In the Tommy and Tuppence short story The Ambassador's Boots, Richards is the valet of Randolph Wilmott who is the ambassador of the United States to Britain. Richards told Wilmott about the mix up involving the ambassador's kit bag, an event which was the source of the main events in the story.
About a week before the events in the story, Wilmott arrived in England on board the Nomadic. A mix up happened to his luggage during disembarkation. Wilmott took home a kitbag which belonged to Ralph Westerham, an American senator. Westerham apparently realised this quickly and sent his valet to the embassy to return the ambassador's kitbag and retrieve his own. Wilmott did not know about this and only learnt about it when Richards told him about the exchange afterwards. Although the mix up appeared resolved, when Wilmott later met Westerham and mentioned the mix up to him, Westerham knew nothing about it. Puzzled by the mystery, Wilmott approached the The International Detective Agency. Responding to Wilmott's request, Tommy Beresford questioned Richards.
After describing the main events, Tommy pressed Richards if anything unusual had happened on board the ship. Richards remembered an incident where a lady, Eileen O'Hara became faint just outside the ambassador's cabin. Richards brought the lady into the cabin to rest while he went to fetch a doctor. Later when he came back, she seemed to have recovered.
Portrayals[]
In LWT's 1983 adaptation of the story (Episode 6 of Agatha Christie's Partners in Crime), Richards is portrayed by Clive Merrison. Richards has a slightly larger role in this adaptation. In
Here, it turns out that he was blackmailed by the drug smuggling gang to help in their smuggling operations. When it appears that the whole plot would be uncovered by the Beresfords, he committed suicide by jumping off a bridge.
In this adaptation, there is an additional plot element that the ambassador also met Eileen O'Hara as he came back to his cabin early and was just entering when Richards arrived with a doctor. This is added to explain why Richards should tell Tommy about the Eileen O'Hara incident. In normal circumstances he would not reveal this as Eileen was in reality one of the drug smuggling gang. But in this case he is forced to reveal it since the ambassador also saw her and might tell Tommy himself.