Jessie Davis (The Pale Horse)

In the novel The Pale Horse, Mrs Jessie Davis (married name Archer) was a catholic woman from Lancashire. She rented a room of a Mrs Coppins. On her deathbed, during her last confession, she gave Father Gorman a list of names. Soon after the priest was murdered. The police was later able to obtain some important background information from one of Jessie's former colleagues, Eileen Brandon.

Although she was thought to have died of pneumonia, it was later discovered that she had been poisoned with thallium.

Portrayals
In the 2011 ITV adaption The Pale Horse (Episode 1, series 5 of Agatha Christie's Marple), Mrs Davis was portrayed by Elizabeth Rider. Miss Marple finds a piece of notepaper from the Pale Horse Inn in her shoe with the same list of names as she had dictated to Father Gorman, but this time with dates against the names. This notepaper told Miss Marple that Mrs Davis had been to the Pale Horse Inn at some time. Miss Marple surmises at the end that Mrs Davis had become suspicious of seeing the names she had surveyed appearing in obituaries. She followed Bradley from his trips to the Consumer Research offices. She conducted her own investigations and eventually ended up at the Pale Horse in Much Deeping. By then, she had to be killed because she knew too much.

In Le cheval pâle, the French adaptation for the series Les Petits Meurtres d'Agatha Christie, the parallel character is Geneviève Millet.