L'Homme au complet marron (Les Petits Meurtres d'Agatha Christie)

L'Homme au complet marron (The Man in the Brown Suit) is the 17th episode of season 2 of the French TV series Les Petits Meurtres d'Agatha Christie. It was produced by Escazal Films and France Télévisions, directed by Rodolphe Tissot and first aired on France 2 on 1 September 2017. It is an adaptation of the Agatha Christie novel The Man in the Brown Suit.

Synopsis
Like the rest of the episodes of season 2 of this series, the original Christie detective characters have been replaced. The lead roles are taken by a French detective Commissaire Swan Laurence assisted by a journalist Alice Avril and Laurence's secretary Marlene. The action is set in Lille in the 1950s. In this episode, Nadine Mercuret, a friend of Laurence from his French resistance days and now a French Secret Service agent, is fatally shot. She manages to get to Laurence but dies before she can tell him anything. Laurence joins the French Secret Service and disguises himself as a woman secretary to take her place, track down her killer and complete her mission.

Plot Summary
(may contain spoilers - click on expand to read) Late at night, Nadine Mercuret, a secretary at the Lille Opera makes a phone call and recites a coded phrase and then says she thinks she knows who "The Colonel" is, but the line goes dead. She leaves the building but a car drives by and someone in the car shoots her. Nadine struggles to the apartment of her old friend commissaire Laurence where she dies in his arms. Her only word to him is "Gilbert".

Laurence calls Gilbert Loyson, like Nadine, an old comrade from the French resistance days and now in the French secret service, who tells him Nadine was one of his subordinates. Laurence offers to join the Secret Service to find her killer and complete her mission. Gilbert tells him her job was to watch Tatiana Pochenko, a Russian ballerina at the Lille Opera. She was thought to be close to a Russian masterspy "The Colonel". Someone had taken microfilms of a new long range nuclear weapon. Nadine was to find out who "The Colonel" is and retrieve the microfilms.

Laurence fakes a heart attack and is sent to hospital and then disguises himself as a woman to enter the Lille Opera as Nadine's replacement. Marlene gives him various tips on how to put on make up and how to behave.

Meanwhile Jules Touchard, the concierge at the Opera has witnessed the shooting outside the opera. He believes he can get money for talking about it and calls Alice Avril who agrees to meet. However, on his way to the interview, he is run down by a car. A witness tells Alice the car is an Opel Kapitan and the collision appeared deliberate.

At the Opera, Tatiana confers with a man named Sergueï. He tells her the place is becoming dangerous and they have to leave but she can't. He asks where she hid the microfilms and she shows them to him, hidden in a ballet shoe. Shortly thereafter, a strange man bursts in and threatens Tatiana, demanding the microfilms. Sergueï shoots him dead and then drags him outside and hides him in a car.

Laurence now under the guise of "Brigitte", reports for work and bumps into Alice who turns up hoping to interview people at the Opera about Jules. Soon after, they hear stumble on Tatiana's body in. A man in a brown suit (actually an overcoat) was seen running away from the scene. He brushed past "Brigitte", Martine Touchard and also Alice during his flight.

In the meantime, there are other clues. "Brigitte" overhears the accountant Eustache Miller speaking to someone on the phone in Russian. Alice discovers that the choreographer Patrick Mallet drives an Opel Kapitan and the front bumper is damaged.

Tricard later brings Alice, Martine and "Brigitte" in to build an identikit portrait of "the man in the brown suit". Alice and Martine keep contradicting each other under "Brigitte" steps in with a quick and precise description and everyone agrees the result is the man. Alice gets suspicious of "Brigitte" and follow her and Marlene as they leave, all the way to Laurence's apartment where Laurence reveals the truth to her.

Alice is upset about them not trusting her but doesn't have much time to brood. Leaving the apartment, she is kidnapped and held a prisoner for some time. Much later she is questioned by Gilbert Loyson about "Brigitte". Alice denies all knowledge of the person. It turns out to be a test for Alice which she has passed and he lets her go.

