Simone Maupin

In Le miroir se brisa, the French TV film adaptation of Agatha Christie's The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side, by France Télévisions, Simone Maupin is the parallel of Heather Badcock from the original novel. Simone Maupin is portrayed by Adeline Fleur Baude.

Simone is a hairdresser who manages to be engaged as an extra at the film studio where her great idol Blanche Dulac (the Marina Gregg parallel) is filming "The Unbowed". Simone is to be a "hand double". Apparently Blanche does not like her own hands and a double is used for close ups involving the hands. Simone arrives at the studio and is welcomed by Blanche and treated to drinks. However, shortly thereafter, Alice Avril turns up at the studio and sees her dying with foam in her mouth.

In this adaptation, no one actually heard what Simone said to Blanche. Dr Mentchikoff (the Dr Gilchrist parallel) noticed that Simone had spilled her drink and Blanche gave her hers. Later when the whole scene is re-enacted, Mentchikoff thinks he knows who the murderer is but he dies quickly (from a poison in his inhaler, like Ella Zielinsky) before he could say more. Laurence later surmises that Mentchikoff probably recalled that Blanche had jogged Simone's elbow.

The final links in the puzzle are built up by referring to photographs, in a manner similar to the original, except that in this case, two photographs are involved. Alice, who befriends the studio photographer Fred develops a picture showing Blanche with a frozen look like she had some kind of shock. Later, rummaging among Fred's contact prints, Alice finds a frame with Simone showing Blanche a photograph. Laurence questions Simone's son Georges Maupin about this. He Georges said that his mother was a fan of Blanche and often mentioned an incident. He had german measles and had passed it on to his mother. His mother had a fever but still went to a theatre to meet Blanche Dulac and even got a kiss from her. That was fourteen years before. In this adaptation, Simone's husband had already died so there is no parallel of Arthur Badcock.