal that Paulette never had a brother. Now with Alice discharged from hospital, Laurence goes to question Paulette with Alice at Paulette's farm, only to find she has been murdered. Police records show Paulette belonged to a gang of drug traffickers.

Against his better judgment, Laurence agrees to Alice's crazy idea of faking a car crash to for her to gain access to the Delavallée chateau. Like in the original novel, this works falwlessly and Alice gets to know the fairly dysfunctional Delavallée circle--the erratic industrialist André, his rich but bored wife Suzanne, their son Frédéric, and family friends, the psychiatrist Philippe Sarrazin who runs a clinic nearby, and his wife Alma. And like in the original novel, Alice is charmed by André's brother in law Roland who claims his is the blacksheep of the family. His father threw him out and he only visits the chateau when he is broke. Alice soon suspects either Sarrazin (who noted some discrepancies in the way the accident was staged) and the erratic André, who is secretly a drug addict.

Back at the cliffs well the man fell to his death, Laurence finds scraps of paper--shreds of the photo Alice saw. He assembles enough to reveal the face of a girl. Hearing of Alice's suspicions, Laurence calls Sarrazin in, ostensibly to inquire into a complaint about his clinic. It goes routinely but Laurence notices Sarrazin's wife Alma waiting outside for him. It's the girl in the photo!

Laurence tails them. At the gate of the clinic, Alma suddenly steps out of their cair and dashes into the forest. Laurence intercepts her--she tells him she is terrified of her husband who thinks she has a tendency for paranoia. Later she also tells him that she thinks Sarrazin is trying to kill her because he is in love with Suzanne.

At the chateau, Suzanne and Alice (now a longterm houseguest) look at the picture of the dead man published in the newspaper. Suddenly Suzanne thinks she recognises him and Alice advises her to see Laurence. The dead man is an ethnologist Alain Langevin who came back from overseas because his friend, millionaire Jean Savage died suddenly. Over lunch with the Delavallées, he had vehemently rejected the idea that Savage could have committed suicide as was commonly believed. Laurence questions the lawyer who prepared Savage's will. He died in the house of one Mrs Destrange, his mistress, and left his estate to her. A kitchen maid who had just started work at the house was the witness. Significantly, Alain Langevin had also come to see the lawyer about Savage's will and had insisted that it is a fake.

Over at the chateau, Suzanne and Alice discover Frédéric apparently having drowned in his bath. Fortunately Sarrazin is just visiting and manages to revive him. Sarrazin tells the family that he knows André is a drug addict. He admits it but says he started only because Roland suggested drugs as a way to deal with his arthritis. Sarrazin decides to have André admitted as a patient in his clinic.

Laurence has almost decided that Sarrazin is the culprit. His clinic is useful as a centre for supplying drugs and Paulette was a trafficker. But can't investigate his clinic without a search warrant. He tries another tack and shows Savage's lawyer several photos and asks him to pick out Mrs Destrange. He identifies Alma! Meanwhile, someone tails Alice when she leaves the commissariat and knocks her out. When she awakes she finds herself tied up in a barn at Paulette's farm.

Back at the commissariat, Marlene tells Laurence Alice left a letter on her desk for him. It says she is on the trail of the killer and to meet at Paulette's farm. Laurence goes there and gets knocked out and tied up next to Alice. Roland comes in and confronts them. By this time Laurence has already worked out that Roland must be the killer. Roland says he will have to arrange an accident for both of them but first he has to go and attend to some other matters (such as killing his brother and nephew, Laurence suggests). Roland leaves and a while later, a car starts up and crashes through the barn door. It's Marlene! She had realised the letter to Laurence was not Alice's handwriting and got worried so she hitchhiked to the farm. Marlene cuts them free. Roland returns but Laurence surprises him and knocks him out.

Next Laurence sets a trap for Alma. He invites her to meet him at his apartment. When she arrives, he pours drinks and tells her he has arrested Roland. Alma tries to poison Laurence's drink but Alice spots it and Laurence is in any case ready for it and she is arrested.

