Le Crime de Noël (Les Petits Meurtres d'Agatha Christie)

Le Crime de Noël (Christmas Crime) is the 20th episode of season 2 of the French TV series Les Petits Meurtres d'Agatha Christie. It was produced by Escazal Films and France Télévisions, directed by Rudolphe Tissot and first aired on France 2 on 22 December 2017. This is one of a few episodes with a wholly original plot that is not an adaptation of a story by Christie. This article is created here for completeness. You are also encouraged to note down any parallels you may note with the original works of Agatha Christie.

Synopsis
Like the rest of the episodes of season 2 of this series, the original Christie detective characters have been replaced. The lead roles are taken by a French detective Commissaire Swan Laurence assisted by a journalist Alice Avril and Laurence's secretary Marlene. The action is set in Lille in the 1950s. In this episode, Laurence and Alice investigate the murder of a man who played the role of Santa Claus at a Christmas market. There are two children who were witnesses and the trail leads to an orphanage where Alice spent her childhood.

Plot Summary
(may contain spoilers - click on expand to read) Baptiste Sauvage and his sister Louison decide to escape from the Orphelinat Sainte-Cécile. The orphanage is a dreary place where the children are ill-treatd. The director Madame Hautin frequently gets her friend Max to whip the children with his belt. She forbids all pleasures and fun. When Gaston Vernet, one of the educators in the place suggests setting up a Christmas tree, she rejects the idea. The children are not there to enjoy but be prepared for the real world. Rudy helps Baptiste and Louison with their plan. Rudy is a ringleader among the orphans. He sneaks out frequently to pick pockets and steal things. He has a secret trunk in store room full of hidden booty and takes some money from it for Baptiste and Louison and shows them the window they can escape from.

Out on the street, Baptiste and Louison decide to search for their mother who abandoned them long ago. They reach the deserted Christmas market, closed for the night. There's a noise and they have to hide. Someone dressed in a Santa Claus suit appears but moments later, there is a gunshot and he falls down dead. The children run but Baptiste is caught by someone. Louison, in the meantime, makes it to a main road and stops a car. It's commissaire Laurence, Alice and Marlene coming back from a concert in which Marlene was singing (not very well) as part of a choir.

Louison takes them to the body but Baptiste is nowhere to be found. At Laurence's insistence, Louison admits she comes from the orphanage. Alice remembers that dreary place--it's where she grew up, and Christmas there was the most miserable time. They take Louison back to the orphanage. Hautin wants to keep Louison but Laurence refuses. She is a witness and could be in danger and needs police protection. Laurence questions the children but all say nothing unusual happened in the place, and no one has see Baptiste.

Meanwhile Alice has an uncanny experience. A little girl motions to her to follow and leads her to a courtyard where they sit and talk. She tells her about how back the conditions were, worse than the time Alice was there. Max frightens everyone. The little girl asks for a song which Alice sings. She is interuppted by Bouboule, one of the orphan boys who praises her singing. Alice looks back but the little girl has disappeared.

This little girl appears and disappears several times through the episode, showing Alice hidden things about the orphanage. She has red hair like Alice and seems to know a lot about Alice as an inmate there. It is possible that Alice is having a extra-sensory experience and is meeting herself when she was a young girl.

Anyway Alice comes back into the house and bumps into Madame Hautin. She mistakes Alice for Miss Chevalier, a newly hired teacher whom she was expecting but who is overdue. Hautin doesn't give Alice time to expect and hustles Alice to her room, getting Sylvie the maid to help settle her down. Alice plays along as it will give her a chance to investigate the orphanage at close quarters. Miss Chevalier had sent her luggage ahead so at least she has clothes and whatever she needs.

Meanwhile Laurence and Marlene have a problem--how to protect Louison. Marlene won't let Laurence put Louison in a cell. There's only one safe place--Laurence's apartment! Laurence is horrified. He needs Marlene to stay with the girl but Marlene says she needs to go home to prepare for Christmas. Laurence promises her anything if she will stay with the girl. Marlene takes him up on the promise and agrees.

Alice starts teaching at the orphanage and soon finds out how frightening Max can be. Nonetheless her background as a former inmate helps her connect with the children and she gets some empathy from Gaston.

The dead man is identified as Hubert Dopagne and he has been shot with a Lugar. Laurence learns that he ran a brasserie with his son Geoffroy and daughter-in-law Mireille. Recently Hubert and Geoffroy have been quarreling violently. Hubert appeared to have become sick in the mind--he had been withdrawing large sums of money and giving it away (Alice and Marlene received money from the Santa Claus at the Christmas market).

Now things get complicated. Alice explores the orphanage and discovers the body of the maid Sylvie. She has been strangled and she has money from the same series as the Santa was giving out. Laurence surmises that Sylvie might have seen something and had tried to blackmail the killer--and the killer might be in the orphanage. He orders the orphanage searched.

Meanwhile Louison has been turning the commissariat upside down. Now she wants Laurence to play horse. Only the will she give details of a gun she saw at the orphanage. Laurence reluctantly agrees in order to get the facts. Looking through a book, Louison correctly identifies the gun she saw as a Luger!

The search of the orphanage turns up a Luger in Gaston's room. Louison tells Laurence it wasn't there that she saw the gun. It was originally in Rudy's secret cache. There they find many items Rudy had stolen including a radio Marlene bought as a gift for Alice which Rudy had stolen at the Christmas market. Laurence has Rudy arrested. But now Bouboule comes and confides in Alice--he had seen Max creep into Gaston's room the night before. Alice hurries to tell Laurence and asks Marlene to take over her class. Marlene tries to teach the children to sing Christmas carols, much to Hautin's disapproval. Laurence confronts Max who is arrogant. He denies knowing about the gun, and as for his abusive behaviour to the children, no one would dare complain. But Alice plucks up her courage and denounces him.

