George Carrington

In the short story The Incredible Theft, Air Marshal Sir George Carrington is a senior Royal Air Force officer and head of the service. He was invited to a house party by Lord Mayfield which he attended with his wife Julia and his son Reggie.

His presence at the party was partly professional, in order to discuss the design for a revolutionary new bomber aircraft and to go over the plans with Lord Mayfield. He was a bit alarmed to discover that Mayfield had invited Mrs Vanderlyn to the party but was reassured when Mayfield told him that he knew all about her reputation and the general belief that she was a spy. Carrington supported Mayfield's plan to lay a trap for Mrs Vanderlyn using the plans of the bomber as bait. When Mayfield's scheme appeared to go wrong and someone stole the plans of the bomber, it was Carrington who suggested calling in Poirot. Mayfield was hesitant but Carrington assured him that he knew a lot about Poirot and that he could solve the case.

In The Submarine Plans, an earlier story on which Incredible Theft is based, the parallel character is Harry Weardale, an admiral. Interestingly, like Weardale, Carrington was described in the same way, a "bluff, honest old sea dog". Carrington had begun his career in the Navy and he still "retained the bluff breeziness of the ex-Naval man".

Portrayals
In the film adaptation of the story as episode 8 of Series 1 of ITV's Agatha Christie's Poirot drama series, Sir George Carrington is portrayed by John Carson. Here he is not an Air Marshal but a senior civil servant with some responsibility for funding or support of armaments development projects. At the beginning of the episode, during a demonstration of the Mayfield Kestrel fighter, he told Mayfield that the government was hesitant to support the fighter project because of the likelihood of scandal linked to rumours about Mayfield having sold weapons to the Japanese which had been used in the shelling of Chinese cities.

When Mayfield told Carrington that he planned to lay a trap for Mrs Vanderlyn using design of the Mayfield Kestrel as bait, he objected to it as it was too dangerous. When Mayfield persisted, Carrington took precautions by having Chief Inspector Japp and a force of policemen waiting at a nearby inn. When the plans of the Kestrel went missing, Carrington took charge immediately and called in Japp. He immediately cast suspicion on Mrs Vanderlyn and ordered Japp to have her searched, even though Poirot, a fellow guest at the house party, was convinced that she could not have stolen the plans.