Maurice (La Maison du péril)

In La Maison du péril, the France Télévisions adaptation of Peril at End House for the TV series Les Petits Meurtres d'Agatha Christie, Maurice is the 20-year old son of Madeleine, the housekeeper of Joséphine de Vilmarais, the Nick Buckley parallel. Maurice does not really have a parallel in the original novel. Ellen Wilson, the housekeeper in the original novel has a son Alfred but Alfred is much younger and has a totally different plot role and backstory. Maurice is portrayed by Julien Lucas.

For most of the episode, Maurice is a fugitive and hiding in a hidden room in Joséphine's house, a room accessed only by a secret door. Events would reveal that Maurice had left the house some years previously and then had only recently returned. In the interim, he became involved with a criminal gang and had robbed a bank. However he had betrayed his fellow gang members and made off with the loot which he hid in his secret room. In a side plot, part way through the episode, Maurice's fellow gang members tracked him down and approach his mother and threaten her, warning her that unless the money was handed over, some serious harm would come to Maurice and her.

Maurice also plays a significant but non-canonical role in the main plot. Where in the original, Nick Buckley did the various murders on her own, here Joséphine made use of Maurice. His willingness lies in his backstory--he had once, while staying at the house, been involved in a relationship with Joséphine. His mother put a stop to it because in her opinion, boys of servants did not get involved with ladies of Joséphine's class. Nonetheless, when Maurice came back to the house, Joséphine played on his feelings and encouraged him to think that the relationship could be rekindled. She then got him to shoot Eléonore (the Maggie Buckley parallel). Here he used his own gun (which he presumably had from his bank robbery days). Later Joséphine also got Maurice to kill Suzanne (a vague Freddie Rice parallel).

The side plot and main plot intertwine in Maurice's ultimate fate. Èmile Lampion discovers the secret room but Maurice knocks him out and steals his police I.D. Maurice then fakes a call as Lampion to the local police station and tells them of the rendezvous where his old gang members were waiting to collect the bank robbery loot. This leads to the arrest of the gang members. Then, still using Lampion's persona, he gets information from the police station about where Larosière had taken Joséphine (by this time, Joséphine had gone to a convent for safety). Maurice goes to the convent with purpose of persuading Joséphine to run away with him.

Maurice manages trick his way into the convent using Lampion's I.D. and meets up with Joséphine. However she does not want to go with him. He begins to get violent, but by this time Lampion has come to and arrives at the convent with a few other policemen. There is a firefight. A policeman is hit, but Lampion, whose poor marksmanship is a plot element early in the episode, lands a well-placed shot and kills Maurice.