Back at the commissariat, the police have found and brought in Delphine, the mother of Louison and Baptiste. She is a tramp and an alcoholic. She believes she is incapable as a mother and doesn't want to see her children. Nonetheless Laurence tells her how the spirited Louison has taken over the commissariat. He leaves her his card if she changes her mind. Some time later she does, and comes to Laurence's apartment to find Louison who is with Marlene.

And then more bad news. Mireille is found dead in the brasserie. Laurence arrests Geoffroy--he has been quarreling with his wife because he learnt she was having an affair with someone.

Meanwhile at the orphanage, Alice encounters the little girl again. This time she guides Alice to the cellar--it's a place she well remembers she was locked in there as punishment. Alice searches the place and discovers a secret door behind some shelves but she is knocked out by someone.

Laurence has a new angle and has Hautin brought in as a suspect. Her father has a brasserie which went bankrupt when Hubert opened his nearby. She could have wanted to kill Hubert in revenge. And as for Max, he has a bad record of assault and battery another crimes and has no business in an orphanage. Laurence gets more background on Hubert from a Christmas market stallowner Mathilde. She tells him Hubert was no saint in the past. He forced himself on one of his waitresses and made her pregnant and then rejected her. The waitress gave birth and then hanged herself. Her name was Martine Vernet. Vernet--that rings a bell with Laurence.

Alice wakes up to find herself in the cellar. Baptiste is with her. She hears footsteps approaching so she grabs an empty bottle and hides behind the door. Max enters and she knocks him out.

Alice and Baptiste escape into the orphanage courtyard. Gaston with the children. She tells him it is all over, Max is the killer and is safely locked in the cellar. But now Laurence arrives and tells Alice she has the wrong person. The real killer is Gaston Vernet. He hid the gun in his own room and then got Bouboule to lie to incriminate Max. Gaston doesn't wait--he grabs a gun from policeman and holds Baptiste hostage, demanding Laurence's car keys but Laurence disarms him. Gaston confesses everything. After his mother's suicide, his grandparents had rejected him and felt ashamed of him. He forced his grandfather to give the name of the man who fathered him--Hubert. Gaston then planned his murder. Sylvie had to be killed because she knew and was blackmailing him. As for Mireille, he had been having an affair with her. He had turned up at the brasserie to try to take her with him. He had received a large sum of money from Hubert. Gaston thought Hubert was insincere and only to buy him off. But Mireille refuses to go with him especially after he tells her of all the killings he had done--will she be next, she asks. After all, was not his affair with her just a means to get to Hubert? Did he not realise that Hubert was a changed man? He insists he really loves her but she rejects him. They struggle and she falls, hits her head and dies.

Outside in the courtyard, Delphine and Louison turns up with Marlene and Baptiste is reunited with his family. Laurence promises Alice that he will personally ensure neither Hautin nor Max will ever get near an orphanage again.

With the case over, Marlene collects on Laurence's promise. He is to dress up as Santa Claus at the Christmas market. Despite his reluctance, Laurence as Santa is a great hit with the orphanage children. And despite Marlene's own indifferent singing skills, she has managed to train the orphans to give a fine rendition of "Mon beau sapin" (O Christmas Tree).

Parallel with Agatha Christie plots
(may contain spoilers - click on expand to read)
 * There is a slight parallel with the one of the main premises in Hercule Poirot's Christmas: that of a son who was father by the a man who abandons the mother. The son grows up and then plans the murder of the father to avenge his mother.

Cast

 * Samuel Labarthe as Commissaire Swan Laurence
 * Blandine Bellavoir as Alice Avril
 * Élodie Frenck as Marlène Leroy
 * Cyril Gueï as Timothée Glissant
 * Dominique Thomas as Ernest Tricard
 * Eric Beauchamp as Flic Martin
 * Christiane Millet as Madame Hautin
 * Elina Solomon as Louison
 * Julien Bouanich as Gaston Vernet
 * Franck Andrieux as Max
 * Loïc Legendre as Geoffroy Dopagne
 * Zoe Schellenberg as Mireille Dopagne
 * Julien Ledet as Baptiste
 * Merlin Delariviere as Rudy
 * Mathieu Maricau as Bouboule
 * Soizic Naeyaert as little girl (probably Alice as a child)
 * Coline Marcourt as Charlotte
 * Melissandre Fortumeau as Sylvie
 * Sophie Bourdon as Delphine Sauvage
 * Jean-Marcel Crusiaux as The mulled wine merchant
 * Eric LeBlanc as Hubert Dopagne / Santa Claus
 * Delphine Paillard as Miss Chevalier
 * Peroua Cherry as Mathilde

Mentioned but not cast

 * Martine Vernet

Research notes

 * Glissant identifies the murder weapon as a Luger. In fact, he only saw the bullet and many types of guns could be using the same kind of bullet. In the case of a Luger, that would have been a 7.65mm or 9mm Parabellum. Perhaps it is true that in the 1950s, the Luger (also manufactured postwar in France at that time) was widely known and available and was the most common gun using the Parabellum, so Glissant's leap of logic is at least excusable. We see a number of guns as Louison is looking through Laurence's book: Mannlicher 94, Bergmann 97, Schwarzlose 08, Dreyse and finally the Luger P08. Of these, only the Luger uses Parabellum.

Fliming locations

 * 28 rue Alexandre Leluex in Lille - used for externals of Orphelinat Sainte-Cécile
 * The name of the Dopagne brasserie is La Grande Brasserie de l'Impératrice Eugénie. This is an actual brasserie in Roubaix in the Lille area. It appears the actual brasserie was used for the externals of the Dopagne establishment.
 * The Christmas market scenes were shot inside a hangar at La Chapelle d'Armentieres.