Rendez-vous avec la mort (Rendezvous with Death)[1] is the 26th episode of series 2 of the French TV series Les Petits Meurtres d'Agatha Christie. It was produced by Escazal Films and France Télévisions, directed by Nicolas Picard-Dreyfuss and first aired on France 2 on 20 September 2019. It is an adaptation of the novel Appointment with Death.
Synopsis[]
After his mother dies, Tricard's sister Clémence Berg arrives in France to stay at the the Hotel du Nord, a hotel their mother used to run. Clémence is a tyrannical woman hated by her whole family. When her maid dies while wearing her employer's clothes, Laurence is convinced that the intended victim must be Clémence. Tricard becomes a suspect, Alice and Marlene have undercover roles and meanwhile Clémence becomes interested in Laurence.
Plot Summary[]
(may contain spoilers - click on expand to read)
Tricard's sister Clémence Berg arrives in France from French Guiana for their mother's funeral. Along with her are her children. They move into the Hotel du Nord, a country house hotel which their late mother had maintained for many years, refusing to sell even when it stopped attracting guests. Clémence despises Tricard and has an unpleasant overbearing nature which everyone hates. Nonetheless, during the post funeral reception she seems particularly interested in meeting his friends: there is the pompous Raoul Neuville, an investigating magistrate who is hoping to be the next mayor of Lille, and of course, commissaire Laurence whom Clémence finds tall, dark and handsome.
Alice and Marlene are behind a bar counter and hide when they hear some people approaching. It's the two youngest Berg children, eleven year old Suzanne and the slightly older Louis. Suzanne tells Louis they have to kill their mother and that she has a plan.
Shocked, Marlene and Alice tell Laurence about it the next day, not that there is much he can do. But Clémence Berg has invited him over to lunch so he might as well go and have a look. On the way, his car is stopped by Marcel, the late Mdme Tricard's dog. He has a shoe with him and leads Laurence to a corpse in a barn. It's Mélie Lacour, Clémence Berg's maid, strangled, and from the clean shoes, killed in the hotel and brought to the barn. It's strange--she has just arrived in France and doesn't know anyone. Laurence questions the family but of course nobody saw or heard anything. Given that Mélie was wearing Clémence Berg's clothes and jewels, Laurence suspects that the killer got the wrong victim.
Since Clémence needs a new maid, Laurence sends Alice in as the replacement with the mission of learning as much about the family as possible and protecting Clémence. Alice snoops around over the next few days, she doesn't learn very much except for how weird and creepy the whole family is. They are all crazy, she tells Marlene. But all of them seem to weak-willed to kill.
For some reason, Clémence becomes cheerful for once. She has herself placed on a chair by a lake and she sends the rest of the family away for a walk. Sometime later. she is found dead. Marcel does it again and finds a blood stained rock nearby.
Comparison with the original story[]
(may contain spoilers - click on expand to read)
- The setting is changed to a country house hotel outside Lille but otherwise the adaptation is fairly faithful to the main premise of the original novel.
- Clémence Berg, the Mrs Boynton parallel is a former prison wardress and also married to a prison governor who has died. She is surrounded by several children all of whom want her dead. The conversation between Raymond and Carol Boynton about their mother has got to be killed is depicted. Here it is between Louis (the Raymond parallel) and Suzanne (Ginevra - Carol is not featured in this adaptation). They are overheard by Alice and Marlene.
- There is an additional plot element in that Clémence's maid Mélie is killed near the beginning while wearing her employer's clothes. Laurence believes this must be a case of mistaken identity, given what Alice and Marlene overhead.
- Mrs Boynton's line about not forgetting a name or a face is also depicted, but here she said it to Marlene and only Alice is behind her. Later she does run into Raoul Neuville. Here she says that he has a common name.
- Here there is also a plot element in which Clémence is unusually cheerful, chooses to sit by herself (in this case, by a lake) and uncharacteristically sends the rest of the family away for a walk.
- In this case it is Suzanne who discovers that Clémence is dead. Like in the original, the family members suspect one of them must have done it, and all lie to cover up for one another, insisting that they were together all the time during the walk.
- Earlier on there was a plot element about a missing syringe but nothing comes of this. Clémence does have a heart condition and does take injections of something administered by Caroline Berg. But she does not die from an injection. In fact she had died from a heart attack and then her face had been struck with a rock after she was already dead.
- The killer is exposed during the denouement. As in the original, it is a politician with a secret to hide--a past conviction. He had spent time in a children's prison where Clémence was a wardress.
- There is a sideplot of Clémence attempting to poison herself with a box of chocolates with a fake card from Laurence. This is a plot element similar to one found in Peril at End House.
- There is also an additional plot element involving Tricard. He sees from a distance Suzanne beside Clémence's body and concludes she must have killed her. He picks up a blood-soaked rock (the murder weapon) with a hankerchief and throws it away. The blood-soaked handkerchief is discovered on him and he is arrested. However Tricard remains silent, hoping to protect Suzanne.
- There is an additional plot element of Marcel, the dog who used to belong to Tricard's mother. He helps Laurence discover a few vital clues.
Cast[]
- Samuel Labarthe as Swan Laurence
- Blandine Bellavoir as Alice Avril
- Élodie Frenck as Marlène Leroy
- Dominique Thomas as Ernest Tricard
- Marie Berto as Arlette Carmouille
- Cyril Gueï as Timothée Glissant
- Mireille Herbstmeyer as Clémence Berg
- Guillaume Bouchède as Philippe Berg
- Clémence Aubry as Caroline Berg
- Tom Hudson as Louis Berg
- Stéphane Pezerat as Raoul Neuville
- Juliette Pedevilla-Defaÿ as Suzanne Berg
- Olivier Carré as Roger Bessan
- Stéphanie Petit as Mélie Lacour
- Bubulle as Bubulle the goldfish the 4th
- Marcel, the dog
Filming locations[]
- Le château de Beauregard à Froyennes, Tournai, Belgium - the Hotel du Nord