We next see the man in the brown suit in Tatiana's changing room, which has been ransacked. Someone has been searching for the microfilms. But not successfully, as he manages to find a ballet shoe and stuff it into his pocket. As he comes out, someone shoots him and wounds him. He returns fire and wounds his attacker. Both run away.

Lots of people hear the gunfire. "Brigitte" is back at the Opera and bumps into Alice again. Laurence/"Brigitte" persuades Alice to let bygones be bygones and help him call the police. A wounded man is probably hiding somewhere in the building.

Laurence searches the building. On entering the apartment of Martine Touchard he is attacked and knocked out by the man in the brown suit. They both convince each other that they are not "the Colonel". The man in the brown suit reveals that he is "Sergueï", Tatiana's brother. They planned to defect to French authorities but "the Colonel" is after them. Just then, Gilbert Loyson bursts into the room. Laurence shouts for him to stop but Gilbert shoots Sergueï dead. "It was him or me," he tells Laurence.

Meanwhile, Lisa Bonfanti, a ballerina, discovers the body of Franck in Patrick Mallet's car. The pathologist discovers a tattoo of the letter "A". Laurence recognises it as the mark for the Apollonaire network of the French resistance and he is beginning to understand what is going on.

He, Marlene and Alice go back to search Martine Touchard's apartment and find a ballet shoe with the microfilms inside. Laurence now requests Martine to help make a phone call to set up a trap for "The Colonel".

Laurence is there on the opera stage to meet "The Colonel" when he turns up--he is, in fact, Gilbert Loyson himself. He turned double agent for the Russians because he was bitter about how the French had treated former resistance fighters so badly. Gilbert tries to escape but the building is surrounded and he shoots himself.

Comparison with original story
(may contain spoilers - click on expand to read) Of the episodes in the series (and with the exception of those with original plots), this one is probably least like the original novel. Almost none of the characters are close parallels of the original ones and only some similarities in plot elements and themes can be discerned.
 * There is a dancer who intends to betray "The Colonel" and she does end up being killed. "The Colonel" wants something she has, and in both case, "film" is involved. In the original, this was diamonds in a film cartridge. In this case it is microfilm. While the motives in the original are about money, this one is about espionage.
 * There is a man in a brown suit, Sergueï Pochenko, but he is not in any way a parallel of Harry Rayburn.
 * There is the theme of a man disguised as a woman, but in this case it is commissaire Laurence, not, as in the origina, Arthur Minks and one of the villains.
 * Alice Avril is probably the only plausible candidate as a parallel for Anne Beddingfeld but again what happens to Alice is totally different. There are probably only two discernible intersections: Alice witnesses a man dying as though by accident (run over by a car), and Alice is held a prisoner for a short time.

Cast

 * Samuel Labarthe as Commissaire Swan Laurence
 * Blandine Bellavoir as Alice Avril
 * Élodie Frenck as Marlène Leroy
 * Cyril Gueï as Timothée Glissant
 * Dominique Thomas as Ernest Tricard
 * Eric Beauchamp as Flic Martin
 * François Godart as Jourdeuil
 * Thierry Gimenez as Gilbert Loyson
 * Grégoire Oestermann as Alexandre Latour
 * Marie Céline as Tatiana Pochenko
 * Alice Dufour as Lisa Bonfanti
 * Mickaël Chirinian as Patrick Mallet
 * Benjamin Gauthier as Eustache Miller
 * Céline Cuignet as Martine Touchard
 * Anton Yakovlev as Sergueï Pochenko
 * Rodrigue Bauchet as Jules Touchard
 * Gaëlle Fraysse as Nadine Mercuret
 * Emmanuel Rausenberger as the witness
 * Sebastien Ricard as the pianist Andre
 * Patrick Medioni as Franck
 * Laurine Ristroph as double for Tatiana in dance sequences
 * Stoyan Zmarzlik as young dancer

Filming locations

 * Opéra de Lille