Miss Quinton

Miss Quinton is a non-canonical character created for the 1988 film adaption of Appointment with Death. She is a young archaeologist who fills approximately the same plot purpose as that of Amabel Pierce in the original novel. Miss Quinton is portrayed by Hayley Mills.

Miss Quinton has a slightly larger role than Amabel Pierce. Early in the show Lady Westholme took her on as a travelling partner. They are seen touring Trieste together before embarking on the ship to Jaffa. Lady Westholme introduces Miss Quinton as an archaeologist who will take charge of the excavations at Qumran although this is most likely an exaggeration.

On arrival at Jaffa, Miss Quinton has a sideplot where she travels directly to Qumran while the rest of the party go first to Jerusalem. Jefferson Cope in this adaptation develops an interest in her and also decides to go straight to Qumran. Shortly thereafter, both of them are reported as missing, although it is later found that they had decided to go out of Qumran to the next valley on an excursion and had spent the night in a Bedouin camp.

For the rest of the show, Miss Quinton has the same approximately role in the plot as Amabel Pierce in that Lady Westholme uses her as an alibi. At Qumran, Lady Westholme invites Miss Quinton on a late afternoon walk. Passing by the seated Mrs Boynton (who was already dead by then), Lady Westholme invites her to join them and then remarked that she grunted rudely. Miss Quinton later confirmed this account and told Poirot that she had heard this grunt also. However Poirot later demonstrated that Miss Quinton is highly suggestible. He pretended to see a spider on the wall and asked Miss Quinton if she had seen it also and she agreed that she had. In the original novel, Amabel Pierce is also highly suggestible but here Poirot asks her if she had heard him sneeze. She confirmed he did, although he did not.

In a plot development unique to this adaptation, Miss Quinton pairs off with Jefferson Cope at the end and she goes back to America with him. She tells Poirot she intends to do archaeology in America. in In the original, Cope pairs off with Carol Boynton.