Mrs Lorrimer

In the novel Cards on the Table, Mrs Lorrimer was the second victim of the case. She was a widow and expert bridge player. She was described as a "well-dressed woman of sixty", with "finely-cut features, beautifully arranged grey hair, and a clear, incisive voice". She told Anne Meredith that she was sixty-three years old.

Mr Shaitana had met Poirot at an art exhibition and wanted Poirot to come to dinner to view his unique collection--a group of people he believed to be murderers who had gotten away with their crimes. Mrs Lorrimer was one of the guests and part of Shaitana's "collection". Although Shaitana did not specify the kind of crime he believed Mrs Lorrimer to be involved in, over dinner he alluded to poison being "a woman's weapon". Mrs Lorrimer later told Poirot that this reference was meant for her. Mr Shaitana was probably alluding to her killing her husband.

Mrs Lorrimer had known Mr Shaitana over a period of some years, but never intimately. She had first met him in Egypt. She believed they had met at the Winter Palace in Luxor. She thought him a charlatan, and sometimes he irritated her.

Mrs Lorrimer who was terminally ill, and believing Anne Meredith of being the murderer, confessed to the murder of Mr Shaitana. She told Poirot that she saw the dagger before dinner, slipped it into her sleeve, and stabbed Mr Shaitana during the bridge game, when she was dummy. Poirot however rejects this confession on the grounds that it did not fit her psychology. Mrs Lorrimer was a planner but the murder of Shaitana was a hasty, improvised operation.

It is revealed that Mrs Lorrimer had confessed in order to protect Anne Meredith. She had compassion for Anne, because Anne was alone in the world, just as Mrs Lorrimer herself once was. She was sure that Anne had killed Mr Shaitana because she had looked up during the brdige game, and seen Anne bending over Mr Shaitana with her hand on his chest. She saw a look of guilt and fear on Anne's face.

Towards the end of the book, Mrs Lorrimer died. Initially it was believed that she committed suicide, by taking an overdose of a sleeping draught. She had sent letters to Dr Roberts, Major Despard, and Anne Meredith, saying that she had killed Mr Shaitana, and apologising for the inconvenience and annoyance they had suffered.

Poirot observed a bruise on Mrs Lorrimer's arm, and hinted to the police surgeon that a drug might have been administered to Mrs Lorrimer by an injection. This was found to be true when Sir Charles Imphery, the Home Office Analyst, found the drug Evipan in the body. This demonstrated that Mrs Lorrimer had been murdered.

Agatha Christie's Poirot
In the film adaptation of Cards on the Table in Series 10 of ITV's Agatha Christie's Poirot drama series, Mrs Lorrimer is portrayed by Lesley Manville. As in the original, she is an expert bridge player but her backstory is slightly different. She had killed her first husband by pushing him down the stairs and then married her second husband, who died shortly thereafter. Anne Meredith is her daughter from her first husband. Anne had witnessed the killing of her father and had then left home and had not seen her mother until the dinner at Shaitana's. Like in the original, Mrs Lorrimer confessed to the killing of her first husband, and then to the killing of Shaitana. The latter was done to protect Anne as Lorrimer believed she saw Anne plunge the dagger in. However Poirot rejects the confession for the same reason as in the original. Mrs Lorrimer is not killed in this adaptation and mother and daughter appear to be reconciled at the end. Unusually for Poirot, he does not pursue the matter of Mrs Lorrimer killing her first husband.

Les Petits Meurtres d'Agatha Christie
In Cartes sur table, the French adaptation for the series Les Petits Meurtres d'Agatha Christie, the parallel character is Hélène Nevers.