Lily Margrave

In the short story The Under Dog, Lily Margrave is the companion of Lady Astwell.

When Sir Reuben Astwell was murdered and his nephew Charles Leverson was arrested for the crime, Lady Astwell sent Lily to enlist the help of Poirot. Lady Astwell had a firm intuition that Charles was innocent and that Owen Trefusis, the secretary, was the real killer. Lily tried to tell her employer that it was no point seeking out Poirot with nothing firm to go on but nonetheless, Lady Astwell, who had already been dismissed contemptously by the police, insisted. As Lily told Poirot, once Lady Astwell made up her mind about her intuition, it was no use arguing with her.

Poirot noted that Lily was "an interesting phenomenon". She was intelligent and "adroit" in asking someone to do something and at the same time to put him off from doing it. Poirot sensed that Lily wanted to "let sleeping dogs lie" but what the sleeping dog was, Poirot did not know. It had obviously nothing to do with Trefusis--Poirot could sense her contempt for him--but there was some secret Lily did not want to risk being uncovered. Thus suitable intrigued, Poirot agreed to take up the case.

Although Lily would not feature in Poirot's prime list of suspects, he nonetheless felt her secret would be relevant. He obtained a piece of green chiffon from her dress and stained it with some blood. He then confronted Lily and asserted that she had been in the study of Sir Reuben after he had been killed.

Faced with this, Lily divulged her secret. Her real name was "Lily Naylor" and her brother was Captain Humphrey Naylor. He had discovered some gold deposits in Africa but Sir Reuben had swindled him out of them (see Humphrey Naylor's article for details). Lily forged a reference from the Duchess of Perthshire and got herself employed by Lady Astwell for the purpose of spying on Sir Reuben in the hope of getting evidence of the swindle.

At first Lily had little success until Victor Astwell arrived from Africa. Snatches of conversation with him suggested Lily might be on the right track, and she sneaked out at night to meet her brother to tell him so. However Sir Reuben must have become suspicious and he discovered on closer examination that her reference was a forgery and so he decided to dismiss her, despite Lady Astwell's objections.

Her last night in service was also the night of Sir Reuben's murder. She made a last ditch effort to secure the evidence and crept into Sir Reuben's study, only to discover that he had been murdered. Rather than raise the alarm immdediately, she took the opportunity to open the safe and there discovered the evidence that her brother had been swindled. She then went to bed and pretended to be surprised the next morning when the body was discovered.

At the end of the story, Lily announced that she had agreed to marry Victor Astwell. Lily was well liked by Victor and Lady Astwell. Both of them had remonstrated with Sir Reuben after he decided to fire her. Lily told Poirot that Lady Astwell treated her more like a daughter or neice than an employee.

Portrayals
In ITV's 1993 adaptation of the story, Lily Margrave is portrayed by Adie Allen. The character and backstory here is fairly faithful to the original but there are a few interesting embellishments. In this adaptation, she did not come to see Poirot--he was already a guest at Mon Repos because Charles Leverson had invited him and Hastings (who was to be Charles' golf partner at a competition). Poirot did not have to fake a piece of chiffon--here he actually finds it in the garden. It was torn off when she sneaked out to see her brother. Hastings discovers the link between Lily and Humphrey Naylor because he was in the hotel lounge and saw Lily come to leave a parcel for Humphrey.

Lily also had a slightly more active role in hindering Poirot. Here she actually interrupted during the hynopsis session and brought Lady Astwell out of her sleep to prevent her from disclosing more to Poirot about who she had seen or felt behind the curtain in her husband's study. Lily was afraid that it might have been her brother and was perhaps concerned that he might be implicated or that he might even have committed the murder. When Poirot hinted to Lily that he knew what was going on, she hastily departed the house and headed for London to meet her brother. This occasioned a car chase--a common trope in the Suchet series--this time with Hastings and Poirot in a car trying to beat Lily on the train.

Another interesting difference is that Lily did not forge her reference. She really did work for the Duchess of Perthshire. She had altered the name "Naylor" to "Margrave" with a few deft pen strokes. The reason for her dismissal is not a forge reference but that Sir Reuben had found her rummaging in his study.

In this adaptation, Victor Astwell does not ask Lily to marry him. Lily is seen at the beginning and at the end, attached to Charles Leverson.