James Reilly

In the Tommy and Tuppence short story The Man in the Mist, James Reilly is a young man whom Tommy and Tuppence meet at the bar of the Grand Hotel in Adlington.

Reilly entered the bar and started striding up and down and muttering loudly to himself. On noticing the Beresfords, he introduced himself as a poet who had written a volume of Pacifist poems. He explained that he was not feeling very pacific and felt like choking someone to death. He was in love with Gilda Glen and he believed she once care for him. And now she appeared to be going for Lord Leconbury. "How I worshipped that woman" he said, and yet now he declared, "I'd as soon kill her with my own hands."

Unfortunately for Reilly, after Gilda was found murdered, his utterances to the Beresfords made him the prime suspect.

Reilly is described as a man with flaming red hair, a pugnacious jaw, and appallingly shabby clothes.

Portrayals
James Reilly is portrayed by Tim Brierley in  LWT's 1983 adaptation of the story (Episode 8 of Agatha Christie's Partners in Crime). Like in the original, he becomes a suspect in the crime but the sympathies of the Beresfords are soon distracted as in this adaptation, Tommy's friend "Bulger" Estcourt also gets arrested for the crime.