Bridget (At Bertram's Hotel)

In the novel At Bertram's Hotel, Bridget is the best friend of Elvira from the school in Italy. She lives with her mother at 180 Onslow Square.

Bridget is of the opinion that Elvira is lucky not to have a mother, as she feels that her mother is "quite a pet", but asks her a lot of futile questions, such as where she is going and who she is meeting.

When Elvira wants to get away to Ireland, she asks Bridget to cover up for her. Bridget calls Mrs Melford, posing as her mother, and tells her that Elvira is staying with them overnight.

Bridget also creates a diversion outside Bollard and Whitley, so that Elvira can slip a bracelet into her pocket while Mr Bollard is distracted. Bridget later takes the bracelet to a pawnshop, and uses the money to book a ticket with Aer Lingus, for Elvira to go to Ireland.

Mrs Melford later speaks to Bridget's mother on the telephone, and finds that Elvira is not staying with them. Bridget says she does not know anything about it, and that Elvira mentioned something about visiting someone in Wimbledon.

After the death of Micky Gorman, Elvira believes that someone has been trying to kill her, so Chief Inspector Davy interviews several people in her circle, including Bridget. Bridget tells him that Elvira was terribly worried about something, and afraid. She also tells him about a box of chocolates which was sent to Elvira, while they were at school in Italy. Elvira ate a lot of them, and was quite ill that night. Elvira had said that someone was trying to poison one of them, and they looked to see if the chocolates had been tampered with. However, as far as they were able to see, the chocolates had not been tampered with.

Bridget also mentions that besides Guido, there was another man whom Elvira was seeing, about whom she was "deadly serious". At first, she says that she does not know who this other man is, but when Chief Inspector Davy suggests that it might be Ladislaus Malinowski, she says that she thinks he is right. She mentions that Elvira had a photograph of Ladislaus, which she had torn out of a paper, and kept under her stockings.

BBC's Miss Marple
In the BBC 1987 adaptation of the novel, Bridget is portrayed by Charlotte Barker. Here Bridget is given the last name Sotheby. The portrayal is otherwise quite similar to that in the novel.

Bridget makes a phone call to Mildred Melford posing as her mother Monica in order to help Elvira cover up for her departure to Ireland. She does not however need to help Elvira steal jewels from Bollards as this entire plot element is not in the adaptation. Here Elvira managed to raise money for her Irish trip simply by asking Derek Luscombe for an advance on her allowance on the grounds that she intended to go shopping.

ITV's Marple
In the ITV 2007 adaptation of the novel, the character is renamed Brigit Milford and is portrayed by Mary Nighy. Here Brigit is still Elvira's best friend but the portrayal otherwise diverges significantly from the original. In this adaptation, Brigit actually stays in the hotel with Elvira and plays a larger role in the plot. Her part in the plot is driven by a backstory unique to this adaptation. Years earlier, Elvira had insisted on going swimming in a river with Brigit. In the end, Elvira did not go into the water herself but Brigit did. Brigit caught polio from the contaminated water and lost the use of her right hand. Elvira felt guilty for what she had done to Brigit and wantd to give her friend the best possible quality of life, an effort which would require a large amount of money. This, rather than Elvira's desire to attract Ladislaus Malinowski, served as the motive for all of her subsequent actions, particularly the murder of Micky Gorman.

In this adaptation, Brigit helped Elvira in the murder. Earlier, Elvira insisted that the hotel manager move Brigit to a specific bedroom, one with an attached bathroom. At an appointed time, Brigit then filled her bath with water, allowing it to overflow onto the floor. The water went through the ceiling and shorted out the lights in the dining room, forcing all the guests to be moved to the morning room where they had a view of the street. Brigit then dressed up as Elvira, wearing a distinctive hat, and walked along the street. Meanwhile Elvira herself, inside a hotel room, shot at her with a sniper rifle. Micky Gorman ran forward to help "Brigit" and got shot himself. Meanwhile Brigit drew a pistol to shoot back at the sniper. Elvira ran down to the street via a back way and took over from Brigit and continued shooting with the pistol.

To the hotel guests in the morning room, the impression was that a sniper was trying to kill Elvira and shot Micky by mistake. However Miss Marple saw through this staged deception when she realised that Brigit (who did not have the use of her right hand) held the pistol with her left hand. Later the same figure held the pistol in her right hand. During the denouement, Brigit admitted to this plot and she and Elvira both ended up being arrested.