Hassan (Appointment with Death)

Hassan is a non-canonical character created for the 1988 film adaption of Appointment with Death. He is a servant boy working at the archaeological dig at Qumran. Hassan is portrayed by Mohammed Hirzalla.

After the murder of Mrs Boynton, Hassan seeks out Poirot and wants to meet him because he believes he has seen something significant. He is afraid to be seen at first so he shouts out from the darkness some rendezvous arrangements for the next morning. However when Poirot arrives at the meeting place with Dr Sarah King, Hassan mysteriously runs off. Sarah offers to bring him back and pursues him through the streets of old Jerusalem. Sarah King hears a shot and then rounds a corner to find Hassan dead on the ground with a pistol beside him.

Poirot would later reconstruct the entire chain of events. When Hassan turned up for the meeting, Lady Westholme appeared behind Poirot. Hassan, afraid of her, ran off. Lady Westholme sought him out through the streets of old Jerusalem and shot him dead. According to Poirot, Lady Westholme's room opened out on the side of the hotel where Hassan called out to Poirot to make the rendezvous arrangements. She must have overheard the details and arrived to forestall the meeting. What Hassan saw is a matter of surmise. But towards the end, when Poirot reconstructed how Lady Westholme killed Mrs Boynton, there is a flashback scene of her dressing herself up in sheets to look like a Bedouin. Through the door there is a glimpse of Hassan watching her.