In the novel Hallowe'en Party, the Reverend Charles Cotterell is the vicar of Woodleigh Common. According to the list compiled by Superintendent Spence, he was present at the preparations for the halloween party to be held at Apple Trees.
Reverend Cotterell is present for a short time during the actual party, according to Nicholas Ransom and Desmond Holland. They tell Poirot that Reverend Cotterell is a "nice old boy", and that he is "rather dim".
Portrayals[]
In the film adaptation of Hallowe'en Party in Series 12 of ITV's Agatha Christie's Poirot, the name is changed slightly to Reverend Cottrell and was portrayed by Timothy West. Here he has a larger role, appearing in many scenes and with a fair number of lines. In this adaptation, he is directly involved with Olga Seminoff. He had links with churches in Czechoslovakia and started a scheme to bring in girls from families there which wanted to better themselves. These girls are given posts as au pairs with English families. He told Poirot that it was like missionary work in reverse. However, Mrs Goodbody who cleans the vicarage among other places is a bit more cynical. She asks if the reverend got any money for the scheme, to which he defended himself by saying that of course there were expenses which had to be recouped. Nonetheless, the scheme ground to a halt after Olga disappear. She never returned to her family and her family continued to blame Rev. Cottrell for her disappearance. Rev Cottrell considered that Olga had let him down.
Rev Cottrell has a number of other important scenes in the episode. He (and not Ann Reynolds in the original) is the one who tells Poirot about Joyce Reynolds and her "borrowed" story concerning a trip to India and hunting tigers and elephants. Later he also describes an event, seen in flashback, where Mrs Llewellyn-Smythe comes to see him in great distress because of some "scandal" in her family. Both these conversations proved important clues to Poirot.