The plot is exposed and it is the same two pronged scheme as in the original novel. Alma schemed to secure Savage's estate by first becoming his mistress as "Mrs Destrange". Roland then impersonated Savage and made a will, leaving everything Savage had to her. Then Savage was killed. Separately, Roland schemed to get hold of André's fortune--probably by having him committed as insane or else killing him in Sarrazin's clinic and framing him. As for who Martin is, Laurence tells Alice he is a long-serving domestic at the house maintained by Mrs Destrange. He should have been asked to witness the will instead of a kitchen maid on her first day at work. But he would have recognised that Roland was not Savage.

Comparison with the original story
(may contain spoilers - click on expand to read) This adaptation is highly faithful to the original and most of the key characters have parallels which are easily recognisable and play the same roles. The parts of Bobby and Frankie and distributed between Laurence and Alice.

All key moments are faithfully replicated:
 * Alice finds a dying man, his utterance "Why not Martin?" and sees a photo of a girl in his pocket
 * An attempt is made to kill Alice by poisoning her with morphine.
 * Alice fakes a car crash to gain access to the Delavallée house. Alice is charmed by Roland (the Roger Bassington-ffrench parallel)
 * Laurence (like Bobby) meets Alma (Moira Nicholson) in the woods while she is running away from her husband's clinic. *Finally Alice and Laurence are both tricked to a farmhouse, knocked out and tied up.


 * André Delavallée (the Henry Bassington-ffrench parallel) is made a morphine addict by his brother just like in the original novel, but this time André isn't killed. However, Roland Delavallée tries to kill André's son.
 * The process of identifying the dead man and the girl in the photo is simplified and this speeds up the story. Paulette misidentifies the dead man as her brother but police records show she has no brother. She is murdered shortly thereafter. However the drawing of the man is published in the newspapers and Suzanne (Sylvia Bassington-ffrench) recognises him as Alain Langevin and tells what she knows to Laurence, who gets the background to Jean Savage and his strange will from his lawyer. Much easier for Laurence than Bobby and Frankie since he is a policeman.
 * As for the girl in the Laurence finds fragments of the torn photo at the crime scene and pieces them together. He then spots Alma waiting for her husband outside the commissariat. Later he shows various photos to the lawyer and he picks out Alma as "Mrs Destrange" (Mrs Templeton), the woman who stood to inherit Savage's estate.
 * The main difference is that Roland doesn't get to escape. Like in other adaptations, a letter of confession from Argentina would be too tedious to dramatise. In this case, after tricking Laurence and Alice to the barn and tying them up, Marlene comes to the rescue and Laurence succeeds in capturing him. There is no shootout in the cafe either. Alma is simply captured in a trap which Laurence set for her.

Cast
Mentioned characters
 * Samuel Labarthe as Commissaire Swan Laurence
 * Blandine Bellavoir as Alice Avril
 * Élodie Frenck as Marlène Leroy
 * Dominique Thomas as Ernest Tricard
 * Charlie Dupont as Roland Delavallée
 * Alix Poisson as Suzanne Delavallée
 * Arly Jover as Alma Sarrazin
 * Didier Vinson as André Delavallée
 * Èric Caruso as Philippe Sarrazin
 * Luc Samaille as Alain Langevin
 * Laurence Flahault as Paulette Tourbier
 * François Godart as Robert Jourdeuil
 * Antoine Angelo as Frédéric Delavallée
 * Emmanuel Rausenberger as Lawyer
 * Gaëlle Fraysse	as Agnès
 * Anne Gaelle Ponche as Dr Elise Rouvier (as Anne-Gaëlle Ponche)
 * Uncredited actress as Claudine
 * Uncredited actor as Dupré
 * Uncreduted actor as delivery boy
 * Jean Savage
 * Georges Martin

Research notes

 * This is the first appearance of Marlene's leopard pattern coat which would become her signature outer garment.