Sydney Lumley

Sydney Lumley is a non-canonical character created for the 2009 ITV adaptation of Nemesis. He and his wife Margaret are passengers on the "Daffodil Mystery Coach Tour" which Jason Rafiel had arranged for Miss Marple. Sydney Lumley is portrayed by Johnny Briggs.

Jason Rafiel had asked Miss Marple to solve a possible crime or put right an unknown injustice. Through the course of events in the tour, it becomes apparent that the crime or injustice has to do with the fate of a young girl named Verity Hunt. It also becomes apparent that all the passengers in the bus (which Rafiel contrived in various ways to bring on to the tour) are somehow linked to the girl.

Sydney's link was revealed fairly early. Verity had been a housemaid's daughter at Forrester Grange, the household of Lord Forrester. After Amanda Dalrymple, Lord Forrester's niece and heiress, had expelled Verity from the grange for theft, Verity went to lodge with Sydney at Kilburn. Sydney claimed his mother had died and he had a spare room and he let her stay although she could not really pay. They got along socially, went to the movies and listened to the radio together. Later she had left without warning. Verity later sent a postcard with an apology from Medhurst and Sydney tracked her down to St. Elspeth's convent near that village. He went there to look for her but Verity had become a novice at the convent and the other nuns denied him entry.

At first Sydney claimed he had come looking for her because she owed him money but Sister Clotilde Merryweather, also a passenger on the tour, countered with Verity's version: that Sydney had been overly attentive and she had run away to avoid him. Sydney later admitted that he had asked Verity to marry him but she had turned him down. He insisted that he would never do anything to harm her. Subsequently, he married Margaret, who happened to look very much like Verity.

In another twist and sideplot, some years later, Sydney conspired with Margaret to exploit her resemblance to Verity. Sydney had learnt that Amanda Dalrymple had taken action to declare Verity legally dead in order to clear the way for herself to inherit Lord Forrester's estate. Sydney had Margaret pretend to be Verity in order to blackmail Amanda. Amanda sent her solicitor Derek Turnbull with a photo and a list of questions about Verity to verify the claim but Sydney was able to coach Margaret in giving the right answers since he know a fair bit about Verity's background. Whether Turnbull saw through the deception or not, he certainly took advantage of it (see the article on Turnbull for details).