Elsie MacNaughton

In the Parker Pyne short story Death on the Nile, Elsie MacNaughton is the nurse of Lady Grayle who was travelling on a Nile cruise with her husband Sir George Grayle and others. Like the rest of the family, Elsie believed that the bad-tempered Lady Grayle's frequent complaints of ill health were more imagined than real. However, during the Nile cruise she confided in Parker Pyne that lately she had the feeling that her employer was being poisoned.

When her employer died of strychnine poisoning during the cruise, Elsie is implicated in some way because she is inconsistent in her account about whether her stock of strychnine (for heart problems) is intact. Parker Pyne however exonerates her in the end by finding the true killer. In reflecting on the case, Pyne thinks Elsie and Sir George would get together.